If at first you don't succeed . . . Tri Tri again

The Metrics:

498      =  The number of fellow competitors at the Graniteman.

60        =  Total ounces of Gatorade consumed during race.  

19        =  Weeks we've spent training for the event.

0          =  People who thought it was a good idea to move the day after the Tri.

 ----------------------------------------

Hiyo all! For this weeks post I (Dan) am taking the helm.  Something you will be seeing more of over the next months, as Whitney and I will be trading off on writing the blog to keep you abreast of the goings on on both sides of the Pacific. So prepare yourselves for the anachronistic word choices and run on sentences which are the hallmark of my writing . . . in other words: flee while you still can.  Onward to all things Triathlon!

As most of you already know, Whitney and I competed this past week in our first ever Sprint Triathlon, the Graniteman in Clearwater Minnesota. For the prior 19 weeks we had worked our way from couch to tri, working out 5 days a week.  While we have worked hard for the past 4 years to lose weight and generally improve our health, I'm going to take a moment and attempt to put into perspective just how far we came during our training, and just how crazy an idea training this event seemed at the onset.   Back in March, the last time I had run more than a mile without walking was Freshman year in High School . . . 17 years ago.  Never in my life had I swam more than a handful of laps without stopping. And though I started bike commuting this past fall, I never had to go more than 8 miles in a jaunt and speed was not of the essence.  I know it was much the same for Whitney.

Whit helped me take a photo a week during the course of our training, here is a snapshot of the progress I made from week 1-18.

By the time last Saturday rolled around, we were able to swim .46 miles, bike 15, and run 3.2 . . . Now we just needed to see if we could do them consecutively.

We made the last major leg of the Great Schlep on Friday driving 9 hours from Peoria up to St. Cloud, the nearest major town to Clearwater.  We stopped by Warner Park (the race venue) en route to pick up our race packs, which included some swag, various scientific experiments pretending to be food, more ads than you can shake a stick at, and most importantly our race bibs and timing chips. 

This last item probably deserves a bit of explanation.

Triathlons are pretty high-tech nowadays.  While there are still people with stopwatches writing down peoples numbers as they enter each phase of the race, all competitors also where a neoprene anklet with a timing chip in it.  This each chip has a signal unique to each racer which is tracked as they cross mats placed at the entrance and exit of the transition area.  Ultimately this allows for some pretty neat data parsing, as shown below.

So much data!

After checking in at the hotel, we gorged on carbs, went over our gear for the umpteenth time, and then turned in for a fitful 6 hours of sleep . . . Yeah did I mention that we had to get to the race site at 6 a.m. to set up our transitions?

This is a pic of our transitions.  The towels aren't strictly necessary, but many people use them to help define their area.  While hypothetically you could make a mad dash for the port-a-potty in between the swim and the run, it's not going to do much to help your time.  So you need to have everything you will need for all 3 events as easily accessible as possible.

My transition area!

For the first transition (swim to bike), in addition to my bike, I've got a water bottle to wash the grit from my feet following the sprint from the lakes edge to the transition area, a towel to remove a bit of excess water, socks and my bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses, my shirt with race bib already pinned on, and a bit of food (in this case, a cliff bar), and gatorade in the bottle on my bike.  The second transition is easier as I just have to drop off my helmet, rack my bike, swap shoes, and grab my palm holder.  We practiced our transitions a few times in the weeks leading up to the event, and it definitely made it a less stressful experience on race day.  Since, with 500 participants, things were definitely hectic.

This was still about 45 minutes pre-race, so you can imagine what it looked like once everyone was there.

In addition to setting up our areas, we also had to get our numbers painted on.

There was a brief meeting with the race officials outlining rules and the course and then we made the trek to the other side of the lake for the first event.

This is a shot of our swim course from the perspective of the finish.  There were buoys all the way across for guidance and safety, in addition to half a dozen race monitors on kayaks and row boats.

In spite of having swum the distance numerous times both in the pool and in the ocean, the differences on race day got the better of me during the race.  I was part of the first wave following the elite wave, which means my wave 2 compatriots were expected to be fast.  Between unintentionally pacing myself off faster swimmers and the adrenaline of the moment I found I couldn't get my breath under me.  By about two thirds of the way across the lake I had to swim to a row boat to catch my breath.  Fortunately you are allowed to use the buoys or boats for this purpose with no penalty, save the time you lose by not swimming, provided you don't attempt to move forward while holding on.  After a 30 second pause I was back on track and made to the other side just fine.

For most triathlons, the transition area is pretty much on the bank of whatever body of water is being used for the swimming.  In the case of the Graniteman, we had a solid 150 yard dash between the water and our bikes.

If you squint you can almost see the bikes off in the distance.

I did my best to shake off the bad juju from the swim as I made my way to my transition and I was able to make it out onto the roads on my bike in under 3 minutes, which seemed pretty good considering the jog involved.

The bike course was a 15+ mile ride on county highways, and once I managed to get beyond the fact that I was getting passed like I was standing still by a blur of Lycra on a vehicle that more closely resembles a spaceship than a bicycle, I would go so far as to say it was enjoyable! In the end I set a faster time than I had in my practices, so all was well.

Lastly we were on to my least favorite of the three events, the run.  After swapping out my shoes I headed back out of the transition area on an "out and back" course with a fair mix of trails and asphalt.

Do I really have to?

One of the many, incredibly nice people we met at the event held our camera for me during the race and he even tried to snap a photo of me as I came across the finish line . . .

See the foot blurring toward the finish line on the left? Yeah that's me.

. . . but I was just too damn fast.  That or our camera sucks, but I'm opting for the first explanation :).

Thanks to his generosity though, I was able to get a decent pic of Whit making her final approach.

In the end we both finished, and even hit our goals as far as overall time.  The whole experience was immensely rewarding and I think we are both interested in doing more sprints in the future.

Our t-shirts, medals, and numbers.

Well it's getting late and I should probably stop typing at you and help Whitney unpack the new apartment.  With the move and Whit's departure looming close there will be plenty more to cover in the upcoming weeks. 

Thanks for reading!
DW