Steamboat Springs Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

WOW...I thought my first race was like survival, no way, this actually came down to a matter of survive or grab a canoe and quit in front of my entire family. started with about 5 mins in the water trying to get used to the cold, everyone was shivering and wondering why we put ourselves in this place. finaly the horn sounded and off I went...WITHOUT MY NOSEPLUG IN!!!! first big breath and I'm choking on water in my nose...gotta stop and get it in but now I can't stand so I'm treading water and got a cramp in my calf. tried to start off but now I'm in full panic mode and start hyperventilating. I start doggie paddling to try and get a grip but I'm just choking and wasting energy. look around to my left for a canoe and see 2 guys headed for help already (come to find out that at least 2 guys were pulled out of the water almost right away from my wave) this is when I thought about all the people who had skipped work and spent time and money to come see my race, there was no way I could let them down and not even finish the swim. so I stuck my face in the water and started to stroke. nice and easy...after about 100m my breathing got under control and I could start to pick up the pace. next thing I know I round the first cone and am actualy passing a few people. had a few crashes and some people running up on my back of but for the most part the rest of the swim went well. when I finaly got out of the water I never felt better to be on dry land and there was my wife/son/mom/sister/bro in law/niece all cheering my on.

I have no regrets about this race and feel that the experience is one that will help me grow as an athlete and a person but I also learned that we all have limits and can only be truely prepared by becoming familiar in some way. everything about this race way so totaly foreign that I was almost doomed from the start. I will not get involved in races where I cannot train in such a way as to be mentaly and physicaly prepared on race day. this isn't to say that I shouldn't challenge myself and push to the next level, but I must be sensible if I want the sport to continue to be fun and rewarding.

it took probably half of this time just to get straight in my head what I just went through. at this point I'm in no hurry but am happy to be getting on the bike. hands are very cold and not easy to work with. as planned I put on gloves and the jacket and headed out.

not much to do under the circumstances.

frozen legs...hard to get any power when your quads feel like they've been in an ice bath for an hour and your feet are completely numb. this is when I really started to feel the altitude as well. wasn't so much that I couldn't get enough oxygen as much as I couldn't generate power. when I would try to accelerate my legs just wouldn't respond with enough snap to get me going. the out portion of the course was mostly down hill and come to find out a decent tail wind. after the turn around the real pain started. climbing back up the hills with wind in my face had me going patheticaly slow. the cycling jacket didn't help and was catching the wind. seemed like I was getting passed by just about everybody, from 60 year old women to dudes in flapping t-shirts riding mtn bikes.

again not much I can do to prepare for the effect of frozen legs and especialy high altitude. where I live the average tempurature in february is 20 degress higher than the temp at the start of this race in late august. the road I do all my bike training on is at approx 15 feet above sea level, the lake this race started at was 6700 feet above sea level.

not a bad t2, mostly I was just happy to be getting to the run.

had to stop on the way out of trans to hit the john. not sure why as I don't think I drank enough to require it

at this point I really didn't care how fast I was running or whether or not I was getting passed or not. just a nice 4 mile run around a lake and a beer waiting for me at the end. I did however meet another bt'er on the course named becauseican, apparently he was part of the group talking about this tri online. great guy, he slowed his pace for me so we could chat which really kept my mind off the race and we crossed the finish line together.

nothing given the circumstances.

walked, talked, ate, drank, enjoyed being done with the race


I got my self in great shape but had no way to be prepared for the major factors of cold water and high altitude


no regrets and lessons learned...on to my next race