Vineland Exchange Club Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Time - 17:15
Pace - 1.96 min/100 yards
Place - 108/119

I dashed into the water only until I felt the water resisting my movement. In my other two races, I had been dashing in and using high knees to get as far as I could, but good swimmers told me that it's better to just get going on the swim. I stayed to the left to avoid the mad rush and take my own spot. I dove in and, GASP! I couldn't breathe. I thought to myself, what the heck is happening? I literally couldn't get a full breath in. I began freestyling nicely (by my standards) but I wasn't getting a full breath of air. It was like I could only get a half a breath in despite a full on effort to inhale. It was really scary. After about 30 seconds of this I finally figured out what was happening. The water was cold enough (at least to me) that my lungs had contracted limiting the amount of space for oxygen. I started out in bilateral breathing and then quickly switched to same side every two strokes so I could get more breaths in but nothing was improving. I started to panic a little bit as I couldn't get enough air. I thought to myself, why is this happening? I''m not this bad at swimming. I switched to breastroke for a little bit but it didn't help. I'm not that good at breastroke and you still have to go under water for a little bit to do the move correctly. I tried to put my feet down to stand up but the water was just over my nose somewhere around forehead level... I'd have to tread water if I wanted to do that. Then, as embarrasing as this is to admit, I actually rolled on my back tried to do a frog kick while collecting my breath. This all after only about 50 total yards of swim. The thoughts in my mind were of complete dejection. I rolled back around after about 20 seconds of a breather and kept freestyling. It didn't get better, panic mode was still in full force and people were passing me left and right but I kept stroking. It was pure humiliation as people kept passing and passing and I kept drifting off to the left as much as I could to keep out of the way. Not only were my breathing and mechanics horrible but my sighting was terrible. I ended up overshooting the first buoy and doing a wide turn. During the next portion of the swim, feelings of just absolute failure were rampant as I struggled almost vainly to make headway. The water was so cold to me that I couldn't get a breath and it was making my arms and legs very tired. Then I saw pink caps (I believe) passing. The next age group swimmers were already on their way and I had three minutes on them. A couple more minutes passed as I tried to make distance. Around a 1/4 mile a saw people with dark blue caps passing. The third wave was passing me! That was too much, too embarrassing, too demoralizing. I started to get really angry and just told myself to swim like hell and get this stupid swim over with. I put my head in the water and just swam. I forgot all about the mechanics and breathing and just kicked hard and went. It probably didn't look pretty but I got to the last buoy and made the turn towards the beach. By that point I was exhausted and spent. I had almost nothing left. The clincher of it all was freestyling as hard as I could and looking to my right to see a racer breastroking past me. She was breastroking at a leisurely pace and going much faster than me. I put my head down in almost dejection and tried to calm everything down. Sort of like meditation in the water in order to collect myself. At that moment I actually focused on the bottom of the lake and could see the vegetation and even some fish swimming around! It was odd and actually kind of unsettling. Just then, a fish hit my foot, and as trivial and stupid as it sounds, I just wanted to be out of the water so I swam as hard as I could and finally made it to the shore.

Somehow, I had a better pace than my previous triathlons but it might be a mistake because the results website says the swim was only 0.4 miles whereas the swim was advertised and described as 0.5 mile. I honestly have no idea where to start with the obvious LIST of problems I have with the swim. Getting a wetsuit would help with some of the shock and breathing I think. I think I'm not used to swimming in moving water - water with moving waves. Maybe it's the nerves and anticipation. I should wear my HR monitor in the pool and compare tri swims with practice swims and see if it's different. However, I've heard the HR monitors aren't accurate in water. I don't know, anybody have any ideas?

Time - 2:50
Place - 87/119

I ran out of the water trying to shake off the complete disgust I was in from such a horrible swim. The cheering crowd was a nice help. I'm always amazed by these people who sit around and watch these things. It was nice to have a patio to transition on. My method went like this in case someone can help me out with improving my horrible T1 time (esp. since I don't even have a wetsuit!) As I ran to the transition I pulled my cap and goggles off and dropped them. Then, per some advice from a friend, I used the basin of water from the guy next to me to dip my feet in and wash the sand off. That guy was long gone, one of the rare advantages of being so bad at the swim so it wasn't like it mattered. Then I dried my feet off and put bike socks on. Put on bike shoes, helmet and shades. Slipped a gel pack into my tri shorts. Forgoed the bike gloves and dashed off. Why did this take so long?

Again, I have no idea. Obviously keeping shoes clipped in and doing a leap onto the bike on bare feet is a time saver but honestly, I should at least be doing sub 2 minutes here. I wonder if the race from the shore to transition area is the culprit. I was jogging but not at a great pace. I don't know.

Time - 58:12
Pace - 20.6 mph
Place - 46/119

Finally an event that I'm actually ok in. I have a road bike and it seemed like everyone else had a tri bike. At first, I passed a good number of people but around 5 miles in, that luxury was over. I tried to turn on the juice, trying to funnel my fury of the terrible swim into the pedals. I pedaled hard up the the long gradual slightly inclining hills and kept on charging down the hills. Eventually, around mile 7 or so, I went to pass a guy on a tri bike in a green singlet. A few minutes later, he passed me and then I passed him. Basically, whenever there was a downhill, I passed him and whenever we came to a hill he passed me. I found that on the hills people would pass me but on the flat and downhill portions I'd pass him and others. I don't know what it was. Could it really be the fact that I'm on a road bike and just about everyone else had a tri bike? Does the draft reduction really make that much of a difference? The headwind was tough, really tough. I really started to feel tired halfway through it despite my training. My quads were burning a great deal, but I tried as hard as I could to keep myself above 20 mph for as long as I could. Up the hills, I generally kept a 17 mph pace and down I'd get up to 24 or so maxing at around 28 at one point. Another thing - trees were very spread out and at least 25 to 50 feet away from the side of the road so there weren't any wind barriers - so the headwind was kind of strong. I don't know what others would say, but I felt the drag of the headwind the entire bike portion. It was like a perpetual wind right in the face and there was NO BREAK! I just wanted a break but I was pissed and I told myself even if I screw up the rest of the race at least I can go home and say I kicked ass on the bike! I stayed with the teenage mutant ninja turtle (guy in green tri) the whole race until at the very end he and this other guy in a tri bike finally broke away and I couldn't keep up with them. I did my best but kudos to them. It felt as if the guy wasn't even trying too hard as if he was biding his energy for the run. Here I was pedaling as hard as I could and this guy looked calm and collected. Well, I guess they don't call this BEGINNERtriathlete for nothing.

If I switched to tri bike do you think I could gain that much time? The best biker averaged 25 mph to my 20. Can you really gain 5 mph just on bike type? I'm not the best cyclist in the world and I've been riding less than a year but I really want to get better.

Time - 2:50
Place - 108/119

Having a longer T2 than T1 should automatically disqualify you from that race. I know what happened though. I got off the bike, and doing something different than before took off my bike shoes right then and there and ran with just socks to the transition area instead of clip clopping down the way. Then, put on running shoes and donned a cap. I put on my footpod in order to see my pace and I decided to stretch out my calves because I had muscle spasms in my calves for the last two races. I drank some water/gatorade combination and was off.

I'm going to see about those elastic shoelaces, maybe that'll prevent needing to spend time tying the laces. As far as stretching, I don't want to deal with a muscle spasm so I deemed it an unfortunate necessity.

Time - 46:51
Pace - 9:30 per mile
Place - 84/119

Started off half decent actually. I was slow though, about a 10 minute first mile. My legs were really heavy from the bike. The good news was I didn't spasm up. THANK GOD. I'm not a good runner but I'd been training a lot and I was hoping for sub nine minute miles on average. Turns out I got 9:30. I was disappointed. My race watch showed just under nine minute mile pace but it's a little off. I just didn't think it was that much off. At the halfway point it felt tough and I hit a wall at mile 3. It was like my legs became 200 pound weights and my breathing was heavy and labored. I could barely see straight. I had read Dean Karnazes' book Ultramarathon man and he talks about walls and fighting through them, and that on the other side you can get a huge rush, like a euphoria. He says that basically your body feeds off its energy in waves and not continuously so when it runs out of carbs you run out of energy and hit the wall until your body gets the next "wave" of carbs. So I was telling myself to keep moving as much as possible and keep pushing past this wall. Wouldn't you know, about 5 minutes later I "broke through" and was able to get about a 8 and a half minute mile pace (according to my watch). I finally made it to the end and at the very end of the race, there are two carpets, two lanes basically and I didn't know which one to take. It was pretty obvious that the one on the right was the finishing mat and the one on the left was the starting mat but I was too tired to think that much and I'm running and flailing my arms yelling out, "which carpet do I run on??" I must have looked like a total idiot! But I had finished and 2 hours 7 minutes didn't look bad at all. Looks a lot worse now.

I guess keep running and trying to improve my long distance pace. When I finish these runs it's like all I can do to keep up. It's never comfortable for me. But I guess if it's comfortable it's not worth doing huh?

Actually stretched this go round. Didn't want to be incredibly tight for 3 days after the race like I did the last two races so I did a full round of stretching for about 15 minutes. I feel fine today so it must have done the trick.


Poor transition, terrible swim, serious headwind, having to stretch before the run. Overall I just need to get better. I want a 1:30/100 swim, 22 mph on the bike and sub 8 minute miles as goals. Think I'm being too unrealistic?


Great course, great transition area. Rural area so not crowded. Plenty of parking. I like it a lot.