MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 193)

That must be it. Oh well...I'm sure he wouldn't like the private masseuse we have on retainer for races, either.

I beg to differ.

Jeff and Trina - have a lot of fun in your race this weekend.  I'm looking forward to reading your race reports and living vicariously through your adventures.

Trina - glad you found the tire problems before the race. 

BT needs a "like" function :D 

Jeff and Trina good luck!!! Good thing you found the tire problem Trina, but jowzers on the price! One would think that $70 would get you two new Continental tires and mounting them surely is within your bike-maintenance skills?

And I'm jealous and looking for a HIM to do next year now :p

50andgettingfit - 2012-09-22 8:37 AM I'm heading out for my do it yourself HIM this morning. My only goal is to try to beat both Trina and Jeff. Piece of cake since I won't have any timing mats to contend with

Hope you have a great day!

GANG!

I'm back, and see oh-so-much activity here; much catching-up to do!

I also see TRINA'S result, and am monitoring JEFF'S progress.  Some of the numbers for Jeff cause my to scratch my head, but eventually they will get ironed-out.  I hope!

As for me and mine.......my a.g. win streak has been snapped at six.    (The guy who won hasn't actually hit 60 yet and won't for another month, but that's how it goes with those USAT age-up rules!)

Overall, it was a decent race for me.  I was tired from too many races in too few weeks, and too many long drives to get to them.  plus, there was the aspect of the thrill being gone for this one, although it was a very cool venue and course.  more on that later, but just a short note that the bike and run wnet through where the 1% live.  And even if you don't conceptually agree with the idea of the 1% ---- they DO INDEED live and play around Darien and New Canaan, CT.

Numbers:

• Sw -- 15:28  (51st of 194)
• T1 -- 1:00  (15th)
• Bk -- 44:46  (33rd) -- 20.2mph
• T2 -- 1:04  (73rd)
• Rn --  37:52  (47th) -- 7:34/mile

2/7 -- M60-64

38/194 -- overall

That's it for now!

Well - it went. Was slower than usual on the swim, my T times were atrocious, 4 minutes faster on the bike than last year, and the run was, as Jeff stated, a sufferfest. Mid 90's and no shade. Ran/walked the first 7-8 miles then pretty much fell into a walk/trot the last 5. I was seriously worried I would DNF because my stomach became bloated, nauseous, and was cramping. Had to quit taking in nutrition and that resulted in glycogen depletion - I was dizzy and confused by mile 9 and at mile 12 I was still worried I would DNF. Ugh. 

Effing weather channel said low 80's on race day. Riiiiight.

JEFF -

Great swim, for true!  Wowzers!!

A quick look shows you as the only guy in your a.g. whose second run split was faster than the first, so if you needa ny "support" for your assessment of how the first half of the whole run turned out, there it is. 

Yeah, the concept of "ad-libbing" a run sure comes into crystalline focus when dealing with longer distances of triathlons.  Was your own version of ad-libbing simply running as many steps as you could, then walking until you felt you could run again, and repeatreapeatrepeatrepeat.......??

I'll await further comments, after you are rested and fuly mentally and physically clarified.  But, jeez --- I hope you hung around for more than an hour (or even two) before hopping in the truck for the return.  In fact,  I'm thinking you should've gone and nestled back amongst the RVs again!

Congrats, and now just remember to take complete and total care of yourslef.  You are allowed to eat absolutely anything your little heart and gut desire for the next few days, and all naps are perfectly sensible and vaild.   Copy?

TRINA -

Feeling better after a night's rest -- if you managed to rest well?  That is fairly scary, how you describe the run and your screaming urges to pull the plug and  "accept" a DNF.  Normally, the final mile or so of a long-distance sufferfest will be characterized by a certain lifting of the shroud of misery, but unfortuantely for you, that didn't happen quite as dramatically as you might've liked.  BUT STILL --- you toughed it out and finished, and for that you should be very, very proud of yourself.

Same thing to you I said to JEFF, which is allow yourself to EAT ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING you want over the next few days.  You experienced some pretty extreme gastro-stuff there, and glycogen stores and whatever else was compromised will welcome whatever you can bring back into your systems.

You maybe decry your T times, but I'm thinking that whatever you did in T2 might've been the difference between finishing and not finishing.  You have probably heard me say that for HIM and IM (particularly the latter) it is not the best idea to sit down in T2, but in your case yesterday, if you did indeed sit, that was probably a wise thing to do.  Regrouping at that point was likely a necessity, given how your body responded as the run progressed, so give yourself a "mulligan" for that T2 time!

Finally (for now), i see your swim time as pretty darn good - right around 50% for your a.g.  And you've probably noticed that your swim time was just a bit longer than your a.g. winner's, and her total time suggests she's hot stuff as a triathlete, so you're in pretty good company.  Just remember that triathlon is all about building-blocks, and for many/most of us, we construct them slowly, over much time and experience.  You've got a pretty mice structure in place right now for your swim, and just be patient as you set about constructed your bike and run.  Okay?

REST AND EAT WELL!!!!! 

I made it home, I left fairly quickly after the finish, it took time loading and hauling everything to my truck-I got lost in the maze of fencing etc. Did enjoy my new favorite recovery beverage-chicken broth! Amazing. Stopped in a parking lot in Purcell OK next to a semi to sleep some more, then home. I will write my formal RR soon but for now here are some thoughts.

I want to make sure I acknowledge Trina's offer of food and a soft bed, I did appreciate it but I was pretty moody on Friday and too wrapped up in my own little mess to subject anyone else to it. I did get some "text" conversations with Mimi most of the night-good sign I guess

Swim-my watch showed 1:20, formal results showed 1:09-no idea why. It was still a good swim for me but I didn't feel good-side stitch after the first lap and just never felt great but I focused on staying in a crowd and keeping swimmers on my left to reduce the tendency to swerve off to the left and go someplace else. I have no idea why the swim went well-bad swim at KS-no wet suit, rough conditions, good swim at OKC-wet suit and smooth water.

After the second lap I stood around in waist deep water for a few seconds regrouping then walked up to transition, stopping by the wet suit strippers-they did ok, not as great as hoped but they all seemed under 14 years old. The 60 lbs 13 year old girl offered her hand to help me up so I made a special point not to fling her into the lake. The walk was like Trina said-probably a full kilometer up to the bikes. I Walked up to my bike, loaded nutrition and walked to the mount line. I always feel better after the swim-relieved to finally be doing something I know a little about.

Bike Lap 1, I behaved myself, took it easy and got my HR down quickly-my HRM worked most of lap one then started giving crazy readouts before finally quitting. I passed Trina late in lap one so she was doing pretty good. I said Hi or nice weather or something lame in my 15 seconds. I was thinking it was perfect weather for a bike ride or tri. The roads are rough all over OKC but it was a fine course, a bit intense back in town.the combination of construction, lane closures, afternoon traffic seemed to turn the intense feeling up. I was called a "lazy bastard" by some guy in a pickup as I rode into town on my aero bars. The journey along the dam I could sense the wind increasing. All along I took water bottle hand ups and sipped Gatorade, 3 cliff bars per lap. I felt great on lap one and recalled Steve's comment that I might still have a solid HIM in me. I did feel like I could run well at that point, 3:13 bike time without pushing much I think.

Lap 2, I began to feel the time on my legs building, I could also tell I had pretty favorable winds out bound-I knew what that meant. The heat also increased-not awful or dramatic but just another stressor. It seems odd around here to have a hot North wind! It was really a North East wind which meant at the turn around East bound was an in your face hot wind and lots of gentle but longish slopes, I was beginning to unravel and I knew it, I had also begun to think about salvaging my bike split, without the HRM feedback i was too focused early on my average speed. Obviously I let that go having dropped from a nearly 18mph average to 15.8! That 12 miles is sort of cruel really-you tend to focus on the 100, that you forget that last 12. The 80 mile point is normally sort of exciting unless you do the math and realize you still have 32 miles to go! I skipped special needs-there wasn't anything I needed there anyway, was beginning to stop at aid stations instead of hand ups. A long grind along the dam back to transition then a leisurely T-2 knowing I still had about 8 hours of time left till the 17 hour point. Oh, my neck and shoulders were killing me! the aero position had become intolerable and I was spending most of my time with my hands on the arm rests.

T-2-a costume change-clean shorts, shirt, shoes, socks hat glasses etc. A few minutes to sit, wipe off the salt and grit then walked to the run exit.

Run: Lap one started with an early attempt to jog-no go, I resolved to walk most of that lap and eat-pretrzels, little cookies, orange quarters, soda, water with some brief jogs-each getting a little longer. By the end of lap one I ran steady through the turn around and to the 7 mile marker. I had decided to make lap 2 a "mostly run" lap which I did and is reflected in my improved times, i walked the aid stations and some mile markers and ran between them. I felt like a runner during lap 2. So my mind created a little plan to alternate, let lap three be the same as one-I succeeded in that, ran with some girl from Mansfield  Tx for a while then I eventually encouraged her on (I must have passed her later in the dark-I heard her name called as I was leaving) Lap 3-I was back to my short jog then eat approach, ran with another girl from Arkansas doing the race with her husband 1/2 lap ahead. She was one lap behind me and time was not on her side-I hope she made it.  I was having fun with the aid stations-everyone did great-the toga clad group was the most gregarious especially the lady drinking wine all evening and getting more and more "supportive". Another group made a concerted effort to note your name and call you by name while simultaneously directing traffic from a busy restaurant on the course. The far turn around aid station seemed the most knowledgeable and directly helpful for runners.

Finishing lap three was bittersweet-I knew then the cut off would be no problem but 1 more freaking lap! The multi lap thing is a real psychological beating. Lap 4 did not become a mostly run lap but I met some guy from Denver who was struggling but had a good pace when he did run, he said he is normally a 3;10  marathoner but this was much harder, he had some problems on the bike, a crash and other little issues-kind of a drama queen, Iron distance tris are hard, but when I consider the endless  stream of human misery that walks through my office every day-it is hard to be very sympathetic beyond a certain point. But he was very chatty and distracting so time passed a little better-a tough kick in the groin, when you think 2 miles should go by in like 17 minutes but you know its going to be 25 or more. Chatty guy took off for a strong finish, I walked/jogged to the final aid station where the finishers chute begins and took off in a run, my name and town were called out and some other statement about finishing ..don't recall the words. I had the presence of mind to lift my arms, saw the photographer, lowered my arms, then I saw the flash! Oh well

Then there is that awkward "now what" moment, my mind and body began to stand down-someday I am either going to fall on or puke on a chip removal volunteer! Sat in a chair for a while and was offered broth-for some mysterious reason the very mention of this made me excited-ended up with two cups and some miscellaneous nutrition. Then it was a medal, finisher shirt, load up all my stuff and begin the sow-awkward walk to my truck. It is post race that you really miss having help.

So that is my rough draft. I'm glad to be finished, wished I could have held my training better and finished in daylight but that's ok. I've always considered myself psychologically tough but I must re-consider that; I can toughen up during an event but the weeks and months leading to this race I let everything get in my head and zapped my enthusiasm and training focus. The training should have been a welcome distraction but I didn't use it that way.

That's all I can think of right now

CONGRATULATIONS  - NICE job JEFF under really sucky circumstances.    I am really happy for you.   You have quite a sense of humour - this really made me laugh!   The 60 lbs 13 year old girl offered her hand to help me up so I made a special point not to fling her into the lake.

JEFF -

Do I venture thoughts and comments now, or wait until the complete report later?  Naw, i'll go ahead now, thus rewarding your huge effort in the preliminary report.  (Besides, responding to you means that I can postpone yet again any of the FOUR reports that still need writing!)

I saw the 1:08 time and figured thatw as somehow wrong, but the I couldn't account for it anywhere else in your times, so gathered that you had either had the swim of your life.or cut a buoy somewhere.  I guess you know that when a chip fails to record at one point, it creates something really bizarre later on.  In your case I looked to a T1 that might've been about 18 minutes, or a bike that was way high, but nothing else was out of line. 

Yabber, yabber, yabber ----- Even at 1:20 on your watch, that's a very solid swim time for 2.4 miles.  I was figuring you'd be 1:17-1:25 range, based on your ffelings about how your swim was progressing, and there you were.  but it's not out of the realm of possibility that you could've gotten in a groove and knocked it off in 1:08.  Nicely executed, at either time!

Three funny comments, the one about the wee lass and the second about what the truck guy called you when you were on the aerobars, and the third concerning the toga group, and especially the "supportive" woman.  See, wry smiles can come from sufferfests!  And then there's your comment comparing iron-suffering to the reality you face at work daily, and how the former only goes so far.  That's cause for pause.

My last comment is the most important one, and that is that you should not reconsider your psychological toughness.  First, what you made it through over the past almost-two months is very impressive, culmionating as it did in heading up to OKC pretty much penniless.  You had a few reasons to bail on the whole thing, or at least settle on the half-iron as a reasonable compromise, but you stuck with your plan/goal.  That whole scene was hardly a walk in the park.

Second, at some point in endurance events, they get long enough so that normal rules for inner-psychological warfare no longer apply.  I would easily classify iron-distance "racing" in that category, just by virtue of how many permutations of variables there are........and how dealing with them even just a concepts is taxing at best, exhausting at worst.  And just the fact that you feel you toughened up during the race if all the proff I need that you are one tough hombre.  Don't entertain the lack of mental toughness another moment, y'hear??

Did you do a whole lot of nothing today?

All good points, yes mostly nothing today-ate a little, slept alot, laundry-appeased the dogs and pig.

I hope I didn't cut anything sort and was mostly in the company of other swim caps like mine but I am done worrying about it. It was a good race and already catch myself having "again" thoughts. I am looking forward to a 5k in a couple of weeks, and marathon training for Dallas Dec 9.

There was some timing wires at the far run turn around on one lap that were later pulled up and set aside as if they had failed. I doubt this was a factor but I noticed it.

Chatting with the runners and aid station volunteers relieves the isolation that develops during the long swim/ride and passes the time

STEVE - There was really nothing I could do about the long transition times. Had to visit the porta potty both times, so I'm not going to be hard on myself about it. I'm really not unhappy with my times. My swim was a little slower - perhaps due to the knowledge of what laid ahead? My bike time was fast (for me) given that I was putting in a "moderate" effort at best....sometimes I just sat in spun in a really low gear just to loosen up any tightening in my quads. I even stopped once at an aid station to refill my bottles and chatted with the guy holding my bike for a bit.

About 6 miles after the bike turnaround I heard music blasting from a car stereo and saw my husband rode side, dancing like those police officers directing traffic sometimes do, and "directing" the athletes on which way to go. When I saw that I just started laughing super hard. He's such a goofball. He said most of the athletes really enjoyed the band "The Black Keys" so he kept playing them over and over. 

And yes, the run scared me. I don't do heat and it was hot.

JEFF - I didn't take it personally that declined my offer of bed/food. I know that you are going through a really rough patch right now and probably didn't feel like being around people you hardly know. I just wanted you to know that you aren't alone to fend for yourself here in OKC - you have a friend I saw you as I was sitting up my transition - and I didn't stop and chat as I was in a *really* bad mood at that moment because of the parking situation, almost forgetting to get my timing chip, general crabbiness that I have every morning, especially early mornings, and nerves right before the race. I was binge complaining my way through pre-race, until I heard the National Anthem and realized the girl I met at LBS who was singing it is one the weather meteorologist on one of our local TV stations. Which I don't watch. Had to chuckle. It was nice seeing you on the bike - I had a mouthful of Cliff Mojo bar or I would have said more. Didn't want to choke on my nutrition! I also had every intention of coming home, getting cleaned-up, and going back up to the venue to watch you finish, but my race took way more out of me than I ever could have imagined, and I was barely able to shower before collapsing into my chair and falling asleep. If I had returned, I would have insisted that you come home with me because driving home after racing an ironman is just so dangerous. I'm glad you're ok! Congratulations to you for a race well executed!

Great job Trina-I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being ungrateful The brief chat on the bike was fine-didn't want a penalty for going over my allotted 15 seconds! I gassed up at a 7-11 on Briton and Mays I think then south to Purcell for a nap-then home at 5:30 no big deal just sort of an odd/lonely/tired feeling

I mean to email the RD about having a flag in plain view for the Anthem-I felt like I was honoring the Red Bull banner!

Interesting differing perspectives on "hilly" and "hot"

Trina - I hope you're feeling pretty good today and I'm looking forward to reading your report.

Jeff - I was hoping you'd have a good time and it sounds like you did.  I'd like to second what Steve said about you not needing to psycho-toughen up.  Just doing what you did after what you've been through shows some amazing fortitude. 

Johanne - how was your "Dry-run"?  Pics?

Steve - When I grow up I want to be fast like you.  Even just closer to "faster" would be really nice.

As for my minor "run" yesterday, it turned out to be just with one other fellow and we met just before 8:00am then started running 5 and walking 1.  He is a long time runner and has run the Boston Marathon twice.  He ran a half step behind me to avoid leading me and wanted me just to run my normal run so he could make suggestions/recommendations.

We ran for 1 hour and he said he liked my pace consistency over the 1st 3 miles (11:30/mi for each mile) in the end we ran 5.25 miles in the hour at an average 11:26.  I was feeling tired the last two 5 minute intervals but not too bad.  He felt I had decent running form and just need to keep running to build up my skills.  For now he suggested I run a non-stop 5K run each week; another run incorporating some hills each week and a 5/1 run that I can slowly add time to.

I found that running with another runner made me feel more like I was actually running and my 5K pace was my best yet even though I didn't feel like I was running any harder than usual.

I haven't been on the bike for 3 weeks now but I have been swimming and running consistently.  I'm planning to get out on the bike again this week.

GANG!

About those "missing" race reports of mine, now numbering four.....

Um, I might be working on them......sooner or later....we'll see.  I'm not sure how important they are to others, but in the event that someone or other gets something out of them, I will try to attend to them.

In the meantime, I will highlight a couple of race-general points that maybe should be of importance to all here, just by way of having probably-better race experiences. 

1. Drive the bike course before the race.  I have grown slack about this in recent years, but did it for the last three races -- and it helped hugely for all three.  They were all rolling to hilly, and all had some aspects of being "technical", and I benefitted greatly from knowing where the potential pitfalls and pratfalls were located.  My "memory index" was at about 95%, meaning that of all the spots I tried to commit to memory on those three recon drives, i managed to remember almost all of them the next day -- when it counted.
2. Ride (or drive) the run course before the race.  This is natural follow-up of the above, but because running is less strategic than cycling for most of us, it is arguably less important.  But I drove the run course for this past weekend's race, and it helped to know where the climbs were.  And for Buckman the previous weekend, even though part is on trailish terrain that i couldn't drive (or ride), the parts that my car could handle were viewed, and so i knew the hills and places where larger rocks were on gravel roadways.
3. Take the run out slowly, and with higher foot turnover than normal.  I know I have mentioned this several times previously, but it cannot be emphasized enough --- don't try to blast out of T2!  Allow a minute or three to get your running legs under you, and you will reap the benefits as the race progresses.  The best way to do this is by initially taking smaller and quicker steps, and while this may feel funny to do, it will make it easier to transition-on-the-fly into whatever your normal running style is.  Because it is odd, that means it is worth practicing in your workouts.  Ant run can be started that way......or you can switch to it for a minute or so during the run....or use it as a cool-down technique.  It's also good to work on as just part of a process towards increasing your running candence to a desirable 90 footstrikes per minute (Note:  The sustained 90fpm can take manymanymanymany months to achieve!)
4. Arrive as early as humanly possible.  Sure, it hurts to wake up many hours pre-race, but if it means getting a good parking spot, and maybe a great racking spot, and not getting caught in traffic tie-ups, and avoiding long packet pick-up and body-marking lines ---- then my vote is firmly for it being worth the small loss of sleep.  I scored big at Mainiac in getting there early and grabbing the best parking spot -- which was already "remote" enough.  Had I been much later, i would've been well over a mile away from transition, with late-comers being close to two miles from T. 

Anyhow, those are just four little tidbits of advice that might work for any of you.  In my race-blitz of the past four weeks they worked well for me, and definitely in the past three races in which I tried to attend to details a bit better than i had been.  I realized that over the last year or two i had grown complacent, falling into sloppy habits that just ride on the assumption that i can kind of "wing it" in a course.  But especially for the first two above (I am usually very good at 3 and 4), I have re-learned the value of not just studying race maps, but actually planning and taking the time to do a decent recon of as much of a race course as possible.  (And while i said nothing about swim courses, due to buoys generally not being in place until just before the race start, it is very valuable to study the layout when it's in place, and especially to see what you will be sighting for on the final stretch back to the shore.)

Now, about the actual race reports for MainiacCortlandBuckmanITPman.................................