2nd Annual Trek TriFitness Triathlon

It’s now September and I planned for this race to be my last of the season. I usually start looking forward to a winter of hibernation around this time of the racing season.

Since this was my last race of the year, I tapered so I could perform at my peak. I had such a great year of training, especially on the bike, that I took this taper and this race very seriously. I tapered for a full two weeks and ate well during the week leading up to the race. On the day before, I stayed home and did some cooking and reading to keep off my feet. I was even reading the book “Once A Runner” for motivation. This book is a fictional story about a sub-4 miler in the 1970’s. One passage about his focus during a race really got me focused on how I would deal with the pain during my race - keep your eye on the target in front of you and zone out the pain.

Since this was the home race and my house is right on the race course I knew the course and could take my time in the morning. I woke up, and did a little reading to allow my body to wake up at its own pace. I then got out for a 20min bike warm-up on the way to the race. Since I was rested, I did a lighter warm-up than normal with no intervals. Same with the run warm-up, I did a little jogging on the sand to keep my body warm while waiting for the race to start.

I knew the water was cold so I didn’t get in for a swim warm-up. I also put Vaseline on my arms to help keep them warm during the swim. Both of these things worked. I felt like I was gliding over the water to the first buoy on the swim. It wasn't until after that point that the cold water started getting to me but I still managed to come out first in my wave.

Onto the bike, T1 was solid but nothing special. I had a great spot in transition so that helped cut some time out of the transitions. While on the bike I was looking out for Don Gustavson and Bryan French. Both of these guys are faster cyclists than me but overall I expected all of us to be very close today. Don was in the wave ahead of me so I had to gauge how far ahead he was on the bike course while Bryan was in my wave and my goal was simply to keep him in my sights if he caught me.

I had a great bike, actually my best ever. It helped that the course was flat but I’d never managed to average 36+ km/h before. This wasn’t enough though. Don had the fastest bike of the day averaging 40km/h and my swim wasn’t fast enough to keep him close. Bryan did catch me on the bike but I was relaxed and riding strong enough to keep him close and within my sights for the last couple miles. I was confident I could catch him on the run given how close we were coming off the bike.

Coming out of T2, I had the 3 guys, including Bryan, who had passed me on the bike right in front of me. I felt light and fast on my feet. Within the first quarter mile of the run I had already run all 3 of the guys down and flew by them so fast that I knew psychologically they wouldn’t even want to try and keep up. To maintain this pace though I was redlining and grunting from the first mile through to the finish.

After passing Bryan and the other guys I knew I couldn’t let up because Don was ahead and there was a chance I could catch him if I had a great run. I also didn’t want to let up only to have the 3 fast guys sneak up behind me. There was one turn around on the run so I could see where everyone was. They were close enough that I continued to run scared until the finish.

Onto the final stretch I knew I had killed the run and everyone on my team was both surprised and happy to see me as the first one on our team coming through. I was ecstatic and picked up the pace until crossing the line. I crossed in 4^th overall in 1:09:16 but a good 25 seconds behind Don.

This was a breakthrough race for me. I almost effortlessly rode at 36km/h and then ran 5:54/mi pace to finish with the second fastest run of the day. I need to explore what it feels like to race the bike harder. It might be my weakness simply because I’m saving up too much energy. This caps a great season with yet another age group win (4 in a row) with some great data on where I need to improve for next year.

25th Annual New York City Biathlon

A week ago, Joel Whidden from work asked if I wanted to race the NY Biathlon in Central Park. It didn’t fit into my race schedule and it was a duathlon (no swim) but I thought this would be a good opportunity to get to know Joel a little better and travel to a race with someone new.

Through the week leading up to the race, I continued to train without any regard for the race. This was my last hard week before tapering for the end of the season so the plan was to race this duathlon tired. The day before I went up to a friend’s cottage in Litchfield Hills and hung out on a boat and ate fried dough. I’ve never eaten so poorly the day before a race but it shows how focused I was on this one.

On race morning I woke up well before my alarm at 3:30am and decided to stay up. Other than starting the day with a glass of chia seeds, the morning was no different than any other. I woke up, did the dishes and read a few pages from a book before heading out the door at 5am.

We arrived with plenty of time for a warm-up around Central Park to learn the bike course and then also got in a short jog up the starting hill. I felt ready enough even without my standard warm-up that includes pick-ups and quick spins on the bike.

I had looked at past results to see where I should start. It looked like I had a good chance of placing pretty high up and even being close to the winner. Joel and I lined the start only a couple rows back from the lead guys). When the gun went off, I started comfortable and controlled and didn’t open up the pace until about a mile and a half into the run, well after the turnaround.

I came into T1 in 9^th place and passed a couple guys through the transition. It continues to surprise me how much time people lose in transition in spite of the task at hand being so simple. Just take your shoes off and put your helmet on. How long can that really take? It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.

Onto the bike I didn’t feel strong but didn’t expect to. I had done a threshold test on Thursday morning and pushed so hard that my quads were screaming all day. On the first lap I had to keep reminding myself to spin rather than mash the pedals. It wasn’t until the second lap that I felt good and reminded myself to relax to generate more power. In my head I kept asking myself how was it that I felt so good on our weekday bike workouts and so weak during a race. I finally realized that it’s because I was more relaxed during the workout and was generating more power throughout the whole pedal stroke (think circles). This worked wonders! I was able to hang with the guys who had passed me just before I started to relax for the second lap around the park. It’s amazing how powerful relaxation is. Your body is looser, your mind more focused, and as a result you perform at a higher level.

At least 5 guys had passed me on the bike but they were close and I was determined to run each of them down. I came out of T2 and could see all 5 of them. I made quick work of passing the first two right on the hill out of transition. Then it was only another half mile before I passed the next 3. I went by them fast enough that I didn’t feel threatened that they would be able to hold the pace. Approaching the turnaround, I could see how far behind the next two guys I was. I knew I was closing fast and could at least catch one of them. I caught the next guy quickly and could see another guy about 50m ahead. I relaxed, lengthened my stride and maintaining my cadence. I was redlining and catching the next guy fast. I couldn’t believe I felt as good as I did while cruising under 6:00/mi!

Sadly, I ran out of room and missed catching the next guy by 2 seconds. Good enough for 7^th (out of 282) and a time of 1:01:56 for 2mi-12mi-2mi. I was very happy with the race today. I was tired and I could feel it but still managed to relax and push out some fast running and biking. Now it’s time to taper for the next 2 weeks to get ready for the last race of the season. The biggest thing today was remembering to relax when hurting to make better use of my body. As long as things go well at the next race I can feel that it’s going to be a good one.

My Company Triathlon

This year the company I work for decided to put on a triathlon. This was only for internal people. Even though the organizers gave us 3 weeks notice, the turnout was decent (14 individuals and a similar number of relays).

Oh man, I was so nervous leading up to this race. I’ve been nervous and anxious about it for probably over 2 weeks. I knew there would be a lot of pressure on me to win because people knew I race triathlon and that I had been racing well this year too.

Over the weeks, every time I thought about the race I would get butterflies in my stomach. I had to force myself to visualize the race going well and calm down every time this happened. I knew all the pressure was good for me because I tend to perform very well under pressure but I rarely win a race outright so having all eyes on me would be a lot to handle.

It wasn’t until the night before the race that I had two realizations. Well one was more a remembering than a realization. The first was remembering how I tend to race well in less than perfect conditions. This would definitely be one of those races knowing that the swim was through very shallow and mucky water and that the course was not being blocked off to cars so we would have to stop at lights. The second was the big realization that I’m racing so well this year because I’m having more fun at it than I ever have.

Since the race didn’t start until 4:30pm, I had the whole work day to think about it and bring up my anxiety levels to the right level to perform at my peak. I rode my bike from my office to the race start to get in a warm up and then ran with Ed on the trails beside Glendinning to get my heart really going. Even though this was only a tiny little corporate race, I was psyched and full of energy. I knew I was ready and was going to give everyone else a run for their money.

Like I mentioned above, the swim was more of trudging through a shallow swamp. We jumped into the water and started swimming through weeds that were in our face. There were multiple times that my face was swimming through enough weeds that it was completely dark. I even wore shoes during the swim because I wasn’t sure if there were rocks that we might have to navigate over during it.

After the short, mucky swim, my heart was racing and I was breathing as hard as I could. I ran as fast as I could to my bike, put on my helmet and was off. Even though I was second out of the water, I was first onto the bike course. The pressure behind me was good. I knew I should be able to put distance between me and the next guy so I kept looking back to check where he was. This was all the motivation I need to push hard up the short hills. The timing of all the lights worked out reasonably well because I didn’t have to stop at all during the bike. I definitely got lucky here.

The story of the day was T2. I arrived looking for my shoes but couldn’t find them. The race organizers said they would drive everyone’s T2 gear over to it because it was a point to point race. I arrived before the car with the shoes did. I didn’t want to wait so I took off running bare foot. Everyone was cheering so hard, I loved it!!

The run course was all on pavement so I knew my feet would be torn up by the end. At the same time, I didn’t want to lose and I knew that if I kept running that I would win so it was now a race against the clock. I felt very little and my leg turnover was very quick. My legs didn’t hurt at all it was only my breathing rate that was limiting me. Other than the blistering of my feet, it felt phenomenal. Even though we didn’t have splits, I averaged somewhere around 6:15/mi for the 3.3mi and it was all barefoot.

I came in at 38mins and ended up winning by a pretty wide margin … something close to 5mins. The first relay came in just over 40mins. I was super happy and everyone was talking about the barefoot finish. I had achieved what I had come out to do. Maybe I’ll race the next one barefoot too J