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 Swim
Comments: In previous races, I always started back to avoid the washing machine...but today I wasn't willing to give up that time. So I started dead center, front row. HONK!!! Horn sounded, good run into the water, and good Dolphining, so I'm maybe in 10th place in this wave. Went hard for 100m, then settled into a rhythm. Some faster folks went by, too fast to even grab feet, so the first leg I more or less swam on my own, and not in a straight line, I might add. Apparently someone put a magnet next to my compass, because I was all over the place. Navigation sucked. I almost stopped and asked a kayak for directions, it was that bad. Anyway, get to the first buoy, and it was a logjam. So EVERYONE sat up and breaststroked around the buoy, and I thought it was funny, so I bellowed "LOGJAM AHEAD, WHOABACK" and this dude in front of me heard it and visibly gulped the gulf. One less sucka. :) Anyway, found some feet that were a little faster than me, and rode them the rest of the way. Problem is...this guy couldn't swim a straight line, either. So it was a tough choice....leave his feet and go the shortest route, or glide smoothly in the edmund fitzgerald's wake off-course. I tried going it myself a couple times, but the guy would always recorrect course and end up t-boning me, so finally I just decided that I would just deal with the bad nav day, and conserve energy. Mr. Red-Sleeve-Orca did all the work from that point forward, with me in his wake sipping a pina colada and serving up smart comments. Got out of the water fressssh. :) What would you do differently?: Mapquest the friggin directions ahead of time, have my gyro calibrated beforehand. Seriously, overall it was a good swim for me, especially OW and salt water, which I only swim 1x/year. Couldn't ask for much better.  Transition 1
Comments: Best T1 I've ever done. Wetsuit - off - like I was being paid by the second to be naked. This was my nemesis all last year, so that issue is solved. Hat on, glasses, sit, shoes and race number belt on, grabbed a long pull of gatorade, grab bike, ran out. Mount was still but fast - I need to ditch the saddlewing before I can do the leg-swing-over thing. Right now it just results in me kicking my equipment like it'd done me wrong. What would you do differently?: Lose the saddlewing, take gatorade on the bike, shoes on pedals, running mount. But all that would save me less than 30 seconds, so it's low priority compared to, say, logging more bike miles.  Bike
Comments: The bike was kind of a blur. First 2 miles were out of downtown St. Petersburg, on cobbles and lots of turns, averaged maybe 20, just looking to establish cadence and give my legs a chance to adapt. Two guys in my AG went by me right away, like they were shot out of a cannon. Let's call them red-shirt-guy and green-one-piece-man. Established good cadence, then hit the first slight uphill out to the turn-around...was at 22 on the way out, and 26 on the way back. Felt awesome but I wondered whether I was burning the candle too fast. Guess we'll see. Turned with the wind, and slightly downhill, and averaged 27 for the next leg headed out to the golf course. On this leg I caught green-one-piece-man, and he was visibly pissed, and went back around me. Got to the golf course (with lotsa turns and speed humps) and decided to be aggressive, because there were gains to be made here. Took all the corners at speed and never sat up from the bars. Passed lots and lots of people in the corners. Heh. AND took the speed humps at speed in the bars, just lifting my butt off the seat enough to keep my block & tackle from being forcibly caught between a saddle and a hard place. Mission accomplished, past many more folks here. The next section was another out-n-back, and at this point, I decided to dial it back the slightest bit...I felt with my extensive bike training this year (500 miles-year-to-date-total) that I might be pushing it too hard....and I was. But more on that later. I had the pleasure of riding with the USAT-po-po for 5 or 6 minutes, so I was all well-behaved and whatnot...heh. Turned for home with 5 miles to go, slight uphill, and slight wind in the face. It was during this section that 5 or 6 folks in my AG went past me at pace. My swim had put them at a deficit, but their cycling got them past me before T2. I could have chased, but that would have doomed my run. So I picked it up a little, but not to an unmanageable pace. What would you do differently?: Nothing, other than maybe ride my bike more than once per week. Everything else was cool. Transition 2
Comments: T2 took a while. Long run through transition, then I sat to put on socks, tie shoes, get a drink, throw the hat on, leave. What would you do differently?: New shoes that are slightly too big. Normally I wouldn't wear socks and would have yankz installed. I just didn't get it done; that's prolly 40 seconds I could have saved with a little forethought. But then I remembered it's me, and forethought is usually an afterthought. So I was cool with it. Not really.  Run
Comments: The problems started, umm, right away. I had planned to do 8:15 for the first mile, then 8's or better from there on out. And that's what I did...except for the stopping and walking in the middle. :) Took off at 'normal' pace, not too hard, and felt both hammies tighten up. Dammit, THIS again. By aid station one, I had to stop to stretch them out. Erg. So, to make a long story less-long, I ended up running at the prescribed pace until my legs wouldn't let me anymore, then I'd stop and stretch. I'd bet I stopped a total of 10 times. On the course I saw Coredump at mile 5, Marma at 2.5, Kendall at 2, G8RLA at 1. Finally grunted my way to the finish chute - thanks Chris for cheering me in - and I'd been doing mental math the entire time to see if I was going to break 2:30. Well, I was going to do it. Except when my body saw the finish line, it told my legs they were done, and they stopped...with the biggest friggin cramp in my left hamstring. Stopped me dead in the chute with 30 yards to go. My exact words as I pulled off on the left shoulder to stretch were "YOU'VE GOT TO BE F**K!NG KIDDING ME. NOT NOW?!? C'MON!!!!". Everyone was thankful for the education I gave all the kids standing at the rail. Heh. Stretched it out, hobbled across the line. That was plenty. What would you do differently?: Better diet, more brick training, take endurolytes (I forgot on the bike), stretch. Post race
Warm down: Grabbed a cold, life-giving towel from the volunteers and a gatorade, walked over and found Coredump (magically, my legs weren't cramping anymore). We ran into ParrJ, Brian, and cheered Marma and Kendall in - they both looked strong. Went to the BT banner, but most folks were on-course, so grabbed a quick massage, some food, then back to the BT banner. Over the next two hours I perfected my Sunday-afternoon triathlete skills with a perfect analysis of my race and rationalization of how I'd lost even a second here or there. What limited your ability to perform faster: Genetically induced idiocy, and a distinct lack of thinking. I think I'll also look into hamstring augmentation surgery. Heh. Event comments: Outstanding race, outstanding times, a PR, good friends, and Corona. And Denise can do whatever she wants with Rob's stuff. Because her stuff is her stuff, and Rob's stuff is her stuff, too. :) Now...about that TV truck, the announcing crew, and next year's production...this is Mike Tirico, live from St. Petersburg, Florida. ;) Last updated: 2007-01-22 12:00 AM
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United States
St. Anthony's Triathlon
75F / 24C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 632/3449
Age Group = M40-44
Age Group Rank = 84/312
Jen slept like crap. And she reminded me of it, on the hour, every hour. "This night is taking forever". Huff. "I'm not sleeping well". Sigh. So around 5 the LaVeranda Big Ben alarm clock tolled and scared the hell out of me and everyone in the adjacent two rooms, so I silenced the peal of bells and stumbled to the shower.
A splash of water with some bath gel for shampoo led up to my Breakfast of Champions: cinnamon roll, banana, endurolytes, gatorade, and diet pepsi. Snacktacular.
All my gear was packed from the previous night, so we went downstairs and caught up with Jess, Coredump, The Bostiques, The G8R's. Who'd I leave out? Managed to run into a guy from the Atlanta Tri club who got plowed by a car on his test ride the night before - bummer for him - but we did what any self-respecting BT'er would do...asked him to take our picture. So his one arm is in a sling, the other arm holding coffee, but he was awesome and snapped some pics in the pre-dawn gloom. Wendi did the bending over to help him with his coffee. :)
To transition to the body-mark, where EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US swore that next big race, we bring our own Sharpies. But in the end, body marking took like 3 minutes, so we were all blowing smoke about not much. But that's what we do.
Set up transition, then went and ogled the pro bikes waiting for the rest of the BT'ers to get out of transition. The pros were riding some funky bikes. Maybe 3/4 of the pros weren't in Aero helmets, half weren't on aero wheels, and 1/4 were on road bikes with clip-ons or older equipment. Interesting. Anyway...
Walked over to the beach with Ovetta and Brian and Kendall and Christine (kinda) and (who am I forgetting)? Got there, wetsuited up, swam a couple hundred meters - water was flat and smoov - this was gonna be good!!!!
Meandered around on the beach and had a little gatorade until my wave was up, and for the first time in a race, had no nerves and a race plan. Giddyup. :) C=aught Wendi and Kendall and Brian, wished them good luck...
300m swim in flat water about 20 minutes before start. Rehearsed my victory speech. Ran through the excuses I might use if I DNF'ed. Check.
Whipped the crowd at the start into a frenzy by asking for a little noise, please. That was cool. :)