Gray Guys/Girls Maturing Triathlete Mentor Group (Page 29)

Originally posted by triosaurus

Originally posted by wenceslasz

Congratulations Kelly - Really, really pleased for you.  I followed the day right up to your finish.  Now you get to enjoy the last most important part of training - the recovery rest time.  Enjoy your recovery and take care of yourself.  Hopefully you're not too stiff.

Very cool to get your medal from your daughter.  I hope you got a photo of that special moment.

A friend drove back from Whistler on Monday and he said there was no smoke in the air in Whistler but then really thick once he got to the Fraser Valley.

Thanks so much for the kind words. Yes, I am still very stiff / sore, in the quads / knees , anyway. The air quality last weekend was great, so no issue whatsoever, but I hear that an event there was cancelled this weekend... I have received emails from IMCanada for registration for next year ... Am I totally nuts for even thinking about it ? ..not at all sure how to post a pic here on bt .... I 'think' this is the url for the pic of my daughter with me at finish, which I posted on FB https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=980638595412606&set=a.50... Hope everyone is healthy, and doing well on their journeys to tri-success !

Kelly,

Beautiful picture!

Total nuts for thinking about next year?  Shhhh, don't tell anyone, but we all have to be a little bit nuts to be thinking about it in the first place.  So what if it's totally nuts to be thinking about doing it again.  You've already  proven your nutworthiness!

Adrian,

Adrian, an aquatic environment is foreign to us humans.  The more you are exposed to it, especially an open water environment, the more comfortable you will become.  That is the goal - to become very comfortable in open water.  Sounds like you are well on your way!

Kelly - I'm a little late, but congratulations on your race!  Great picture too!

Things have been up and down for me.  After some serious thought and discussion with my coach, I have decided to drop down to the Olympic distance at the Litchfield tri instead of doing the HIM.  My swim and my run have been good but my bike training has had some issues.  I feel like overall, my biking has gotten better but I'm not enjoying the rides, especially the longer ones.  I think if I was faster on the bike and the long rides were 2-2.5 hours instead of 3-3.5, I'd be OK to do the HIM, but as it is I'm just not ready to do 56 miles.  So I'm going to do the Olympic and enjoy the race instead of trying to force myself to do something that would make me miserable.  I still want to do another HIM someday, but I'm going to have to put in a lot more work on the bike before I try again.  

Janet

Kelly - Enjoyed reading your race report and seeing your family photo.  I liked reading your detail and getting the feeling of what you were experiencing that day.  I also liked your swim description.  Too often I don't feel like there was much to say about the swim.

I was intrigued by your carrying the Ibuprofen.  I'll have to do this as well this Sunday especially for the run if it might help me to run further/ faster.  I also liked your mention of maltodextrin.  I'll have to consider this as well.  Can I ask where you get your malto from?

I have the ITU World's long course on Sunday and there are a lot of athletes from all over the world here and some really good energy.  Today I watched the "standard duathlon".  I saw Sister Madonna (87 last month) cross the finish line at the height of the eclipse but even more inspirational I saw a USA athlete obviously in pain hobbling to the finish line and four Japanese athletes that had already finished their race came out and ran with the fellow and cheered him on to his finish.

We also get a kick out of the warm country athletes (Australia, Trinidad, Brasil etc) find it cold here.  I have to wonder if they find it cold here, how warm is it where they live?

Janet - It sounds like you struggled with your decision to switch to the Oly.  I think I understand what you're feeling about the longer distance bike rides.  I find I'm feeling the same way.  I think after this weekend I want to scale down my training so I am still maintaining my fitness but not investing so much time and energy.

Definitely enjoy your Oly and don't feel guilty about your decision.  And, when is your race?

George - The race is in about 3 weeks, on Sept 10th.  And you're right, I did struggle with the decision.  I hate feeling like I failed before I ever even started.  I also didn't want to regret not doing the 70.3 - I was really looking forward to doing it when I initially signed up.  But I'm going to go and enjoy the race I'll be doing and try not to think too much about what I'm not doing.  

Enjoy your race this weekend!
Janet

Originally posted by Rollergirl Hello group! Had a blast yesterday. My 6th sprint but the first one I really competed instead of just being happy to finish. (Yeah, I know, most people do that on their second sprint, or their second race is at least an oly but I like to take my time ) Had a time goal of 1h20 and did it in 1h20 and 16 seconds. (Probably lost that by coming in wrong at T2). Good enough. Was hoping for a top 5 finish (depending on who turned up) and placed 4th (amongst 29 women of all ages) and 62/98 total, including men (of all ages). This is my home race and I have trained on the course all Summer and knew exactly what to do and when to push. I was really nervous the day before (so nervous I had flu like symptoms, luckily folks here helped me realise I was not sick, just anxious, thank you BT!) I have written a race report if you are interested. Who knows, maybe this time I'll get hooked!! Good luck to anyone racing today!

Nice to hear that you had a good race. It sounds like you nailed it if you were only 16 seconds over your goal.  My last race I took a wrong turn on the bike course.  The race directors flagged me so I was able to turn around right but I had to wait for cars first and lost probably a minute. On top of that I came out the T2 the wrong way and had to run back through which cost me another minute.  Also, my timing chip fell off the velcro band during the wetsuit peel which cost me another 30 seconds battling to re-thread it on the velco strap.  So 16 seconds is nothing.  

Home races are great.  My first Triathlon that I trained for 3 years ago was a home town race.  I think I was the only person with a Marble Falls, TX address to ever do the HITS Marble Falls 70.3 race on the 4-5 years that event was put on.  Its always nice to race at home.  I guess I caught the bug because three years later I am still training for Triathlons.  

Note: Some people like the sprint distance and have no desire to do Olympic distance races.  I come from a running back ground and like the 5K races but have never got into the 10K races.  A race I did two years ago I ran my fastest 5K in about 6 years.  One runner that came in behind me who had to settle with a 2nd place metal instead of a first place metal told me that he saw me out in front of him after the the first mile but he didn't try to catch me because he assumed that I was doing the 10K.  I had to laugh.  Some people think that if you can do the 10K you should.  I feel that if the shorter race is more your thing then you really shouldn't do the longer race (unless you are doing it to improve your shorter race).  :-)

Kelly - Thanks for the support and good words.

Nathalie - Congrats on a great sprint.  I read your race report and sounds near perfect.  I think what Curtis said to you about focusing on shorter races if you prefer is right on.

In brief - My race yesterday:

3Km swim - went well but it seemed long and the sun was in our eyes for most of the distance.  At one point I came around a turn buoy and asked a paddleboarder volunteer which way do we go and he pointed with his paddle but I couldn't even see the paddle only 6 feet away from me.  Otherwise a decent swim.

T1 - was slow.  I needed to hit a portapotty and sunscreen was mandatory.

120km Cycling - Not as fast as I wanted but almost exactly the same time as last year (same route/ distance).  I expected to have to push hard on the bike just to beat the cut-off time and I wasn't wrong but I did make it.

T2 - Typical, slow and applied more sunscreen.  The temp on the asphalt was 34C/ 93F.  Not the hottest but warm enough.  

30km Run - I was glad to head out on the final leg of the race.  My legs were done after the bike and I was barely able to run so I walked most of the first 10K then I started picking up a bit, running more and a little faster for the next 10K.  I caught up to a young lady (Team USA) I think she said she was from Virginia.  She could see I was hurting/ struggling so she told me to stay with her and she set a pace and pulled me along for a while.  I kept up as long as I could but after about a Km I fell behind and she finished a few minutes later but I still had 10Km to go.  By now I was more falling forward but keeping up with my feet.  I wasn't running I was under control but bent forward Like I've never experienced before.  I was suffering but moving forward.  In the last 10K I had a cameraman recording my every step.  In the last 3Km I had 3 cameramen filming every step.  Just when I was looking my best!  Not!  Somehow my last 10K was my fastest of the 3.

From about 400m out I was looking for somewhere to take a rest.  I was also looking ahead to the finish line and wondering how I was going to stop when I got there.  As I reached the start of the chute to the finish and the whole world turned to jello.  So I grabbed a sandwich board to keep from going down.  I was an instant from blacking out completely but I didn't want to collapse this close to the finish AND, I didn't want to go to the Medical tent. So, within 20 secs I steadied myself and ran to the finish line crossed over and stood calmly while a volunteer got my timing chip.  They immediately sat me in a wheelchair and a nurse took me to the swag tent and got me my medal and stuff then asked me how I was feeling and I stood up feeling fine.

Of course no one believed me but all I wanted to do was sit down.  My wife had a camp chair for me in a shady spot and I had several people bringing me recovery drinks, ginger ale, water, a sandwich and beer!!!  Then the camera crew came and were all gathered around filming (just when I was feeling really dirty and grimy).

My only goal was to finish faster than the same race last year.  In the end my time was almost precisely the same as last year.

I'd like to write a bit about the rest of the last two weeks but for now I'll just say there were about 3600 athletes from 30 countries doing any assortment of 6 races.  It was a great time and met some really interesting people.  

Link to my race report:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=548401&posts=2&page=1

Don't feel obligated to reading the report it is very long and there will never be a test on it.  Just read it if you feel like it.  I tried to convey a lot so it reads a bit choppy.  Hopefully it isn't hard to get the flavour of the race.  I also wanted to convey how much fun it was over the last two weeks to interact with all the international athletes.  My wife was Volunteer Captain in the package pick up tent for the whole two weeks (six races in the two weeks) and everyday athletes from all over were coming up to her and saying how great a time they were having.  I really had a great time to.

Nathalie - Thanks for your support.  The camera crew has been following me around and filming since last January and culminating on Sunday.  They started with 6 athletes to focus on.  One athlete didn't qualify and another was diagnosed with cancer.  Two of the athletes are local Pro's (they were finished their races about the time I was finishing my bike ride).  I never met the last athlete although we were both filmed in the same scene one day by fluke accident.  I was not the sexy famous idol.  I was the comic relief.  All through the year training, I thought I was going to inspire people to start training until Sunday.  Now I'm pretty sure they are going to see my suffering and change their minds.

The documentary will be called "The Last Mile" and will mainly be shown in Canada but they are hoping to show it in any other venues they can.  They told me it takes 2 or 3 hours of film to condense down to a minute of a program so I figure I'll only be in it for a few minutes in the end.  However, I figure my race day is way more interesting than Jeff or Jen's (the local pro's) race because they just went out and raced really fast and were finished before it got really hot so they didn't even suffer.

There is a swedish race I am curious about.  The one that involves swimming between islands and running across islands.  Do you know the name of it so I can look it up?  I'm sure the swims would be pretty cold but it sounds like fun.

Kelly - Thanks for your support and comments in the race report.  I was frustrated with myself for not being able to run better but it seems to be a pattern with me burning out my legs on the bike then walking the run and suffering through the heat.  I think I need to stick to shorter races Sprints, Olympics and Aquathlons and Aquabikes.

Thanks for the info on Maltodextrin.  I'm going to try it and see how it works for me.

Janet - Hope you have a good time tomorrow.  Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

Kelly - Sounds like you have the same disease as I have.  It seems that since my race I've developed a bad case of "inertia".  I'm having trouble just doing any kind of mild workouts.  All I've managed is a few short swims.

A small group of local friends are talking about doing Challenge Roth in 2019.  I like the idea of traveling and it would be a lot of fun but I don't think I have a strong enough desire to do it.

Nathalie - In our area here it is like someone turned off a switch and the weather has changed suddenly.  I might get one more lake swim tomorrow.  The leaves are turning colour and up to this week we've had temps in the 30's for 3 months and now it is quite a bit cooler.  And, as you say the days are getting shorter fast.

September and October are good times to recuperate and give your body a break but it doesn't mean you should do nothing.  It is time to just tone it down a bit.  I'm still swimming 3 times a week and I want to run and bike as well but just not as intensely as I've been doing up to my last race.

On November 5th we have a local 20km "To the Tunnel" run that I am aiming for to keep me somewhat motivated.  

By the way.  Today we are getting together with a group of about 9 athletes and spouses for a picnic to just talk about the season and next year.  We're meeting at a park that we frequent through the summer on our bike rides and some longer runs and some "stories" will be told.