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 Swim
Comments: I lined up at the front left buoy and charged at a decent pace for the first 100 to 200 meters with a good turnover.... settled in quickly and followed a straight b-line down the path of the buoys. I had clean water, most of the others were to the right of me.... soon enough I was finding the wave in front (first timers) and had to avoid a few folks. I fought my way around the crowed buoys at the end, grabbing legs, getting kicked and punched. The rythmn returned and motored along the line, again finding more first timers than before and zig-zagging here and there. I pulled a rookie mistake though about 500m from the finish and kept my head down with no sighting as I tried to just motor, but when I peaked up I was inside the line and way left about 30 yards, so I had to go sideways to get around the buoy and straighten back up. It was also about this time with about 300m to go that I was getting tired of flapping my arms and probably the lack of a pool was showing up, form was getting off, and had to force myself to go forward, rounding the last buoy and my legs were getting a little tired, breathing was ok, but I tried to maintain a fast turnover and get home. I struggled to get up the stairs and stood at the top for a few seconds to fiddle with the zipper of the comfortable and fast ZOOT speedsuit (thanks to Bryan Dunn for the suit), and walked off, the tendon twinged, so I did a limping jog from there and to my bike... but I was slow. What would you do differently?: Be healthier  Transition 1
Comments: I limped to my bike, got my things on and limped off with it... the change over was fast, but the limping wasn't.  Bike
Comments: I got on my bike with a decent mount and took off hard, unfortunately I worked my body over during the swim so getting into a pace and rythmn took way too much effort and just plain hurt. It took about 4 miles before my body settled in and my pace quickened, I really didn't think that it was going to be a good split at all. I thought that my legs hadn't recovered from the TT the previous week. Finally, I got things under manageable control, it was an unpleasant leg but manageable... while I was going fast, I felt decent for only about 12 miles in the middle of the race. by the last 5 miles or so I had to force myself to stay at speed... thank goodness that super biker, Arrick, (my idol and mr. 56) came up from the rear, so I paced him for the last 3 miles. I won't lie that I wanted to go sub-1 hr and at least salvage what may have turned out to be a poor day, healthwise. Almost made it... next time. Setup: Bike: Shiv Expert Wheels: Chinese old school and heavy 50mm aero aluminum clinchers Tires: Michelin Pro4 Gears: Rotor MAS Q-ring 54/42 Helmet: Cobb Project Wattage Data: as measured from mount to dismount lines time: 1:00:40 300 watts avg. 318 NP IF: 1.0 Cadence: 84 Avg. moving speed: 25.3 What would you do differently?: Not much Transition 2
Comments: I was so locked up from the ride, I literally stood at the dismount line trying to straighten up, this obviously wasted time, I managed to walk to the bike drop off rack. I sat down on the ground and the thought of DNF crossed my mind, the thought of running with pain in my back and heel didn't sit well... I realized that waking the course and taking an hour was better than DNF. I managed to upright myself and walk out of transition, kind of with my head down in shame. What would you do differently?: Be healthy  Run
Comments: I walked out of transition and tried a couple of strides and it was painful, no so much the back but the sharp stabbing pain in the heel... so I walked almost to the second aid station, but I took strides occasionally. My back was numb, legs were toast (from the ride) and the heel... amazingly though, as I was striding the back kind of fell in line with just numbness and tingles, the heel pain was sharp but never felt worse than a 6/7 of 10... and so I was able to pick up a pace. I got going and the pain never got worse, it was a slow 8:00 ish. It was around mile 2.5 that my pace was quickening and feeling was returning to my legs. It was only the last 3 miles and only the last 2 miles that I was going at a decent pace and thought that I could actually get in under 47 minutes, instead of the hour or 50 minutes that was going through my head. The run was difficult for me to evaluate, since I had thoughts of DNF at the start, to wondering why I couldn't doing sub 7 minute miles like I was doing at the last 2 miles, and couldn't do that earlier in the run? I had a goal of about 42 to 43 minute split being healthy of course. What would you do differently?: Be healthy I left so much time out there... based on the first 2 legs, I could have been at my goal of 2:15. Olympic events are for super runners, I don't have the run speed to be ultra competitive, so I have to blast the swim and bike to be competitive which destroys running. I'm better at grinding over longer distances. Post race
Warm down: Limped around What limited your ability to perform faster: Back and heel tendonitis Event comments: The Lifetime Group seens to have picked up where Redrock left off and pulled off a better race and time. There were a lot of generous volunteers and meetng a couple of pros never hurt either. A great race. Profile Album Last updated: 2013-01-13 12:00 AM
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United States
Lifetime Tri Fitness
85F / 29C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 42/556
Age Group = 45-49
Age Group Rank = 3/44
Since the Mountain Man HIM on Aug 11th, my training has been a little bit off the mark. It took almost 2 weeks to get back mentally to train, the body recovered in about 4 days but my mind was blown from the effort.
To add to that, it's was just so freakin' hot, wtih temps in the 100's and higher humidities of 40 to 50% down here in Ajo. We are closer to the Gulf, it's only 80 miles away so it brings up moisture and lots of it. I tried to do some runs at 6:00am but after an hour, I'd be soaked and tired. I resorted to indoor bike training which isn't all that much fun. I basically got in no long rides or runs since the end of July.
About 3 weeks ago during a LSD run at about mile 10, I got a twinge in my achileis heel, I countinued to run through the twinges for another 3 miles. The next day, bad news pain galore... so for the last 3 weeks I have had no run training.
Aug 8th was the last day for our local pool, since then I've only swam twice in Phoenix, but basically resort to short but sweet dryland cord training and mental focus on form.
Biking has been the only thing that I've been able to give 100%, I did the AZ State TT 40k Championships last weekend, and broke the 1 hour mark on the way to a 2nd place finish in the Masters 45-49 group.
Thursday another minor setback, on Thursday I decided to mix up my core routine and followed a Craig Alexander workout with physio ball with lots of new moves and twisting. I saw his workout on youtube, decided to duplicate it. Next morning, woke up with severe lower back pain and crooked as a bent stick... I visited a local chiropractor-therapist on Friday, he said 2 of my vertibrae were out of alignment and muclse tears, pinching nerves... he worked on me for an hour and got me straight, but I've been in pain since this point, difficult to bend over move side to side and walk.
So, this is the first time ever that I've gone into a race that I haven't felt good or in decent race condition, properly trained and tapered... just major worries about performance and whether I could derail any chance of recovery and be in decent shape for an all out performance at SOMA, my last A race.
Here we go...
As much as I could do, sore in the achilies tendon and lower back, to warm up the muscles and feel ready to go for the challenge.