Pre-Race:
The Family and I drove up to Perham Friday afternoon to stay and visit some good friends of ours. Perham is only about a 20 minute drive from Detroit Lakes (DL) which is where the Young Life Triathlon was. In fact, one of the reasons I chose the Young Life Triathlon was to spend the weekend with our friends. The night before the race my allergies were kicking into high gear and I slept poorly on a new (although not uncomfortable) bed.
The alarm went off without a hitch at 5:45 and I was out the door by 6:20. The morning was cold and overcast and windy. Arriving at DL I had plenty of time to get my gear situated and there was still plenty of space on the racks for my bike. I then checked in and got marked up. Unlike the Buffalo Tri this race was much smaller, I was in heat #4 which consisted of all short course men. The pre-race swim instructions were simply to swim around the first buoy and back counter clockwise. 'Simple enough', I thought as I looked at the first buoy which didn't seem very far.
The Swim (18:35):
I expected the swim to be about 10-12 minutes and as you can see something went terribly wrong. As I watched the first 3 heats go off I spent my time adjusting my swim cap and goggles, and did not really look at the buoy until just before our heat went off, I looked up then and noticed that it had moved significantly farther from the shore. Then we were off. There was no dolphin diving to speak of as the ground took a sharp dive and after a few stroke I found myself swimming in huge waves that were relentless. I swallowed gulps of water, but managed to keep my stroke somewhat smooth. It was as if there were speed boats running along side of us. I just kept swimming and swimming wondering when the heck I would get to that dang buoy! As I look at the results the Short Course Winner averaged only 1:59 per 100 yards. At Buffalo I averaged 1:43 and was only in the top 1/3. I noticed that this same athlete was in the Green Lake Tri a week earlier and did the Olympic distance averaging 0:47 per 100 yards. That should tell you that it wasn't just me, and even with the waves the distance must have been off.
T1 (4:33):
I was beat from the swim, and most suprizingly my legs were tired. I didn't even realize I was using my legs! I saw the family cheering me on through the transition and pushed myself through. I was bloated from swallowing lake watter and skipped the gel shot I was planning on taking, forced myself to swallow a little Gatorade Propel and got myself ready for the bike almost :30 faster than Buffalo (A small bright spot).
Bike (42:46):
By this point I am tired and discouraged, but determined to pull this thing though, so I pedal. The winds that made the lake unbearable were somewhat manageable on the bike, but certainly not helpful in any way. I started biking and no mater how hard I push my speed is just not there. I have had training runs much faster than this and I am being passed left and right. As I struggle up a hill (there was a few, but not nearly as many or as steep as Buffalo) I notice my front tire is quite low on air. Now Why didn't I check that! Must be the colder weather causing the air pressure to be lower in my tires. Nothing I can do at that point but to push through it again.
T2 (1:06):
Family cheering me on I push into T2 and transition quickly to the run :20 seconds faster than Buffalo. Smooth in and out.
Run (24:20):
Only three miles left, I am determined push through to the end. Of the three this was my best leg and I was passing more than getting passed at this point. The legs still had a bit left in them and at the turn around point I walked through the water stop and pushed it home. My time was still slower than Buffalo here, and I can only say that I suppose I did not push myself to the limit feeling poorly about my race so far, but I did not quit and my time, although not stellar, is respectable here and the best of the three legs. Final Time: 1:31:18
After doing this race and performing the way I did, I want to have another crack at a Tri yet this year. I don't know if there is time left in the season, but if I find one where my sister Audrey (who completed her first tri Sunday in St Paul and did much better than I) and I can both participate, I may have to do that to avenge this race.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Young Life Triathlon
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Equipment Failure
Maybe I should see what type of took kits are available that can be mounted to a bike? I would hate for something like that to happen on a Race
Monday, July 23, 2007
Pimp my Ride
When I started taking up this triathlon thing earlier this year I was smart enough to know that I would actually need a bike. 'What's a bike cost?' I thought $200? $300? I'll just go down to the local bike shop and see what I need to do. Now you may laugh (as I'm sure the proprietor of the store was, at least to himself) but I found that 'Road' bikes start around $700 and go up to, well they'll go as high as you want to pay for one. I'm sure that there are a number of racers out there who have bikes that cost more than your typical Harley-Davidson Motorcycle. In any case, being new to the sport and not knowing if I was going to pursue it very long (and knowing that neither my wife or I had a bike that was worth its weight in scrap metal), I went the practical (and more cost efficient) route. The result is the bike pictured here made by Giant. It is what they call a Hybrid, sort of a cross between a road bike and a Mountain bike. It is a bike that both my Wife and I can ride and if in the future (that would be the very distant future) I decide to get a 'real' road bike, this one will still be put to good use.
After riding this bike for a while (I've got about 250 miles on it now) it became apparent that sitting in the standard position while cruising along at 16-25+mph for any length of time was very uncomfortable not to mention un-aerodynamic. So, I decided I needed to get a set of Aerobars. Aerobars, I discovered as I brought my bike into the local bike shop again, also could be very expensive (you could spend as much as I did for my bike for a pair). So I said in my frugalness, "I'll take the cheapest pair you got"
The aerobars were installed (pictured here) and after making some adjustments to the handle bars and the seat, so that I could use the aerobars easily, I went out for my first ride with them. I was quite amazed how much better the ride went. It was a little 8 mile jaunt, but I cruised through it and even though it was quite windy out (which would have normally slowed me down to a crawl) I was still able to maintain a decent speed and easily made my best time on that route.
And while I am on it, my knee felt good during the ride as well. I could tell that I need to do a little more rehab work on it as the knee cap clicked a little (something that happened after the surgery and went away as I strengthen it), but I am making good progress on my mystery injury and hope to start running again this weekend.
One more picture just because Belle and Zach didn't want to be left out:
Thursday, July 19, 2007
At Least There's Cross Training
As I posted earlier, I did something nasty to my left knee over the weekend. It has been swollen and stiff most of the all week. (In case you were wondering this is the same knee I had ACL reconstructive surgery on in 2003, but I have had no issues with it since) My evenings have seen me propped on the couch with an ice bag over it trying to reduce the swelling. Biking in this condition would be problematic and running is right out, however I managed to make it to the YMCA last night and I put in a good 1800 yards without issue. That's one great thing about moving from strictly running to triathlons, in the past I would have simply stopped all training, now I should have a sport I can do even if I have an injury or otherwise need to put one sport on hold.
This morning I can tell that the knee is improving and I may be able to bike this weekend, but I will not run until I have confident that my knee will be able to withstand the pounding. I will need my knee not only for the Detroit Lakes Tri, but my sisters and I are in the Lottery for the Twin Cities 10 Mile run on Oct 7th. We will find out tomorrow if we were selected.
Update: It looks like my sisters and I are in the TC10! 11 weeks left to train.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Outch
I did something to my left knee Saturday and Sunday it was swollen all day. I am not exactly sure what it was but I spend a good deal of Sunday evening icing it and today (Monday) it is still quite swollen and stiff. Although Saturday was a busy day, the only workout I did was a 6 mile run and I don't recall any pain during the run.
So for now I will lay off the knee, and am probably relegated to swimming until it feels up to par again. I wish that I at least knew what I did to it. It's one thing to know what you did to cause an injury so you can realize what foolish thing you did and avoid it in the future. Not knowing just leaves you frustrated, but I'm sure I will be better in a day or so.
Monday, June 18, 2007
"There's this Triathlon thingy...
...going on at the YMCA" my fetching wife says to me as she comes home from the gym the other day. "O, Yeah?" I said, thinking that I could throw that into my training for the sprint Detroit Lakes tri in August. "yes" she says, "I think it is like 2.5 miles swimming, 112 miles biking and a marathon running".
"Ah, honey. that's a Ironman" I reply. I have absolutely no desire to complete an Ironman. I mean that's for the real crazy people, not for the only mildly crazy ones who might actually have a family and a job and soccer coaching and.. well you get the idea. I am perfectly happy competing in Sprints with possibly an occasional Olympic Distance Tri thrown in every once in a while for good measure. Heck she has been a bit paranoid that I might start training for another marathon, thinking I would be unavailable for anything else for at least 18 weeks.
"Yes, but you get to do this over 5 days" She retorts. Now I start thinking. Five days? could this be done? The quick calculation in my head goes directly to the run. Even if I manage to do the swimming and biking it the first three days, I'd still have to run back-to-back Half marathons to finish it off.
"Nah, that doesn't sound any fun. I'm really surprised that they are even doing something like that" and the conversation ends with something like that.
Now, I can't just drop a thing like that and for the rest of the day I am mulling the idea in my head. What If I stretched out the run over a few more of the days? If I trained real hard I might just be able to pull it off. I have to go to the Y tomorrow for my swim so I'll take a look at it myself.
The next day I bike up to the Y for my swim and find a flier for the 'Tri' my fetching wife was referring to and she was 'just a little' off on the time frame. They were calling it the Lazy man's Triathlon, and it wasn't 5 days it was 5 weeks! I had better do that much in 5 weeks! Heck I probably have that much done in the last 5 weeks and that includes taper (way more taper than my program called for) and post race rest (again more than I needed, yes I am lazy, that part of the 'event' I am cut out for). So checking my training log over the last 5 weeks I have 2.6 Miles Swimming, 112.7 Miles Biking, 47.8 Miles Running. Whew! I made it. With my training ramping up now and as long as my motivation doesn't really tank I will make the "Lazy Man's triathlon" when it starts in July without even thinking about it. Not that I will care.
But still an Ironman in 5 days. Hmmm. That is an intriguing idea....
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Buffalo Triathlon Race Report
The race was June 3rd in Buffalo, MN. This was my first tri ever 400yd Swim, 13Mi Bike, 3Mi Run and I finished in 1:26:59
First off this was a GREAT race. I enjoyed it immensely and will most likely do many more Tri's in the future. Thus I recently switched from coolrunning.com to BuckeyeOutdoors.com for logging because BuckeyeOutdoors has better tri logging capabilities (and built in linking to blogs!)
There were several people from my work in the race (the tall bald one is Ben who was the guy who talked me into doing a tri in the first place) As you can see from the picture everyone at my work was very happy pre-race (I am the one in yellow).
Pre-Race:
I woke up around 4:30 in the morning so as to arrive there early. Everyone told me how important it was to arrive early to do all the 'set up' and not feel rushed. I had a piece of toast and a cup of coffee and my father picked me up at 5AM to load my bike and take the hour drive to Buffalo. It rained most of the way out there, but we were expecting (or at least hoping) it to clear up.
We arrived around 6:15 (the rain had stopped) and I set up my bike and got my packed and was marker-ed up with my numbers (745). I was one of the earliest ones to arrive and had no lines and any place I wanted to put my bike. then I basically waited about 2 hours, but didn't feel too bored as the rest of my friends arrived we talked strategy and such. Mostly I just wanted to get things started, I was a bit nervous and must have gone to the bathroom about 5 times while waiting for the race to start.
with about 15min before the first heat was to start we headed down to the lake and got acclimated to the water. It was a good thing too as the water was freezing until I got used to it. someone had some anti-fog and I desperately needed it because my goggles were fogging up like crazy although I have never noticed it before. Probably because I always swam inside. The water felt real good after a few warm up strokes and then we were told we had to get out as the really good people were on their way in.
I lined up waiting for my heat to be called (14) and waited...
The Swim (7:32):
I was told to start in the back and just wait until people were out of the way to start to avoid traffic. This is not something that I can do very well. I mean is this a race or not? So I did the worst thing I could have done and started smack dab in the middle because I was afraid of getting trampled if I started in the front. I will not make this mistake again, but it's not as if I was in danger of my life or anything, I just would have been better positioned in the front as I am already better than a majority of triathletes at swimming.
Just before the gun (or whatever it was, I don't really remember) I herd someone calling 'FRANK!' I turned around but saw literally hundreds of anonymous people and couldn't focus on any one of them. 'My wife and kids were running behind and they can't possibly be here yet so it must be another Frank in my heat' I thought. and re-focused on the start. It turns out it was my fetching wife who arrived just in time. BANG! off we were. I ran for a little ways, just until I had enough watter to swim in and started swimming. This too was a mistake. someone was running right next to me and for several strokes we kept the same pace. I thought that this was really stupid that I am swimming while he/she is wadding at the same pace. Next time I'll do dolphin dives until it is too deep.
The rest of the swim was fine except I had to strain to keep my head up to breathe and figure out where the heck I was supposed to be going. for the next few days my neck would be sore because of this. I ended up catching several people from the heat before mine (they left 2:00min earlier) and did dolphin dives once it was shallow again.
T1 (5:00):
Once I was out of the watter I felt light headed from the swim and quite a bit more tired than I thought I would. I sort of ran/jogged up, up, up, to the Transition area and on the way saw the Wife and kids cheering me on. That was real cool. Once there I proceeded to get my biking/running gear on in a hurry. While I started doing this Ben (who left it the heat before mine) arrived and told me to slow it down and take a breather. I knew he was right and I would have little energy for the bike if I didn't get my heart rate down. So I sat down, washed off my feet and got ready for the bike.
Bike (49:31):
Man were there a ton of hills on this. I was going 25-35mph down and 6-10mph up. This really surprised me. I knew that the race was hilly, but I was not prepared for the number and size of the hills. Biking is my weak point anyway and the hills were no help. Ben passed me early on the bike and we went back and forth a few times until he passed me for good around mile 8-9. about mile 10 my left calf started acting up and I knew I had to relax a bit or there would be nothing left for the run.
As I rounded the corner of the final stretch I saw the family cheering again.
T2 (1:27):
Getting off the bike and running to the bike spot was difficult, but I caught up with Ben in the transition and we started the run together. This transition went smooth and fast.
Run (23:32):
This is probably my best part of the tri. I moved ahead of Ben early and saw him shortly after the turn around (it was an out-and-back run) I did not expect to run this as fast as I did after the first two events. Although it was by no means easy. My legs kept screaming at me to stop but I was determined to go as fast as I could until I died or they fell off. Fortunately neither happened and i finished with a 7:50 min/Mi pace
Post Race:
After waiting at the finish for a few minutes for Ben to finish my family found me and congratulated me. again.. cool. Ben went to the water to cool off, but I didn't feel too hot and stayed with the family. I was going to find the rest of my co-workers and wait until the slower ones finished the race, but then the rain started pouring and with the baby and the rest of the kids that was not going to work so we took off early and went to get something to eat.
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