Tamio's Group - CLOSED - FULL (Page 9)

5/17:  Cleveland Rite Aid 10k                                                          

6/7:  Deer creek sprint <------------------- FIRST EVER TRIATHLON   

6/21:  Maumee Bay Sprint

7/5:  Caesar Crek Sprint

7/12:  NCN Summer tri-  Rat Racing Lorain Sprint

8/2:  Cleveland tri Sprint

8/16:  Vermilion Tri Sprint

9/12-13:  Portage Lakes Sprint

9/27:  Toyota Challange  oly

I. Swim

__ goggles – 2 pair

__ wetsuit

__ tri suit – wear this leaving house

__ ear plugs

__ sunblock

__ watch - Ironman

__ flipflops

__ bodyglide

__ chip ankle strap

II. Bike

__ bike – make sure under seat bag is on bike

__ socks

__ baby powder

__ cycling shoes

__ Garmin w/ wrist strap

__ bike helmet

__ bike tool/supply box

__ floor pump (gauge marked for race day PSI)

__ CO2 dispenser – 2 or 3 cartridges

__ water bottles 1 water 1 Gatorade 1 extra in car

III. Run

__ running shoes w/ lace loks

__ extra pair of shoe laces

__ hat

__ sunglasses

__ number belt

__ extra pair of safety pins

IV. Nutrition

__ water to drink before the race

__ drink for the way home

__ energy bars – 2-3

__ energy gels - 3 or more

__ banana

__ ibuprofen

V. General

__ money – buy at the expo, emergency

__ T1 towel to dry legs/shorts/feet

__ transition towel for ground

__ eye drops

__ keys to car (keep extra set in gear bag)

__ pad and pen/pencil

__ 3-5 business cards

__ deodorant

__ black sharpie

__ flashlight

__ clean dry clothes for after race/ride home
__ several plastic bags
 

VI. Before the race

__ bike tune up

__ clipless pedals cleaned and lubricated

__ check tires

__ chain cleaned

__ check bar tape

__ no broken spokes in wheels

Some of the things on this list seem like overkill to me, but I figure if someone put them on their list, there's probably a pretty good reason why.  Most of this stuff will stay in the car or trans bag.  The only things that will be out on my trans towel during the race will be a small towel to dry my legs/feet, socks (preloaded with baby powder), cycling shoes, running shoes, cap, sunglasses (which will be inside my helmet), wrist strap for my Garmin and maybe a gel or two that I can put in my shirt pocket.

Anyone see anything I missed?  All critiques welcome!

Matt

Great job guys!! Cant wait until my first tri 5/30.

Randy 

Glad to see everyone's getting through the trials and tribulations and celebrations of racing. I'm doing much better on my adjusted training plan. Had a great 30mi hill ride yesterday followed by a swim. Overdid it a little and I've been dragging today. I did my 1 hour run and ready to take a nap. Hope everyone has a great week.

Tamio, I'll be doing the Harriman sprint in 5 weeks, so I'm interested in your course feedback.

Well, I’m officially a triathlete!  And I’m a much smarter one at that.  I learned several lessons, and I must say that some of those lessons will be easier than others to do something about.

First of all, in order to get to the triathlon, I woke at 3:15 AM, and was out the door by about 3:40 and drove the nearly 2 hours from West Chester to Harrisburg.  It’s a good thing that I did get there a little early too, the directions were not terribly clear, and I had to search for a while for the correct entrance to the park.  Most of the entrances were still gated and locked at 5:30 AM.

I’m going to have to redouble my efforts to find a place to practice OWS.  My swim was HORRIBLE!  I couldn’t get into a rhythm, and I couldn’t catch my breath.  I think part of it was the unfamiliarity of not being able to see that well in the water, and part of it was the collar on my wet suit being a little too tight.  I wound up doing the breast stroke for more than ½ of the swim.  If I can’t find a lake to practice in, I may have to give in and swim at the Y a few times in my wetsuit, and maybe color the inside of the lenses on a pair of old goggles so that they are almost completely blacked out…I don’t know what I’m going to do, but this one is going to take real effort to improve.  This is one of the lessons that I’ll take from this first TRI.  I finished with a time of 18:02 for the swim.  There were probably 100-125 triathletes in this event.  There were probably 15 or 20 people getting out of the water after me.  UGH!

T2 was a little more eventful than T1.  Bike shoes came off easily and running shoes on easily.  Helmet off and cap on.  But this is about when I realize that I’d screwed up my Garmin.  The heck with it, it’s staying on my bike.  I ran out of T2 and started my run without any kind of time keeper. 

Next lesson:  Well, I need to practice bricks a little more, and the bricks that I do need to be a little bit longer than the ones that I’ve done up to now.  I started a little too fast and started to get a stitch, so I dialed it back down a bit.  The run was also a trail run on a dirt/gravel path.  I didn’t realize this ahead of time.  I thought that the ‘path’ mentioned on the race web site was a paved jogging path.  Well, it wasn’t.  There were lots of mud puddles, lots of ruts and some debris on the path.  I was very, very deliberate during this run.  I was very wary of rolling my ankle.  So trying to avoid both a full blown stitch, and a rolled ankle, I probably could have run a bit faster, but I came out unharmed, so I’m happy.  I’m guessing somewhere around 27 minutes for the 3 mile run.

So to recap the lessons that I’ve learned, during races, Garmin=bike computer, Ironman = time keeper.  It’s been said by many people that swimming in OW is different than a pool.  Well, it is.  A LOT different.  Need to find a place to practice, because this was definitely where I lost a ton of time.  I’m thinking that my swim troubles easily cost 3 or 4 minutes.  Also, bricks are a necessity, and they need to be a little more frequent.  But all in all it was still a great day, and I had a blast!  I’ll update this with accurate times when they post the race results.  

Matt

PS Jeff - thanks for the tip on the arm warmers....lost track of how many people said that they wish they'd brought theirs...it was a chilly day!

Official times:

S:           18:01
T1:           3:00
B:        1:07:30  -  15.6 MPH avg!  Woo hoo!  With all those hills, I'll take it!
T2:             :48
R:           27:56
Total:  1:57:15

8th of 10 in my AG
63rd of 92 finishers - I am truely a MOPer which beats the hell out of being a BOPer!