Fading Numbers

It’s been at least several weeks since my last post, which happened to have coincided with the end to my rookie triathlon season.  I guess a great sign that you’re addicted to the sport is the immense depression that accompanies the start of the “off season”.  It was a whirlwind ride to get from point-A to point-B (a sorta couch potato to quarter-ironman in a single season).  I certainly could not have anticipated this dramatic letdown effect that I’ve been forced to face.  With that though, I’m still clinging to one last race, The Seacoast Half Marathon next week (11/14/2010).  Yeah I know, it’s not a “tri”, but it’s my “A” race from a running standpoint.

Reading others’ blogs I have found that I thoroughly enjoy their “race reports”, a written review of how a race went, including preparation (down to how many grams of Vaseline they applied to their toe blisters), nutrition (“I changed the brand of oatmeal I ate in order to gain a competitive edge.”), port-o-potty maps and schedules, in case you still haven’t been able to figure out how to pee in your wetsuit and swim at the same time (I tried.  I couldn’t), descriptions of that sound of a disc wheel blowing by you at 28mph, uphill, by the cyclist wearing the $499 aerodynamic helmet and who’s bike paint and clothing kit match perfectly (yes, I’m jealous), and conversations some runners had with a competitor while sprinting the last quarter-mile to the finish (“I’ve been holding back the whole race.  Are you ready to get your ass handed to you?”).  Seriously though, I learn a great deal from these reports.  I’ve been too caught up in my “Me vs. Me” attitude this season that I think I missed a lot of that sort of thing out on the courses.  Don’t get me wrong, I still pay attention to how I finish within my age-group, after all, I’m a male, so I still have a competitive “spirit” about me.  Whenever a guy passes me I’m looking at their calf for their age.  I want to know where I stand.  I want to get better with each race, each season, and in each sport.  And in essence, as long as I keep beating myself and improving my times, it only stands to reason that I will surpass those who are remaining content in their accomplishments and stagnant in their training.

I’ve decided to do a series of retrospective race reports to reflect upon my first triathlon season. It will include some of the ups, downs, weird moments, inspirational flashes, and other observations along the way, including the rookie mistakes that I made.

I wish I could tell you that I had a plan in preparing for my first season.  Everyone else did (or seemed to).  It’s all I kept reading about, hearing about, and being implored to create.  Well, I didn’t.  What I mean by that is that I didn’t have the next 7 months of my life mapped out on a calendar, with each meter swam, pedal stroke spun, fingertip drill completed, and fartlek run fulfilled.  I was merely trying to be a sponge, enjoy the sport, learn the lingo, and immerse myself in the company of amazing people and families, all in the spirit of fun, health, and life.  I was okay with going “planless”, after all, they were just “short” distances.  I can already feel my attitude about this evolving.  Without a plan fashioned by guidance and experience, I know that I will only go so far on my own before I plateau, and knowing me, this will breed frustration.  I awoke each day knowing “approximately” what I’d be doing for the next several days to a week, based on what race was coming up and how long I had to prepare before it was upon me.  As I discovered weaknesses (at first everything was a weakness), I would alter this “ghost-plan” to improve them.  Example:  Upon comparing my split results from my first two triathlons with others in my age-group, I quickly noticed that all of that work I had put into the pool to learn to swim efficiently the previous 8 months was paying off, but everyone was going 1.5-2.0mph faster than me on the bike, and although my 5k race times per also improving, trying to “run off the bike” was a whole new kind of running that my legs were just not accustomed to.  So, by mid-season I replaced one of my weekly swim workouts with a harder bike workout, and I added a regular bike-run brick workout. Anyway, my basic plan was this in its simplest terms: - when time, life, and schedule permitted, I would alternate swim, bike, run, swim, bike, run, swim, bike, run workouts, etc.  Within that context I would alternate speed and endurance workouts.  Essentially I had only 6 workouts:

1) swim speed (a lot of 50, 100, 200m drills/focus)
2) bike endurance (a single weekly long ride, a lot in aero-position)
3) run speed (fartleks, track, sprints)
4) swim endurance (a single long paced swim)
5) bike speed (quick bursts over short distances, hill repeats)
6) run endurance (as single long paced run, often with negative splits)

I did not assign days or write them on a calendar.  If on Sunday I knew I could plan to be at the pool for 5am before work the next day, I’d do my swim/speed workout on Monday.  If I wasn’t able to find the time to workout Tuesday, but on Wednesday I was able, I’d do a different sport and the opposite type from the previous workout (so, if my previous workout was a swim/speed, my next would have to be either a bike/endurance or run/endurance).  Doesn’t it seem simple?  That’s it.  That’s how I structured my workouts during the season.  For me, during my newbie season (3 sprints and 2 Olympics  --  with five 5k’s and a half marathon thrown in), it’s what worked in my life.  Let it be known that I just signed up for my first Half-Ironman (The Pumpkinman), on 9/11/2011, and I already have in my possession a detailed 5-month training plan to build to that distance that is very specific to my experience and needs.  Like I said, I know I can only go so far being “planless”.  At the “Half” distance, if you want to do well, I think a plan is highly recommended.

Well, it didn’t take long to experience my first few mistakes.  I signed up for 5 triathlons and 6 road races this season, aggressive for a first-timer, but I had nothing to lose and a wealth to gain.  However, I had 3 Sprint distance races with Olympic bookends (Oly, Spr, Spr, Spr, Oly). Neither is recommended (that many races, and starting with an Olympic distance).  Five tris could be justified. Unfortunately, mine were rather clustered together early in the season, then again later on, and this made both training and recovery quite difficult.  I did choose all “local” races though (highly recommended).  By this I mean that it would not be an issue driving to the race the morning of the race if I chose to do so.

The Mooseman Olympic (International) distance race, the first weekend in June, was my first triathlon.  I wanted my first to be an actual “Ironman” sponsored event to get the full effect of the “hugeness” of the sport.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Within 10 miles of the venue you begin seeing the Ironman logo on just about everything.  Once at the venue, it’s inescapable (stickers, key chains, sunglasses, visors, socks, wetsuits, goggles, transition bags, shot glasses, chip clips, bikinis, onesies, disposable diapers, etc.).  Although a morning person by nature, I decided to get a room up near the venue.  The problem is that I made this decision the week before the race.  Bad idea!  “No vacancy” was a theme I encountered about 20 times on the phone and internet during an afternoon of frantic attempts to mitigate my “out of character” poor planning woes.  The room that I booked  was 2 hours north of my house, and 30min past the venue, which just meant that I essentially saved 90min of driving time on race morning.  All to gain 90min of sleep?  Baaaaa!  Yeah right!  “No one sleeps the night before a race,” I was told several times.

I drove up to the venue (Wellington State Park), the day before, so I could pick up my registration race packet, walk the beach, find my bike rack spot, drive the bike and run courses, visit all of the vendors, and take in the entire experience as best as I could.  This isn’t necessary for non-Ironman sponsored events (in my opinion), but this one was, plus it was my first ever triathlon.  Since I heard about that “not sleeping” thing the night before, I decided to skip all of the evening-before activities, dinner, and Q&A sessions with the Pro’s, and just get to my hotel room early and chill.  There is a rule that I kept hearing about for months, “Don’t try anything on race day that you haven’t already tried in training.”  Well, for 4 of my first 5 races, I did, and I usually regretted it.  Lesson learned.  At about 8pm the night before the race, I took half of a Valium, convinced it would be worn off by my 3:45am alarm time.  Well, I don’t think it wore off until about the post race meal.  And it didn’t help me sleep either.  Never again.  

There’s a saying in sports that when you score a touchdown, hit a homerun, or nail a game winning basket, “Act like you’ve been there before.”  I tried.  I really did.  My nervous energy had to have been apparent.  I found myself staring at $8000 bikes, pretending to “talk shop” with the other racers who were setting up their transition areas on either side of me, and feeling awkward about dropping my drawers in front of about a thousand people to get body-marked (the single coolest right of passage for any triathlete). Make no mistake about it, I was scared shitless, but I think I covered it up very well.  Over the next 45min I think I used the port-0-potty about as many times as I checked , double checked, and triple checked my transition set-up.  Nine I think was the final tally on that.  During that time the light sprinkle interrupting the sparse rays of sun was starting to turn into a steady rain from the solid ebony ceiling.  Contemplating the change into my wetsuit, word was spreading that because of a severe weather warning, the start of the swim would be delayed 1 hour.  Packs of athletes began covering their bikes’ handle bars and seats with plastic shopping bags and accessory rain gear (I hadn’t planned that well). While wading through the small ponds and streams that had developed amidst the metallic bike racks, lightning and thunder took over the stage.  Most began seeking shelter.  I hurried to the beach down at the swim start and huddled under some sort of open wooden structure with about a hundred others, right next to a woman wearing an official USAT referee badge around her neck and holding a Blackberry with an animated Doppler display on the screen.  The news wasn’t good.  Although I was standing about 50ft from the water’s edge, it was not visible through the sheet of water engulfing the local airspace.  Standing.  Waiting. Soaked. Discouraged. Nearly a year learning to swim, 3 months of riding my new bike, cutting 5 minutes off my 5k times since last fall, and today was NOT going to be the day that I became a triathlete. With no let-up on radar, the official announcement blares over my neighbor’s 2-way radio, “We’re gonna have to cancel the swim.  We will still race, but the bike will be a single-file time-trial format start from transition beginning at 9:15.”  The monsoon, perhaps the worst that I’ve ever seen, lasts another half hour.  A second announcement comes in, “Due to flooding on the bike course, we need to shorten the course by 11 miles by eliminating the final lollipop loop.  The run will remain unchanged.”  For as “up” as my heart had been leading up to the start gun, it had just sunk to a depth that I wasn’t aware existed in me.  I begin thinking of going home (many actually did).  I should’ve been with my wife at her Relay for Life overnight event just north of Boston anyway.  She had our two young kids with her, undoubtedly would be up all night, and all I could think about was how I hoped this horrific weather had avoided them, wondering if they were dry and safe.

By the time all of the athletes who stuck around for a “good workout” were lined up with their bikes, it was about 9:30am, 80 degrees, humid, and not a cloud in sight. The word “gorgeous” comes to mind.  Inside my body there was a fight brewing.  Due to the excitement of the moment, my heart rate never felt below 140, even standing still, yet my limbs felt demented from the remaining Valium obviously still circulating.  Cotton mouth and the uncomfortable feeling of wishing I had taken that 10th trip to the bathroom were the last symptoms to hit me as I approached the timing mat.  A last look to be sure my timing anklet was secure, the flagger gives me the signal to mount.  The screaming and faithfully brave fans that remained lining the bike shoot were welcoming and deafening, cowbells and all.  That was just the giddy-up I needed.  If you can’t smile now, you’re probably dead.  Hardly a sole knows me here, yet in the first 300 yards I’ve heard my name bellowed twice and my race number a few more.  To whomever you were, Thanks!

After leaving the confines of the race venue, it gets so quiet that’s it’s sort of unsettling.  I’m trying to just take it all in, but I feel heavy, groggy, unbalanced.  The only thing I can hear is the wind going through the vents in my helmet. I fall madly in love with that sound. It's all I can hear.  Nothing else exists.  It submits me to become one with my bike.  It’s the first time I have ever felt this way on a bike.  I’ve never experienced a runner’s high, but this has to be the cyclist’s equivalent.  Am I the only one?  Does the quiet rushing air only affect me this way? It’s become the “moment” during each triathlon that I most long for.

I’m in the White Mountains of New Hampshire now. During my car ride through the bike course the day before I realized I was going to need that adrenaline rush on race day because all of my training was not going help me on these hills.  Wow!  Three times as steep and four times as long as anything I had trained on, these “hills” were wicked (for me).  I began wondering if at some point I’d have to dismount because I wouldn't be able to handle the grade, reduced to a walk, bike at my side, tail between my sluggish legs, defeated.  My new goal became:  “Stay on the bike!”

According to my training log, my post-race notes state that “legs felt flat until somewhere between miles 5-8.”  I must have been caught up in the orgasm of the wind raging through my lid to find my groove any sooner.  My notes also state, “only drank about 12oz of P90X Recovery drink on the bike.”  Um, excuse me, Roosta, you’re not recovering yet – you’re in the middle of the hardest bike ride of your life.”  Ah yes, the things I have learned.  (Now I’m a Hammer Nutrition guy and use Heed and/or Perpetuem as my race-day liquid nutrition source).  However, that wasn’t my only mistake – Only twelve ounces of hydration on the bike???  Ah yes, the things I have learned.  This lack of hydration bitch-slapped me near the end of my first mile on the run, and continued to do so throughout the next 5.2 miles.  The course, although somewhat hilly, felt immediately mountainous. Struggling to “speedwalk”, I couldn’t get my focus off of the incredible heaviness in my legs and the dizzying heart rate.  Each hill, despite distance and grade, was a wall.  I didn’t feel this way 2 weeks ago when I did a mock Olympic distance race (just to prove I could do it).  I had swam 1500yds in the pool at The Works at 7am, immediately drove to South Berwick and rode the Pumpkinman Sprint course twice, then hopped off my bike at the Gori house and ran 6 miles.  “Wow, I can actually do this.”  Today though, while scaling another wall, I begin wondering why the F am I feeling so horrible.  I pass the first water station at about mile-2.  I look down at the two 8oz bottles of Gatorade on my Fuel Belt.  They’re still full.  I’m almost 2 hours into a race on an 80 degree day and all I’ve ingested is 12 ounces of a “recovery” drink.  That’s got to be it.  There can’t be another reason.  I kept telling myself, “You are NOT going to walk.  There will be no walking today.  You push through this.  Don’t you frigin stop!”  Now the nausea has crept in and although I’ve just figured out that I need to drink, the thought of puking in the breakdown lane if I throw back some Gatorade isn’t that appealing to me.  Clearly the worst I have ever felt in all of my training, the legs finally stop churning.  I just need to rest and get my heart rate down and I’ll be fine. If I can do that, this nausea will resolve and I can run again.  I see the sign that announces the “Turn around” point.  That inspires me to run again, but it only lasts about a hundred yards.  Walking, but at least on my way back to the finish now, a demanding voice is coming towards me, barking out orders repetitively, “Shawn! Drink!  You need to drink!  You can make it!  Drink!”  Christine Campanella, a friend that I hadn’t seen in over 12 years (except for the afternoon before while roaming the registration area), has obviously also noticed my two full bottles of hydration attached to my hips.  I don’t know who looked more concerned, me or her, but I stopped in my tracks and initialed her orders.  Over the next 2 miles I sipped on the 16oz I had with me until it was gone.  I stopped and walked for several hundred yards three more times, but by the mile-5 marker, I was steadily running, nausea-free, and stable appearing.  As I approached Wellington State Park again, the heavenly sound of cowbells and the inviting cheers of strangers presented themselves again, and it never sounded better.  I had no strength to run faster, but I had the will, and that was enough.  It only felt like the easiest, fastest quarter mile I have ever run.  I’m not naïve. It was clearly the slowest and most grueling, but I crossed the finish line with grit in my teeth and a grin on my lips . . . . a mere "duathlete."  My quest to become a triathlete would have to wait, but not long.  Next week is the King Pine Sprint.

Although my goal was to try to finish around the 50th percentile in my age group for each race this season, I was 78/86 at the abbreviated Mooseman.  Humbled, I can only get better from here.