I was tapered, packed and ready to go. In fact I even had a friend that was traveling with me. However without a baby sitter and a major chaos I felt really bad about leaving the house for 4 days. Anytime you have 2 little kids the unpredictable happens. I was really bummed out but I am sure the stress level would have been too much had I gone down to Texas.
So what to do now? I got on the internet Friday night and noticed this Olympic distance race called the “Loveland Lake to Lake Triathlon”. The race site is about 20 minutes from Boulder but the race is tomorrow on Saturday. The web site said “no race day registration” I called the race director about 9:45 PM and got the voice mail. Surely the race director would have no time to answer the call the night before the race. Usually race directors are so busy they have to stay up late working at the race site. Well, the phone rang 30 minutes later and Peggy the race director let me in. That was so nice. The one challenge was that I had to show up at the race site at 5:00 AM to fill out the waiver.
The good thing was that I was packed. So I went to bed as soon as possible and set the alarm for 3:00 AM. It is a 2 hour drive to the race site.
The alarm went off and I jumped. I got in about 3 hours of sleep but I did sleep well the night before. Hey I am at least getting a race in. In fact this may work out well. I did a sprint, now I am getting in an Olympic and after this experience I plan to have all organized at the house before I go to the Vineman half.
The whole race morning was a rush. From driving 80 MPH on the Highway to registration to getting my transition area ready. There was not one second to waste. I got it all in but missed my usual 10 minute warm up jog. I rode my bike and got in a really good swim warm up. My wave was all men 45 and older. That was good for me. Swimming being my strength meant I will surely know where I stood for the entire race. A friend of mine standing next to me said. “You are going to win this”, I replied. “I doubt it, there is always someone” and the gun went off 5 seconds later.
This swim was really fun. The first 50 yards were shallow and you can walk it, many did just that. However, I can swim faster that I can walk so I started swimming. The guy next to me was walking for about 20 yards and I was pulling away. I was cracking up! At first I was alone and I thought, great I have clear water! But then all of a sudden one guy goes by and swims ahead of me. I immediately got on his feet but then he slow down so I went around him and he was literally gone. I looked back and he was no where in sight. That was weird. Not more than a minute later as we got closer to the first buoy another guy goes by but this time he was going way too fast for me to get on his feet. So I let him go. But just as before I noticed he was slowing down near the turn around and I made up the 10 or so yards he had on me. I tried to go around him and he fought me to the turn. We were all over each other. If you are dying already why don’t you just sit on my feet and rest a little instead of fighting me to the turn. Idiot! We are not winning this thing in the swim. So right after the turnaround buoy I sat on his feet. I literally had to take it easy as to not swim over him a few times. But I rested and get mentally prepared for the bike. As the swim went along there was no one else around other than all the slower swimmers we were passing from the waves in front. With about 50 yards to go the crowd at the swim finish was too much so I took my own line to the finish and passed the guy. Again the water was shallow so I did the jumps off the bottom and was first out. I took a quick look at my swim partner and we exchanged looks. He did not look very good.
Well the swim is over and I am in the lead, so far so good. Transition 1 was fast and I was on my way. I looked at my HR monitor and my hear rate is in the 170´s. That is not ideal but I feel good. So we will see. The bike ride for this Olympic race is a tough one. Not only is it 30 miles. It also includes a good deal of climbing. Good cyclists will have a huge advantage on this race. My 2 small sprint races showed that my cycling was not up to par and for the first 10 miles or so today the indication was similar. I had too many cyclists passing me. Granted some of these guys are younger and I passed them on the swim but still. If I want to be at the National level on my age group I can not have this many cyclist passing me on the bike no matter how old they are. Finally at about mile 12 or so the first cyclist in my age group passed me. He looked like the real deal. Very fit looking and aero. His bike was swaying a bit too much for my liking so perhaps he is putting too much effort on the bike. In the end 2 more guys in my age group passed me and countless younger ones. That was not good but I stayed positive for the run.
My run fitness is really good now but my only drawback is my cramps that happen when I run. I hydrated real well on the bike with the Mark Allen Fluid Energizer and even took salt tablets on the bike. The only thing I did not do was bring some tablets for the run. Next time I will have some in my pocket. My plan was to take the ones from my bike bento box but I forgot. The first 5 minutes went well, but surely enough the hamstrings starting twitching just a bit. This happened anytime I picked up the pace. So I had to stop and stretch then for 5 seconds or so. One more guy in my age group passed me. I usually work these cramps out and they feel better later in the run. So I took it easy and tried to stay fluid. What really sucked was that I felt really good but could not push so as to keep my hamstrings from complaining. I drank as much Gatorade as possible. I was in 5th place now. I checked the guys at the turnaround of the out and back run. I could not spot 1st or 2nd but saw 3rth and 4th. They had about a minute on me. So I picked it up just a tad and started clocking the guy in front of me. I made 15 seconds back in one mile. Then with a mile to go I passed him. One guy from an earlier wave decided to use me as his pacer. He was on my tail the whole way. At first it was bugging me but then I started a conversation with the guy. He was nice. But then he says. “I would be afraid to find out how fast you can run if you lost 20 pounds”. Mmmm, I’ll take that as a compliment. So I ran with him easy thinking I could not catch any more guys. But with less than a mile to go I spotted the guy in third. I told my running companion that I had to go. I caught up to this guy and surged passed him to make sure he did not get any ideas. The last thing I want to do is sprint with these hamstrings. I got about 10 yards on him and right before the last 100 yards I stopped for one final stretch of the hamstrings and crossed the line in third. I was sort of happy about it but realistically I have a lot of work to do on the bike and on nutrition to figure out the cramping. I am also hoping that in a longer race with the intensity down a notch I would do better. Nobody said this journey was going to be easy.
I spoke with Mark Allen after the race and we have some ideas. We are thinking that living at 9000 feet were it is really dry is causing long term dehydration. So my main goal is to drink lots of water constantly during the day. Finally I am back to taking TriGenix. Perhaps I am missing something in my diet that will help me. TriGenix has everything you can possibly need so this will be sort of blanket coverage. Finally I have to concentrate on my bike training and lifting. I am going to get my butt kicked in a national level race on the bike. It will not even be funny. My swim is by far the best in the AG and my run is solid, but my bike is absolutely horrible. I biked well before so I better find it soon. We have other ideas but more on that later.
Turns out the guy I passed close to the finish is married to one on the ladies I coached last year. I had emailed with him before and I recognized his name after the race. I think he reads my Blog sometimes. I talked with him a bit after the race and looks like he had some cramping trouble too. Maybe we can help each other with my findings as I post them. No one has a for sure cure to cramping. Salt tablets during the race which I took help out but all researchers in this topic will tell you that there is no sure fire solution.