triOK's group - The best group - Closed (Page 44)

Ok Guys.

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Galveston. Transition opens at 5:00...It's 12:45 and I've been trying to go to sleep for almost 3 hours. I finally just got out of the bed. I'm eating homemade oatmeal cookies... Maybe that will help.

 It has  been fun so far.  We got here at 3:30 and checked into the hotel. It was 74 and cloudy.  We rushed around so that I could go get into the water. I put my wetsuit  on in the hotel room. We are less than a mile from the swim finish, so I was able to swim for about 20 minutes. I love my wetsuit!  It's still hard to get my breath at first but I finally got into a groove.

We went to a carbo dinner benefit for Athlete's for a Cure. It is a charity that focuses on prostate cancer. My ex husband and father of my  son is in his third set of treatment for prostate cancer in 4 years. It is an important charity for us.  Simon Lessing was the speaker and he had some good things to say.  They had some awesome door prizes It was like a white elephant party and those whose numbers were drawn after someone else had chosen could take the prize they wanted. They were definitely not white elephant things.  I got called.. there was a full carbon front end (bars, brakes, everything but the fork) and I took that away from one guy but the next person took that from me and I got to choose some very nice sunglasses.  They had another drawing for the grand prize. It was a Javelin bike frame and Bryce's ticket got called. It is a titanium and carbon multisport frame! what a night!

I'm heading back to try to sleep.  I'll let you guys know how today goes!

Les 

Best of luck to everyone racing this weekend, I know you'll have a great experience and kick some *ss!!!  Look forward to hearing how it went.

Jay

WTG JOGO!!!!!

Alright Les...lets here it!!!!

Hi Kids!

I'm finally home.  We stayed in Galveston Saturday night as well and went to watch the Olympic and the Half this morning, as well as to see Moody Gardens (a very nice place with an aquarium and rain forest pyramid as well as an IMAX). It was a nice mini vacation.

Overall, the experience was fantastic! The race was well organized and at a perfect place.

I raced in the first timer's wave because I wanted to have to extra swim support so that is my group instead of my age group.  I would have been 18 out of 23 in my age group.  There were only 23 women in 45-49.

I was 32 out of 102 in my group and finished 107 out of 197 first timers (men and women, all ages). Pretty cool!

I choked on the swim, did great on the bike, and did not walk a single step on the run.

I've got to do OWS at least every other week.  It is so different than the pool for me that I absolutely choked.  It was a breathing issue.  I've got to get some professional help. I just want to be able to swim like I can in the pool in the OW.

I'm a little stiff but not too sore and I can't wait until my next one! I'll post pictures in my album and make my race report more complete later.

Les
 

Congrats to both of you that competed this weekend!!!!

Les, you are not very encouraging if you can swim that well in the pool and have trouble in OW...what does that mean for someone like me?????

A huge "congrats" to both of you, that's a great accomplishment.  And way to tackle a tri so early in the year too, you are well on your way to a great summer!!

Jay

Hey Alan,

I think this a me issue and is completely in my head.  I had the same problem last year and I did fine when I went for a practice swim on Friday on the course I did in the race.  I would recommend practicing at least once in OW before your first OW tri swim.  You will do fine.  I just need to get my brain working right.

 Did the wetsuit help much?  I was thinking you said you didn't wear one last year??  Fortunately I live on a lake so I should get plenty of OW swimming (should the ice ever melt.)    Back on the treadmill again today....another 8 inches of snow!!

Congrats to everyone on their first races!!!  You guys are awesome!

OWS is another animal.  Its very different than swimming in a pool.  I am prone to panic attacks in the water, and I know that many other people are very uneasy during the swim.  If you have never done an OWS, I would HIGHLY recommend it before your first race.  And nothing new on race day, so if you plan to wear a wetsuit, wear it before you race.  Even if that means you wear it to the pool.  Yeah, everyone will look at you like you are nuts, but who cares?  Its important that you know what they feel like, because they are VERY tight.  I think that was part of my problem with the panic attacks.  Wetsuits are really tight around the neck and I think that freaks me out a little.

But still, if you can wear a wetsuit, do it.

Getting the wetsuit off was great! They had strippers (wetsuit strippers!) All I had to do was pull the suit down below my butt and sit down. The strippers pulled it off and handed it to me.  Getting them off is not the problem! It is putting it on. Be SURE to get some GLIDE or some other slippery wetsuit lube.  It is super important to have really short nails and to use the pads of your fingers to pull it up.  I rinsed mine out really well after I wore it in the pool and there is some wet suit soap that some people recommend. 

Robyn....yep...it was a panic attack. I was fine, the suit had been fine the day before in the same conditions, I was in the first timers wave,  I had a great spot to start from with lots of room, and I would have been out front and doing fine if it weren't for the dang panic.  What do you do?

Les 

 Wow...I thought I was hard on myself!!!  The idea is just to survive the first (and try not to get last) and you managed to do both.  Total success in my book!!! 

So sorry you are disappointed in your performance. I was complaining about my swim but you know what? For me, this sport is about having a goal to work towards (so that I get off my butt and do SOMETHING) and that goal is to train so that I can improve my time. The Danskin last year was my benchmark. I had trained but really didn't have any idea what I really needed to do. I mostly swam last year and ran only 2 times in the month before the race because of shin splints. I am competitive, and perfectionistic but I worked really hard at accepting my performance for what it really was; doing my best on that day, realizing I was doing a triathlon (how cool is that?) and having fun.

I figured that after Danskin if I had fun and felt good about just finishing( hard for me to work at accepting that) that triathlon would be a positive influence in my life. I knew if I let my competitive perfectionism poison my views that it would not be a good thing for me to do.

I had a goal for this year too. That was to improve my time in all three events, even if it was just a bit. I have trained pretty consistently since January 5 days a week. If I looked at just my age group of 23 women (45-49) I was 18th. I'm OK with that. The best part is that my swim time, even though I wasn't happy with it went from 3.57 per 100 to 3.08 per 100 this weekend. Almost 1 minute faster! T1 last year:7.41 this year: 3.52. Bike 14.33 mph last year, 15.8 mph this year. T2 last year 6.18, this year 1.36. Run last year 12.46, this year 11.23. I had some huge gains like almost 5 minutes off of T2!

I'm so happy with the improvements I made in this short time. I've got 2 months until the Danskin and I know I can improve my bike and run times. I have a new swim goal...no panic attacks!

Be kind to yourself Jo. Just look at your times in training. What is your 100 time in the swim? Your mph on the bike and run? If it was not what you wanted to do and you feel there is a lot of room for improvement you have a great opportunity to do something great for yourself and chip away at that benchmark one race and one training session at a time.

Sorry to ramble...I just recognized some of my stinking thinking in what you said and wanted to share some ways that I've learned to be nicer to me.

Les