Some guys never learn

Guys like me, of course. In July I went into a triathlon having only been in the water twice before, and having run a total of about 10km before the event. It hurt, I wasn't particularly fast, and I wanted to be better prepared for the next one in August.

August 18th. I seriously considered bowing out of this one 'cause I wasn't ready. I had done even less than I did for the Magrath one! I hadn't been in the water once since Magrath. I hadn't run once since Magrath. And my biking time was, well - I think I got out once /week. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting very big things from this one. I decided to do it anyway for 2 reasons. One, I'd already paid the non-refundable entrance fee and figured if I was gonna pay to suffer I was gonna get my money's worth. And two, my twin boys were entered and there was no way I was gonna bow out in front of them.

The scheduling was set up so that I should be able to be done before they started and so I'd get to watch all of their race. I was looking forward to that!

As we were lining up for our start times at the pool I chatted with the others whose expected swim times were close to mine. I was gonna be sharing a lane with a lady who looked pretty out of shape (look who's talking, right?), but she mentioned that she'd completed a half marathon the week before. At least she'd been running!

Finally we hit the water. I konw I'm not going to be able to hammer through this, so I've decided to alternate one length front crawl with one length breast stroke. My lane partner slowly starts to pull ahead of me. (Her name is Dawn.) I see Dawn get out of the water and figure she'd got about 4 lengths on me. I guess I must have lost count, 'cause suddenly there's the kickboard in the water in front of me and my counter is yelling "last lap" - I turn and go hard for the last lap. I'm a little surprised at how much strength I feel I have. I should work at this swimming thing... I'm out of the water in just over 38 minutes. 1500 meters in 38 minutes. Winning time was 20 minutes.

My transition goes pretty good, and I'm off and on the bike. I look down at my HR and am surprised to see it so high so quickly. Oh well, it's nowhere near the red zone right now, so I stay down in the bars and pound it out. 5 km out I catch up to Dawn and pass her. Now the climbing. I can see lots of guys in front of me. One of the really nice things about staggered swim starts is that there's always rabbits in front of me to chase on the bike. I really pour it on during the climbs.

This bike course is really hilly. There's one particularly brutal climb of about 3 km averaging 7% with kicks up to 10%. On a TT bike it REALLY hurts. But, I'm reeling in lots of folks because of it. I can see one of my Headwinds bike club buddies up ahead. His name is Don and he's a good guy - at Magrath he did just the sprint, and then for the last km or so of the run came down to pace me in. I pass him just before the turn around. He had about 6 minutes on me out of the water, so I've made up good time.

After the turn around I want to recover a little - so I ease off slightly. Don comes around me, and as he goes by mockingly calls out, "hey, slacker! Give too much to catch me?" That's all it takes. We're at the bottom of a hill and I stand and hammer hard. I pass him and start pushing for every second I can find. There's more people in front and I start reeling them in, too. I'm feeling pretty good on the bike, and know I'm making up lots of time - good thing, 'cause I know I'm gonna need this gap on the run.

I finally hit the transition area again. My bike computer says 1:11 - not a bad time for this 40km. Later I learn that there were only 4 guys faster than me on the bike - and all 4 of them placed 1,2,3,4 overall. My official time is 1:17 - a total of about 6 minutes of transition time.

The first kilometer of the run was extremely painful. Both calf muscles were cramping badly. I got to the water station a km 1 and took up after cup of water and dumped it on my calves. Cramping went away and I was off. My goad is just a 10km/hr average, as I know I pretty much suck at running. This 10k will make about 30km total running for the year. I used to really enjoy running, and there was a time I turned in 40 minutes 10k's regularly.

I finish lap 1 (5km0 and see Don coming up not too far behind me, I call out to him and we share a bit of a laugh. He catches me at the 6km mark and settles in beside me. What a guy! He's gonna pace me the rest of the way in. We are chatting, which is kind of amazing that I can talk this freely, as my HR is over 170 with a couple of jumps in the mid 170's. With 1.5km to go a friend doing the sprint distance passes us. He chastises us for talking too much and not running hard enough - my HR is at 179.

With 1km to go Don says, "ok, we'll hold this pace 'til the corner, and then kick it up for the final straight away." I agree and when we turn the corner we speed up - it's a bit of a down-hill. With a little over a block to go he kicks it up again - I tell him to go ahead, my HR is at 182 and I don't feel I have anything left. He takes off for the finish. With 100m left I feel that maybe I can close it up, and push myself to sprint hard. I hit 19.8km/hr, and my HR goes to 186, but I catch Don at the line and we cross together. My run time comes in at 59:46 - just under the one hour mark. I broke 3 hours by about 5 minutes.

There's so much room for improvement in the swimming and running that I really think it's possible for me to break 2:45 next year. Just getting strong enough to swim front crawl the whole 1.5km will shave a few minutes off. Transition is another area I know I can shave a couple of minutes off. And, finally, the run. I know I can get my run time down to the 50 minute range. This is the single greatest area I can improve in.