Happy Birthday

Well, 24 years young today.  Things have kind of been going well, I guess.  Have been keeping up mostly with my swimming, although the pool was closed on the fourth through sixth since a pipe broke.  The bike and run slacked off a bit last week, since I just lost a lot of my motivation for whatever reason.  Imbalance in life, I believe.  I am discovering that to train well, I have to pay particular attention meeting my personal needs (mental and emotional) in a much smaller time frame than normal.  That is really half of the battle for me now.  Had a good birthday, with many phone calls from friends that really made the day wonderful, glad to be back on track!

Florida Half-Ironman Trip Report

Kinda.  New plan is to post trip reports here then just cut-paste into the season summary up top. 

Florida doesn’t look like a long way on a map, but the drive felt like an eternity (8 hours).  Up side was that my dad went with me, so we got to split up the drive.  That would become a true blessing a few days later!  The event is held at Disney World, and it was a perfect venue!  The logistics of having such a big crowd was handled wonderfully, and even though there were tons of people around there was no crowding of the course anywhere as a result!  Of course the local boys in blue were out making sure we were kept safely out of harm’s way, and I think that every one of those guys that gives their time for a race deserves a huge thanks, so if you race give them a big hearty thank-you next time you see them out there!  Trust me, you will gain more energy knowing you made somebody’s day than you will lose in oxygen. 

We got all set up in our hotel, then went out and drove the bike course.  Amazingly they found both big hills in Orlando, and made us ride right over them!  We also got registration out of the way, eyeballed all the really expensive merchandise at the vendor tents.  I tried hitting Clif Bar up for some more free trial sizes (to no avail) which are wonderful on long training rides.  I got to swim in an endless pool, which was really neat since I never had to do a (admittedly horrible) flip turn.  The next day we came by and did bike check in and hung out for the Pro panel featuring Tim DeBoom and Karen Smyers.  I got to hang out with them both for a bit, which was total tri-geek heaven!  Then it was back to the hotel for an early dinner and some shut-eye.

 Sleep came surprisingly early that night, and I was up at 3:30 ready to go!  We arrived on the second bus in, and I was quickly set up and ready for racing.  I had already eaten my last meal by four, and I got body-marked and took an hour of easy stretching before making it down to the water for my wave start.  As the fourth group in the water, it was a pretty open pool when I got started, and I made a conscious effort to pace myself and try drafting off of someone.  For future note, drafting only works if the person you are following knows where they are going.  I tried to be nice and give folks room, but eventually I just had to pick my line and ignore everybody else’s tendancies to go off into their own section of lake.  Half way through the swim, a stray hand removed my goggles for me, so I got some extra backstroke practice (extra meaning I had not done any up to this point, ever).  Near the end of the swim I finally got some good feet to follow for a while, and when I came out of the water I was ready to swim the course in reverse just for fun!  1900 meters – 39:42 (Goal, under 40, achieved). Easy swim.

Took my time in transition (9:09), wanted to make sure my feet didn’t suffer any more damage than they were going to have to.  Could have cut five minutes off transition here, and I will next time, but I was more concerned about just finishing than anything else and I knew my day could become really horrible if I got a blister three miles into the run because I left some grit on my feet.  The bike was a lot of fun, although rather crowded at times.  I was probably right in the main pack, so I spent most of my time staying aware of other riders around me.  It made the time go by fast, although I might not have ridden as well as I could.  The hills were really just enough to break up the monotony of flying down the road at 20 mph (which I love doing, by the way).  56 mile ride – 2:59:30 (Goal, under 3:00, achieved).

Still felt good, and made a fairly quick transition (3:56).  The first four miles of the run were nice.  The next nine were hell.  After about mile four I could feel my stomach bloating, and running was creating a huge sensation of pressure under my diaphragm.  By mile seven it reduced me from a consistent sub-ten minute mile to a slow walk.  I don’t know exactly what caused it, whether it was the severe heat and sun that I had not had an opportunity to train in yet or the stronger-than-I-am-accustomed-to Gatorade on course (mine is usually a bit diluted), but I was hurting.  Also at this time I realized that my cardio was certainly up to the task, but my muscles were not.  I never sucked wind on the entire run, but my legs went to lead.  I walked miles 7 to 8.5, hitting two aid stations for water only, as Karen Smyers had recommended the day before at the pro-panel.  My stomach came back under control, and I took on some Gatorade as I stretched out well at the next aid station.  From here to the end of the race myself and another age grouper took turns motivating each other to keep the pace up, and it worked well.  Some moments he was down, and I could give come encouragement, and others he helped me pull through.  Somtimes it just sucked for both of us and we at least knew somebody else was hurting too!  Finally we crossed the line, and it was all good!  13.1 mile run – 2:39:46 (Goal – under 2:00 – dismally not achieved!).  Glad to have been done with that run!

I got my finisher’s medal, cooled off in the lake, and then walked out with my dad.  It had been a wonderful day, with my first goal in triathlon having been accomplished, becoming an Ironman.  Showered at the hotel, then I slept the entire ride back.  Then I slept when I got home.  Glad my dad could put up with driving the whole way for me, I was in no condition to drive!  We are in mutual agreement, however, next time we stay an extra night.

Who knew I could wrestle, too?

That is to say, with photoshop, for two hours.  But, now I like the header for the page.  Text coming later, but for now I am going to just admire the editing.  I know this could have been done in about twenty minutes by anybody who knew what they were doing, but that is not me, and it really did take about twenty minutes of work to do.  It just took an hour and forty minutes of figuring out how to make it do what I wanted so I could do twenty minutes of work.  Oh well, I guess that’s why I don’t do that kind of work.  Oh, and I swam today, a lot, two hours.  Tomorrow is a day off, but I’m not too excited about that.  I want to workout and get better, but I know rest is good.  Long post about nothing much, sorry!