So What happened to the race?  It’s been 10 days since my first sprint triathlon and I’ve gotten alot of questions, the most popular being “What happened?”

Well, I made it.  I haven’t posted an update for 2 reasons: 1- I was really busy picking up alot of my affairs that I had put aside to train and 2- I needed some time to sit and reflect on my race performance and the goals that I set.

As I sit here and try to “wrap up” what I have been feeling about the race, I’m reminded of a quote I came across recently.  I’m not sure where I saw/read/heard this, but it was something to the effect of “It’s really important to not only fail in life, but to fail fantastically.”  I think that really helped me to keep my race results in perspective.

So how did I do already!?

I feel a bit ashamed to say this, but I fell short of my goal by 491 spots.  My goal was to finish in the top half (720 or better for this race). This was difficult to accept as I had been fairly successful in hitting most of my training goals in the 2-3 months prior to the race.  What particularly hurt most was the confidence I had in my swimming skills going into the race and my subsequent performance in that portion of the race.

It was definitely not a good day for me.  Placing 1211 out of 1440, I got smoked by kids and seniors alike.  I am amazed how many physically fit poeple there are out there!  I laughed, I cried, i sweated, I ran in alot of pain, i peed…finally.  Check back soon for a full story on my race.  Ultimately, the 2 biggest mistakes for me were not being prepared for a swim in a river against current and not peeing before the race (apparently 3 times wasn’t enough).

A few numbers:

Swim: 40 minutes!!!!! I almost died I think.  I was second to last in my group to finish and nearly gave my girlfriend a heart attack.

Bike: 53 minutes (not bad for only having 3 pre-race road bike training sessions and having to pee really bad)

Run: 31 minutes.  I definitely felt the pain on this part, having had to pee for an hour and half at that point.

I think that if I can make some simple adjustments such as training in a river and making sure that I go to bathroom beforehand, I can dramatically improve my times.

If I can make those adjustments and post a total time of 1:44 or less, I can move from 1211 to in the top 500.

So, I did fail in reaching my goal of finishing in the top half, but succeeded in finishing, which was my initial goal when I signed up for the race.  More importantly, I was able to assist CMSP in raising enough funds to keep the program alive and well! Than you so much for all that sponsored me in my race and contributed to this great and awesome cause! I am forever grateful.  Temple CMSP is still tallying the numbers, so I will post the final status on that soon.

You can see my results here. (enter bib# 3698)

** Thanks so much to Kevin Saint Clair, father of CMSP students Jack and Wyatt, for taking to time to give me a few cycling tips and making some readjustments with my bike set-up. These tips proved to be invaluable and I know that once I get a more natural feel for cycling, they are going to help me to really improve my times. **

After a short tutorial session on cycling 101 with Kevin Saint Clair yesterday, I drove down to the tri course and went at it again yesterday. Probably not the best idea, since I should be “tapering” my training this week, but I had to get at least 2 full 15 mile sessions in on the bike before the race.  Kevin’s tips on posture and pedaling helped tremendously, but I still felt what probably was an unnecessary amount of pain/strain in the nack of my neck from looking forward.  I am getting better though, and was able to do a 2 mile run immediately afterwards without stopping.

All and all it was a tough day:

Wake up at 6:30am and drive to work.  Work from 9am-5:30pm. Drive to Kevin’s house for cycling assistance from 6:30-7:30.  Drive to the tri course.  Bike 15 miles and run 2 miles. Finish at 9:05pm.  Home by 9:30pm.  Long day… This is how most of my days have been this month, so training has been a challenge.

Goal for next time: Get more sleep and train in the morning.

Ultimately, it’s been a tough week.  For some strange reason I’ve had the same migraine headache for 5 days now.  It comes and goes but I feel it for about 70% of the day.  It’s realy affected my focus and endurance.  I feel as prepared as I can be for tomorrow, but I’m hoping that 1. my headache goes away and 2. I’m able to perform at a high level in the morning.

Race starts at 8:00am.

Yesterday:

Bike: 15 miles, 57 min. (full tri course, need to shave 10 minutes off that time!)

Run: 2miles, 19 minutes

This morning:

Run: 2 miles, 21 minutes

Ok.  It was a little foolish taking so much time off last week due to the weather.  I swam 44 laps in preparation for the swim leg today. I tried to not stop and put my feet down once.  This did not work.  I also tried to pick my head up and look forward from time to time to get used to maintaining my position in the river.  That was tough as well.  All in all, it was a sluggish swimming session.

I then changed and ran on the treadmill.  I started out strong, but began to tire after about 3/4 of a mile.  Missing so many days really put a dent in my endurance.  Wish I had 2 more weeks. Oh well.  He’s to hoping I finish in under 2 hours at least.

Swim: 44 laps, 28 min

Run: 2.25 miles 20 min

It’s going to be a long week.  I stopped by Fairmont Park today on my way home from work to put in some quality time with my newly borrowed bike.  It was tough.  I was pretty tired 1/4 of the way through the course.  I finished, but it was through complete and stubborn will - not through strength.

I tried to then run, but I was so wasted from biking that I barely made it 0.7 miles before turning around to go home.

It was a really poor day of training….

I was supposed to go swimming and running this weekend at the jersey shore, but it rained all weekend and I ended up being very unproductive due to the weather and no gym access.

So I think taking 3 days off was not a good thing.  I’m going to get some quality sleep this week in hopes of making at least a little bit of progress on the bike/run.

Bike: 15 miles, full sprint tri course, 1hr 4min. (VERY different from a stationary bike)

Run: 1.25 miles, 16 min (pathetic!)

I finally picked up my bike last night - great bike that I borrowed from a friend of the family (I’ll post pics soon).  It took a bit to get used to having shoes attached to my pedals, but I’m getting the hang of it.

I took it out to fairmont park today for a ride through the triathlon course.  It was definitely alot different than training on a stationary bike, particularly dealing with the wind and the hills.  The course is going to be a challenge and I look forward to getting getting my biking skills up to par this week.

Bike: 10 miles, 1 hour with a few breaks (approximately 1.25 distance of the full bike course)

Looking forward to doing some open ocean swimming tomorrow if the water is not too cold.

Been too busy these past 3 days…

Since Saturday my schedule has been devoid of training discipline:

Sunday: took the day off to cathc up on some work.

Monday: wen to the gym and swam 64 laps - longest distance yet.  6 sets of 10 laps each with 30-120 seconds rest in between each.

Tuesday: had to take off to get some work done

Tonight (Wednesday): Did not get home until 830pm.  It was raining and a bit cold, but I forced myself to run.  I set my gol to do 3 miles as fast as I could. I was pretty tired since I’ve been getting 4-5 hours of sleep per night this week due to some other responsibilities.  I made it 1.3 miles and turned around.  I barely made it home without stopping.

Run: 2.6 miles in 20.25 min.  (not too good, but had very little energy)

Gonna go to bed early to try to prepare for a better end to this week of training.

T-minus 2 weeks.  Yesterday was a great training day!

As I drove to the gym, I thought about my workout and set my goals for the day as I often do.  I decided that today was going to be my first Sprint Triathlon simulation. I had planned to be ready for this the week of the Triathlon (June 21), but I felt really good today, having had a great night’s sleep.  So I decided to make a go for it.

I didn’t want to focus on time and how long each leg took.  My main goal was to complete all required distances without stopping.  Unfortunately, I got to the gym at 1:15 and I had to be out of there by 3:30pm in order to get home, dressed, and to work on time.  So time was a little bit of a concern.

Nonetheless, I started at 1:18pm and finished at 3:01pm.  Not only was I successful, but I think I made pretty good time for my first try.

1:15pm: Arrive at LA Fitness gym

1:16pm: in the pool stretching and getting myself mentally prepared.

1:18pm: Start swimming. My main focus here was two-fold: maintain a slow, consistent pace and set “mini-goals” within my total distance in order to stay mentally alert and positive.  The first 20 or so laps were tough, but then I started to fall into a nice groove and probably could have swam for another 50 laps by the end. I lost count at some point, so I may have did an additional 2 or 4 laps…not sure.

1:43pm: 44 laps complete.  I then literally ran out of the pool and quickly toweled off, nearly giving some guy next to me a heart attack.  As everyone stared at me as if I had lost my mind, I ran into the locker room to change.

1:46pm: Changed, I ran out of the locker room and upstairs to the bikes.  I jumped on and started pedaling.  This was a challenge.  I made it to 10 miles in 30 minutes, but I had struggled the whole way.

2:15pm (aka 3:15pm): After 10 miles or so, I started to again find my groove and this started to become easier.  At this point during the bike leg, as I pondered how differently riding a real bike would be, I lost track of time and mistakenly thought it was 3:15, even though it was really 2:15.  I was pushing to finish the bike leg in 40 minutes, but was also watching the the clock to 1) keep track of my total time since I forgot my watch and 2) To make sure I wasn’t late for work.  So time suddenly became a factor as I pushed to 15 miles.  I guess I should have given it more thought, but at the time I was so focused, that I was only looking at the clock’s minute hand.

2:31pm: 15 miles complete. I cooled down for about 15 seconds.  I thought about taking my shoes off and putting them back on, but now I was potentially going to be late for work, so I opted to just start running.  I jumped off the bike and my legs nearly buckled.  I was definitely fatigued.  I really pushed to complete the bike in 40 minutes, but ended up finishing in 45 minutes flat.  This was still an improvement from my last time of 48 minutes.

2:32pm: Start running on the treadmill.  Started out at a pace of 5.  Then increased by 0.2 each quarter mile until miles 2.  I started to get really exhausted at a half mile into my run, so by 2 miles I was so tired!  I had to finish though.  And if I was going to see it through and reach my goal, I wanted to push myself as much as I could.  At mile 2, I bumped the pace to 6.8 and ran for a quarter mile.  At 2.25 miles, I decided to run for the finish line and pushed my pace all the way up to 8 (besides, it was now almost 4pm, so I thought).  I really tried to stay as focused and relaxed as possible, making sure not to fall.  I made it to 3 miles without pulling my pace back.

3:01pm: FINISHED!

Swim: 44 laps in 25 minutes

Bike: 15 miles in 45 minutes

Run: 3 miles in 28.75 minutes

Total time: 1 hour 44 minutes

Transitions: 5.25 minutes (not sure how realistic that is)

* mental note: It wasn’t until I got into my car that I realized that it was only 3PM, so I made it to work in plenty of time.  Losing track of time probably helped to push me a bit.

Looking at these times and thinking about how different the conditions will be in the real race (waves, wind, navigating around other people, transitions, etc.), I definitely going to have to improve on these times.  More to come on this.

Pretty exhausted today.  Haven’t really felt well all day for some reason.  I pushed myself to run.  I made it about 1/2 mile and felt like turning around and walking home.  It took everything I had in me to keep going and not stop.  In the end, it wasn’t a complete failure, but today was definitely my weakest workout in a while.

Looking forward to feeling better tomorrow and banging out 50 laps at the pool and 3 miles on the treadmill!

Run: ~2 miles at 15.75 min.

Bike: 15 miles at 45 minutes - improvement of 4 minutes from last 15 mile workout

Swim: 25 laps at 18 minutes, non-stop

Today was a great day!

Preface: I had to play last night at Chris’ Jazz Cafe in Downtown Philadelphia last night and did not get home until about 1:30am.  I then had to get up early to teach this morning at Temple University, so I didn’t think my training would be very productive today.  Well, I took a nice long nap this afternoon (very rare) and hit the pool first.

I started out with a warm-up.  My goal was to repeat my routine from last swim training session and bang out 12 sets of 4 laps, taking necessary breaks between each set. I got to the gym at 7:10, so I had 50 minutes to achieve my goal before the gym closed.  I was lucky enough to get an open lane immediately upon getting to the pool, so I jumped in and stretched a bit and started my warm-up.

Now, initially my warm-up was intended to be 4 laps, but after reaching lap 4, I felt pretty good and decided to make it 10 laps.  At around lap #8, I started thinking about my last milestone of 9 laps straight and decided to try to beat it by 3 laps for a total of 12 laps without stopping.  I thought that that would be a nice improvement.

So I swam 12 laps.  It was on this last lap that I started to become very focused mentally and started daydreaming about making 20 laps non-stop.  I felt good and I was starting to find a rhythm, so I just kept swimming.  I figured that I had made it this far so why not try to push myself to make 20 laps without any rests.  That would be half the distance of what I need to accomplish for the race.

I remained relaxed and focused on my form.

Now somewhere between laps 12 and 20 I starting think about how I barely make 9 laps non-stop (last week) and swimming 20 laps non-stop comfortably was such a huge improvement.  I starting to find this rhythm in my swim that I had not experienced as of yet.  I was relaxed in my breathing and not only was I really focused on maintaining my stroke and technique, but I had fallen into a really deep state of thought. Today I felt really strong for some reason.

So I swam 20 laps, but around lap #16, I started to daydream about making 24 laps.  And so that’s how it went.  I really focused on making small strides in my swim.  I knew if I had started out with the intention of doing 40 laps without stopping, I would never make it, essentially psyching myself out before ever giving myself a chance.  My accomplishments were 90% mental today.

For every mini-goal I set for myself on the fly as I was swimming my “warm-up”, I pushed myself further. At lap #24, I felt strong and focused, so I pushed my goal to 30 laps non-stop.  At lap #28, I pushed my goal to 32 laps.  Then 36 laps.  At this point I almost faultered as I was finally starting to get tired, feeling the effects in my technique which started to get sloppy.  I began to tell myself “2 more laps and I’m done”, but I regained my composure, maintained mental focus on my technique and set my new goal to 40 laps. At lap #40, I had a little bit left in me but had reached my distance goal I had anticipated reaching 3 weeks from now.

And so I stopped swimming at 40 laps.  40 LAPS!  NONSTOP!  SUCCESS!  Success 3 weeks ahead of schedule.  This completely changes everything.  I was a little worried about being able to make the swim distance.  That is such an amazing improvement - about 350% since May 28th.  I am so surprised.

My new goal: 70 laps, non-stop by June 25.  That will be 1 mile of swimming.  Wish me luck!

I then drove home (30 minutes) and ran 5 miles, beating my most recent distance of 4 miles from 4 days ago and my last time of 4 miles in 41 minutes.  My new running goal is 3 miles in 20 minutes.

Swim: 40 laps, non-stop in 26.75 min.

Run: 5 miles in 48.5 min.