24 posts tagged “triathlon”

I can has sprint triathlon:

I don't know what I was so worried about. It was fantastic, incredibly fun. Especially because since I hadn't been training, I didn't feel any pressure to finish at a certain time. This was a gorgeous course: The swim (.5 miles) went out around a pier with an old concrete shipwreck at the end of it. The bike (15 miles) was up through the Aptos hills, through some fruit orchards. The run (4 miles) ran down the length of the beach, up a set of stairs through some campsites, and back along the beach again. Running, I counted five seals and saw a pod of dolphins with at least 11 individuals. The dolphins really got into it. Maybe inspired by all the other swimmers, they put on a hugely acrobatic show, repeatedly jumping high up into the air and turning flips like they were performing at Sea World. Simply amazing.

Meanwhile, Harper spent the previous day riding in the Santa Cruz Mountain Challenge, where she climbed 10,850 feet over the course of 100 miles. I was really proud of her, she worked so hard for this, espcially considering that two years ago at this time, she was suffering from a back injury so debilitating that she could hardly walk, to say nothing of ride, for more than a year. All-around, a pretty damn good weekend.

This weekend, on Sunday, I'm signed up for the Sandman triathlon down near Santa Cruz. (I'm also signed up for the Santa Cruz Mountain Century on Saturday, but I'm planning on bailing.)

Sandman_620

Here's the thing. Since Alcatraz, I've been swimming exactly once. Once. In the space of a month. And that was in a pool, not in good cold water. I managed to run the San Francisco half marathon last weekend, but only with the help of my friend Rob. I'm already woefully out of shape compared to where I was a month ago. And so this weekend I'm going to try to tackle a .5 mile swim, 15 mile bike, and four mile (beach!) run without training for it whatsoever.

Wish me luck?

Finished!
Originally uploaded by honan

After six months, thirty pounds, and too many hours (and dollars) to count, it took me three hours, three minutes, and fifty three point seven seconds to swim from Alcatraz, and bike and run my way to and through the Presidio on Sunday.

I can't believe it.

It was a fantastic race and against all my expectations I had a wonderful time. I finished twenty five minutes ahead of my goal and felt great at the end. I had the idea that I would try to keep my heart rate below 170 the entire time, well below my lactate threshold, and I finished feeling like a million bucks. Sore? Yeah. Tired? Most definitely. Completely exhausted? No.

I began this as a way to do something, however insignificant, to honor my friend Lisa who has A.M.L.. That morning I grabbed a Livestrong bracelet and put it on to help me remember her and in some small way take her with me during the race. I wore another for a boy who is a cancer patient in Harper's hospital. I wanted the race yesterday to not just be about me, and in my mind, at least, it was not.

But I had not expected how much it was going to change my life. I feel like a different person, living in a different body than I did six months ago. I feel like I can do anything I set my mind to; I can pick a seemingly insurmountable goal and with a lot of work achieve it.

It also felt incredible to me that my dad flew all the way out here just to see this, that Harper provided me with so much support, that my friends Andre and Amber and Jeff and Aimee (with their week old baby!) came out early in the morning to come cheer for me, and for all the phone calls, emails, text messages and the like from my friends and family all over the country. It was amazing. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I feel like I have a lot more to say about all this but I am, quite honestly, still pooped and a little slow mentally today.

Again, thank you!

As I write this, it's not quite 8 a.m. on the longest day of the year, and I've already been to the pier and back for a morning swim in the Bay. I swam the perimeter again today, past my friend the Balclutha and the open gate of Aquatic Park that points directly towards Alcatraz. The water was exceptionally flat and still today, and cold as well, and I can only hope for similar conditions on Sunday. When I jump off that boat next to Alcatraz, and head in towards Aquatic Park, I won't care at all about the water temperature. Cold water does not bother me. But the currents are another matter.

It was a little sad for me today, when I woke up before sunrise for the last time this season. I've been doing it for so long now, and it seems fitting to me that I finished my open water training on the longest day of the year; that I got to watch the sun rise over the Bay for the last time on the day when we both showed up there earlier than either of us had all year.

I met my friends from my team--Maria, Melanie and Dave--and we plunged in together. They have all raced already. I'm still waiting. I hope we can meet like this after I finish. I like it, in the cold and the dark. I enjoy the camaraderie.  As we swam, I looked ahead at Melanie, and behind to Dave, across and over at Maria, and was conscious that this  was coming to an end. I'm not ready for it to come to an end. The next time I plunge into that cold green wet, it will be to race.

This morning I stood shivering in the dark in front of the heater. For six months I've been getting up before dawn to push myself as hard as I can, before the day even begins for most people. Today that ends.  

I'm going to miss it.

My race is this weekend, and nightmare scenario number one is getting a flat ¹. To that end I went to Sports Basement yesterday evening and got some new tires, and put them on last night before dinner. It was goodbye to my old Continental Four Seasons, touring tires that have taken me upwards of 2,000 miles, and hello to shiny new Continental 4000 Grand Prix, racing tires. Red racing tires. 205 grams.

1. Actually, I guess it's number two. Number one is getting eaten by a shark. Silly, I know, but I saw Jaws at a formative age.

After nearly six months of non-stop training, I can finally call myself a triathlete. I raced in the Tri For Fun Sprint Triathlon this weekend at Rancho Seco Park near Sacramento, and it was absolutely one of the best things I've ever done. The race was a half-mile swim, 18-mile bike, and three-mile run. I finished in 1:34:46. I rode at 18.5 miles an hour, and ran an 8 minute mile pace. It was brutally hot, at least by my coastal northern California standards, and I felt like I gave it all I had, nearly puking after I crossed the finish. Want to see pictures? They are here.

On race day they had me listed as finishing 98th, which I was incredibly excited with, but the results posted online (which I assume factor in the various start times for different heats) list me at 140 out of 531. Oh well. That was a bit of a bummer, to drop 42 places, but I'm still quite happy with that finish which puts me (almost) in the top quarter. I'm still waiting for the results to post to see how I did in my division. I don't expect it will be that well; it's a tough division: Four out of the top ten finishers were in the 30-34 age group (including the only female) twice as many as any other.

I had hoped to use this sprint as a dry run for Alcatraz coming up in two weeks, and to that extent it was a great success. I learned a lot. Although I've practiced transitions, and of course all three events, relentlessly, nothing compares to the real thing. Here's where I messed up:

• When I started out on the swim, I was completely jacked on adrenaline and just killed it as soon as the horn blew. I sprinted way too far, and found myself exhausted and gasping a few hundred yards out. I then had to pop my head up and tread water until I caught y breath. I would have been much better served to start strong until I got out of the scrum and then drop back immediately to my race pace. Rookie mistake.
  
  
• I ran through my transitions several times in the hotel room the night before, but when I got to T1 I completely lost my head. I had a plan of action to do everything in methodical order: Wetsuit off, helmet on, socks on, shoes on, etc. But when I got there, I didn't think, and just ran through things as they occurred to me. This didn't always make sense, and I also wasted time doing dumb things like drying off. I also floundered a bit with my wetsuit, which was completely unnecessary. I need to focus, and not let my head wander.
  
  
• I had forgotten to untie my running shoes when I set up my transition area. So at T2, when it was time to go from bike to run, I wound up spending extra time untying and then retying my shoes. Dumb. Yesterday, I replaced my shoelaces with laces locks.
  
  
• When I set up my transition area, I was really worried about being able to find it. So I put my bike on the end of a completely empty rack in the corner. A little more investigation would have showed me that Iw as setting up in the far back corner of the transition area, about as far away from the bike and run starts as I could  get. I think I lost more time getting to and from there than I would have spent scanning for my bike.
  All in all, I felt like I could have shaved another three or so minutes off just by racing smarter. I'm going to try to take those lessons with me in two weeks. But it was a phenomenal experience, and I'm proud to have finished it.
  
  It was also incredible to have Harper there with me. When I was running out of juice at the end, seeing her and hearing her cheer for me, helped me pick it up again at the end. She suffered through two long drives, an incredibly early morning, and I couldn't appreciate it more. Making her proud means more to me than just about anything else in this world, and I'm so glad to be able to do it. Thanks, Harper. I love you.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Tri Gear
Originally uploaded by honan

I don't think I've ever annotated a photo to this extent before. Click through to the Flickr page to see the notes.

I'm racing in a sprint triathlon tomorrow in Sacto, getting ready for my main event, and I laid out all my gear to make sure I have everything. Wow. Lots of stuff. I thought it would make an interesting photo with annotations. Not pictured: bike helmet, bike and flip flops.

Routemap

I probably should have pointed this out before, but I've got a story on the Nike Plus sports kit in the June issue of Macworld. It covers a few other topics as well. If you've been using a sports kit for some time, there might not be anything new to you there. But, hopefully, you'll find something useful there. 

San Francisco - Mission Golden Gate Park Run

Yesterday, I swam 1.75 miles and then ran another 15. (wtf.) Running down 20th, I passed a really short person, walking the other direction, with a black sweatshirt pulled over their head, so that you couldn't see a face. As I ran by, they dropped a syringe on the sidewalk, I skipped a half-step sideways and glanced at the fistfull of needles and kept on going.

I don't usually run on city streets; I stay in the park. When I left the Koret Center, though, on my way to the park, I looked to my right, and saw an endless fogbank consuming everything in the distance. To my left there was sun. And junkies. And traffic lights. I felt better on mile 7 in the park than I did on mile 4 in The Mission.

Somewhere around mile 12.4 I felt terrible. Hungry or sick or just stomach drilled from a Clif shot I couldn't tell. But I had to walk for a while, and I ran the rest of the way slowly. I ended at the Koret Center, grabbed my bag and walked another mile or so back to our apartment. When I got home, I was dehydrated and dizzy.

I'm thinking of running the San Francisco Marathon in July.