Tri, tri again

Two months ago, I signed up for the Firecracker Tri and decided that I was not going to train specifically for it. Now that I have more or less recovered from the race last Sunday, it’s time to evaluate the results.

I was probably more excited about Natalie racing in her first tri than I was about my own race. At 5:51am, my 8-year-old jumped into the pool and hammered out a 250m swim. She also had not been practicing lap swimming, and had never traversed a 50m pool before, but she did just fine and got herself to the transition with a smile.  I helped her get her shoes and helmet on, and away she went for a lap around the U of A. Her second transition was blazing – it’s easy when you just drop the bike and remove the helmet – and she ran her mile in under 12 minutes. She finished 4th (last) in the 7-8 females, but she beat a few 9-12 year olds and had a lot of fun! She was also thrilled to be allowed to eat bagel…(ick)

Individual sports are more fun with friends, and in the fuss of getting two sets of equipment to the transition area just before the cutoff time, I saw Gene McDougall from GTX. I’ve known him for a while – he’s a fellow recovering engineer, we went to HKC together, and he’s a strength beast (and a really good guy). Turns out that Gene would be starting the swim just a few places behind me, which added a little pressure but also an element of fun. We caught up while waiting for Natalie to take her spin around the campus.

For the Firecracker Tri, the swim is a serpentine course in the Hillenbrand pool, starting at one corner and snaking up and down each lane and under each rope to the opposite corner. Swimmers start in groups, with the slowest group going first and the swimmers ordered from fastest to slowest within each group, based on estimated swim times. My start time was around 7:12am. I jumped in the side pool for a quick warmup a few minutes before my start, and was pleased to find that I could still paddle in a straight line. Awesome. Most of the people starting around me were half my age or so, but I didn’t really care, as experience helps in triathlon, and God knows I have a lot of that…just not recent experience.

Assured that I could proceed without drowning, I scooted over to the start line, placed myself in order (#225), and waited for Jim to tell me to go. I flashed Gene a quick “here goes nothing” look and off I went…back, forth, under, back, forth, under, etc. I could see the clock but the numbers were meaningless. My lats were burning, but I kept channeling Coach Anna (Wilson Gardner, a former Tricat swim coach who swam for New Zealand in the 1996 Olympics) and tried to keep my forehead up, reaching around the barrel and kicking with my hips. Amazingly, only one person passed me, and I was out of the water in 14:12 – one second off my Tucson Triathlon time from 2004 (same pool but short course), and 36 seconds off my 2004 Firecracker time. I also enjoyed a high-five from Natalie as I ran to the transition – family support is always great, and she didn’t exist the last time I did Firecracker. Considering my advanced age and total lack of swim training, I declare that a SUCCESS, especially since I had the fastest split in my new and rather large age group by 1 second (40-45; I am actually 39 1/2, but USA Triathlon uses your age as of Dec 31 of the year, which you get to wear on your calf. Mine said “40-.”)

I’m really happy about that 1st place swim split, because it slightly makes up for what happened on the bike. Once upon a time, I rode 3+ times per week, raced in the Tucson Bike Classic, and coordinated rides for the Desert Foxes Women’s Cycling Team. I was strong for a Cat 4 (novice) but never really fast; just a decent domestique with a lot of heart. I identified with fellow 1973 Vintage George Hincapie but can’t climb like him and am not a skinny dork from Long Island, but I digress.

Gene got to the end of the transition area right alongside me, and we hopped on our bikes and took off. The next time I saw him was after the finish.

You would think that someone with a few years of semi-competitive cycling under her belt would think to check all of her equipment, but noooo…I had to forget something. I did have the sense not to ride my tri bike, which had my aero bars but had not been test-ridden. Unfortunately riding in the drops (down on the curve of the handlebars) is nowhere near as comfortable and apparently not as efficient as riding on aero bars, and my hands were numb for most of the race. Numb hands were not my main problem, though. My main challenge was that cycling requires specific muscle development that I currently lack, and I just can’t sustain anything resembling speed, especially uphill, even with a much better squat than I had in 2004. My second main challenge was that somewhere around mile 6 or 7 of 12, I felt and heard some unnerving clicks under my left shoe…and found myself with an unattached Look cleat. The screws departed the ride, and I got to spend the next 5-6 miles trying to keep my foot on top of the cleat and pedal while getting an increasingly sore hiney (need to get my bike fitted again), numb hands, and no efficient way to transfer my monster (?) work capacity to the pedals. I also had burned through my pre-race peach and was running on fumes – I think that recent Phase 3 eating decreased my ability to call on fat stores and also reduced said fat stores, though that’s another discussion with Dave – which probably contributed to my abysmal >44-minute bike split, a full 9 minutes (about 20%) slower than in 2004.

WE INTERRUPT THIS SAGA FOR AN OPEN MESSAGE TO TUCSON CITY OFFICIALS: PAVE. EFFING. EUCLID!!!!! That is all.

Inadequate fueling probably also led to what happened next, along with sustained high intensity – I had been at or near full effort for about an hour at this point: when I unclipped my right foot, trotted to my transition spot, and attempted to bend down to unstrap my shoes, my entire left side cramped HARD. Think side stitch, but involving your ENTIRE left side from ribs to hips, and much worse than the average stitch. To add insult, both of my feet cramped. I stood up, breathed, waited a minute, took off my helmet, and tried again. I think I ended up sitting but I’m not sure. In any case, it hurt like hell and surprised me. Assuming that the transitions were both tacked onto the bike split, the long transition may explain part of the 9-minute abysmalness – my transitions were pretty smooth back when I used to practice them, and I certainly never had a major full-body crunch.

Eventually, I grabbed my number belt and ran off for a very hot, humid 5k. At this point, my new best friend became a guy named Justin from Colorado.

 

Sometime in the last two years, I had stashed this little magic packet of hazelnut butter in my race pouch (a small pouch attached to my race belt, which holds my race number, as attempting to attach a number to a bathing suit with pins in the middle of a race is ill-advised). The contents were somewhat stiff and squashed into one side of the foil, but I was able to remove the corner and start chewing and slurping out lumps of magic chocolate deliciousness in short order. Amazingly, I didn’t have the usual heavy-quad feeling that often happens in the bike-to-run transition, but I did feel like I didn’t have the energy to get through 3.1 miles…until about 200 yards after I tore into Justin’s amazing race gel and immediately started to perk up. I don’t know whether the organic evaporated cane juice (sugar), fat from the nuts, or superpowers from the chocolate made the biggest difference, but I guarantee that  Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Awesomeness will accompany me on any endurance events in the near future. The girls with cold water in squirt guns were a big help too (they politely asked before shooting).

Mostly revived but not feeling speedy, I pull-pull-pulled my way around the UA Mall twice as fast as I could, turned right, passed the Cherry Street garage, turned left, and…was completely unable to kick out a sprint finish, but that’s okay. Run split: 25:02, within 2 minutes of my 23:18 in 2004. (I don’ t think it was as hot that day either and the route wasn’t quite the same.)

Overall time: 1:23:46, which was 11:47 off my 2004 time, and good for #5 of 17 in my age group, and #31 of 131 overall for women (as opposed to #2 and #13 respectively in 2004. Also, I would have been #3 in the 30-34 age group with my 2013 time – the older ladies are tougher.) Considering my bike equipment debacle and transition cramps, I don’t feel to bad about my performance. I also let myself eat just about anything on Sunday after the race (still clean, but definitely not on my nutrition plan; hey, it’s recovery), had fun with my kid, and discovered a fantastic triathlon tip:

AJ Says: “To remove tri body markings (the numbers applied to arms and legs with a huge Sharpie), rub lightly with a pumice stone. They slide right off!”

In conclusion, I present my Top 10 Lessons from this experience.

1. Challenges are awesome! Pick one and go for it!
2. Always check ALL of your equipment well in advance. Carefully. With tools.
3. Aero bars matter, for efficiency and comfort (which can help or hurt efficiency).
4. Technique and strength can get you by for the swim. I wonder how much all of those hours in the UA Rec Center pool helped back when I was training. I’m not sure that the distance mattered, but they apparently honed my technique enough that I still have it (except for my flip turns, which were lame at best and I missed the wall at least once…laugh away, LeeAat). Lats trained by lots of weighted pullups probably helped a lot too, as did a high pain tolerance, but technique is king.
5. Cycling requires specific training. All of my recent bike rides validate this theory, and Dave says that capillary development and other training effects matter here too.
6. I must eat while on the bike. (Ask LeeAat about this one too – she will agree.) Sidenote: I love Justin. I also love me for prepositioning food. Bring on the apocalypse.
7. The City of Tucson needs to pave Euclid Ave. Did I mention that yet?
8. Running technique helps a lot, and training also helps a lot, but pain tolerance matters in the last few how, humid, hungry minutes of a race. (Note to Sara and Drew: my right calf is still sore!)
9. Pumice for sharpie removal!
10. In the end, a hard event leaves you tired, hungry, and ready for a well-earned rest day, which you should embrace!

Epilogue

The Firecracker is a sprint distance tri…yes, SPRINT. As a Tricat, I also raced Olympic distance (swim 1.2 miles, bike 40k, run 10k in about 2:42 for me) and other shorter distances. I have never done an Ironman and was planning on a Half Ironman when Natalie put a stop to my planning. “Sprint” is the shortest, easiest distance!

If you want to try multisport but are not sure about even a sprint tri, you can try Aquathlon (the Tucson Aquathlon series has an 800m swim and 5k), duathlon, or shorter events – trifind.com has a calendar.

The Tinfoilman Triathlon is at the U of A in October. Who’s in? Several of Gene’s GTX athletes raced on Sunday; we’d love to put together a DNA team for next time! Speaking of Gene, he finished in just under 1:17 – his swim was a little faster and run was only 14 seconds faster, but he crushed me on the bike. Nice job!