JBlog

Link to my bike results.

Overall Results

Age Group Results

This race was a 1000 meter swim, 21 mile bike around the southern half of Rend Lake, and a 5k run along a very nice paved trail.

I stayed in Benton, Illinois at the Super 8 and was awoken at 4:00 AM by, presumably, a drunk person revving his very loud diesel engine outside of my room for a good 5 minutes. It seemed clear that his intent was to wake the sleeping patrons of the motel, and he succeeded in waking at least me. What would make anyone think such a thing is fun is a mystery to me.

Finally, he could be heard to be driving away from the motel and after tossing and turning I think I slept occasionally until I got my wakeup call at 5:45.

I met my dad and his wife Karen in the lobby of the motel and we walked next door to have some breakfast, but when we got to this Mexican restaurant, we found it to be locked with no lights on. After we stood there for a minute, two guys arrived at the restaurant and unlocked it, telling us it would be just a moment and they’d let us in. I didn’t really understand how they could get a restaurant ready to open in “a moment”, but true to their word, they let us in, served some some horrible coffee and passable eggs and oatmeal.

Then I was off to the transition area at Rend Lake. I arrived there shortly after 7:30, checked in, got my cool new black TShirt, set up my bike and accessories in the bike corral, and began to prepare myself mentally for the reality that I would soon be leaving the 46 degree air for 70 degree water and then back out of the water into hopefully slightly warmer air.

I “warmed up” (if such a thing is possible in water that temperature, I don’t know how to do it yet) by swimming a couple hundred yards, then got out of the water for a head count before heading back into the water. When the race began, I was near the front of the pack. I started strong but soon fell behind the fastest swimmer. There were a few elbows and knees thrown here and there, but it was a fairly peaceful swim. I’m still not at all accustomed to swimming in open water. I find it difficult to stay on the stroke for such a long period of time without turning.

I was the 12th person out of the water (about 5 seconds behind an 11 year old boy!) and ran the hundred or so yards to the corral, then proceeded to take 4:36 seconds to prepare to bike. It should have taken me slightly over 2:00, but because I had blistered in my previous tri I wanted to be sure to wear socks. The socks didn’t go on easily as my feet were still wet and the socks were pretty tight. I also threw on a very tight Under Armour shirt that was difficult to pull over wet skin and a cycling wind breaker over that. I had to snap my runner’s belt on, get my helmet and decided whether I wanted to wear my gloves, which I didn’t. So all that took way longer than I wanted it to.

I was finally on the bike, though, and after arguing with the velcro straps on my shoes for a minute or two was able to sneak my feet into my shoes and began to pedal in earnest. I downed about half of my energy gel as soon as I got on the bike and before too long I was passing people. I passed quite a few people on the ride, including one of my old high school buddies and his girlfriend, both of whom had absolutely destroyed me in the water. I caught Jon going over the bridge and then caught Steph about five miles after that. I passed a few more people and then slipped out of the cycling shoes before sailing in to the bike corral.

The run was the best I’ve had of any of the triathlons I’ve done. I somehow managed 8:18 per mile for an overall run time of just over 25 minutes. I was happy with that, but happiest with winning my age group (35-39) and placing 6th overall. A better T1 transition would have had me in 5th place overall, but I’m happy with a top 10 finish.

Swim was 12 fastest
Bike was 3rd fastest
Run was 19th fastest

I met dad and Karen at Cracker Barrel for lunch on the way back to Champaign and gorged myself.

It was a good race!

Tags: last chance, rend lake, Triathlon

Olympic distance triathlon in Neoga, IL.  The swim was in Lake Mattoon and was my first real experience in an open water swim of any distance.  The biggest lesson learned in the swim was that I need clear, fog-free goggles for open water swims.  It was very difficult to spot the pylons, even though they were all traffic-cone orange and rose 10 feet out of the water.  I had to tread water once to clear them and swam a lot of breaststroke to make it easier to spot.  The poor vision really hurt my overall swim as I place 20th in the swim.

The cycling is getting better.  I think I placed 20th overall there.  Just about had a 21 mph average, which isn’t too bad for a solo effort of 25 miles.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/12646399

My goal for the run was to finish it without walking, and while I did do that, I was pretty disappointed in my average speed of over 9 minutes per mile.  I think my run ranked in the 40s.  There were, I think, over 80 triathletes competing in the Olympic distance.

It was great to see an old friend there, Jon Beck.  It’s been close to 20 years since the last time I saw him.  He did the half-Ironman aquabike event and did well there.  I think he was one of the first 10 swimmers out of the water.  He also told me about the Last Chance Triathlon in Rend Lake on October 4, a sprint, and I think I’m going to do that one.

I finished this one 25th overall and 3rd in my age group and was awarded another two foot tall trophy.  I’m not unhappy with my overall result but hope that my run will make some drastic improvements over the next year.

Had a bit of chest pain all through the run, but it went away pretty quickly after I stopped running.

Tags: Great Illini Challenge, Lake Mattoon, Neoga

Got the results for the Lytle Park Sprint Triathlon

Overal Results

Age Group Results

And a photo of myself, Martin and Chris. They finished 4th and 5th, respectively. Martin was the fastest cyclist and Chris was the second fastest runner. I also ran into a woman at ARC today who turned in the third fastest swim time at 4:24. She’s pretty fast.

Tags: Lytle Park, Triathlon

Much more competitive, but still managed 21st overall and 2nd in my age group. Should have finished top 20 but I got confused about where I was supposed to exit the pool and ended up swimming about 20 yards past where I needed to go then had to backtrack to the actual pool exit. Placed an embarrassing 19th in the swim. The cycling was slightly better and I turned in the 16th fastest overall bike time. The overall grade out of Mattoon was slightly downhill but I had a tailwind and was able to maintain a 24-25 mph average. Of course this meant that coming back was a mostly uphill grade into a headwind and I slowed to a 17-18 mph average. The run was awful. I need work. Finished 60th in the run. Obviously if I can work on that leg I’ll improve my overall performance immensely. When I first started I thought I’d have to walk part of it but I somehow found some strength about halfway through the 3 mile run and finished stronger than I thought I could.

Got an enormous trophy for finishing 2nd in the 35-39 age group. Totall time was 1 hour, 11 minutes. Next bike purchase == aero bars.

Bought a belt for my running number so I wouldn’t have to wear a shirt. Pretty sure I’ll go shirtless from now on unless I’m swimming in cold water in which case I’ll probably want to look into a wetsuit of some kind. All in all pleased with the result.

I think some slight chest pain crept up on me toward the end of my run, but nothing like I had last Saturday. Also, today is the first day on my lower dosage of Coreg. Hopefully my heart rhythms stay as they’ve been since I began Coreg theraphy.

Tags: Coreg, Lytle Park, Triathlon

47 (actually 52 but I forgot to turn my Edge on until 5 miles into the ride) @ 20.6 mph.

Flatville

Did OK, I suppose. Somehow I was pulling again when the spring began and gassed myself right out of the gates, so I was probably third from last to pass the town sign. I have to figure out a way to get in the middle of the pack when the sprints begin. epon finished in the top few, I think. He rode strong tonight. I think he was trying to get me on his wheel when the attacks began about 5 miles out from Flatville but I was out of steam at that point and rode back with Dave and the dude on the Klein. Can’t remember Klein-rider’s name, but when I first started riding with Wild Card he was about as squirrelly as me on the bike. His bike handling skills seemed much better tonight.

The chest pain came back for a visit about 5 miles from home, but I also rode a lot harder tonight and haven’t taken the Coreg since around 6:00 this morning. It seems like the chest pain has some correlation to the last time I took the Coreg. Hopefully a reduction in dosage is just what I need to be able to put down sustained efforts without heart discomfort.

Martin suggested that I do the Lytle Park Sprint Triathlon this Saturday in Neoga. It’s a 300 meter pool swim, 12 mile bike and 5K run, so it should be pretty doable for me. I think I’m going to sign up for it as long as Cindy’s OK with it.

Tags: Coreg, Cycling, Flatville, Hammerfest, Lytle Park

Not sure how I did overall, but I placed 4th out of 16 in my age group. Time was 41 minutes and change, which isn’t horrible. Winning time last year was 32 minutes. Learned several ways to decrease the amount of time in transition and I’m sure I can shave off several minutes from both the biking and running portions. All in all pleased with the results.

Tags: Cycling, Running, Triathlon

Well, tomorrow is the big day.  It’s the reason I started running and I’ve been looking forward to it for several months now.  I went this past Wednesday to an open practice session for the lazy river, which is where the first part of the swim event takes place.  I had heard that it was easier to run through it that swim, but I was sure whoever had told me that was full of it.  Sure enough, when I jumped in and started swimming, two younger women ran right past me like it was nothing.  So … I developed a jump-dive technique that seems to work pretty well.  We’ll see how well it works tomorrow.  The flip turns are opposite of the way I’m used to doing them, so that will throw me off a little.  I’m hoping to be able to throw down about a 24 mph avg on the bike and finish the run in 15 minutes.  Hard target is top half of the age group.  Pipe dream is a top 20 overall win, which I know isn’t going to happen … but who knows.    Then it’s off to Wisconsin to watch Ben ski and spend some time with family.