I DID TRI! I finally raced my first TRI.  The local Lake in the Hills triathlon was held on June 12th and I think I did pretty damn good for my first attempt. The day started pretty well by getting up at 4:30am and got my first BM in  almost immediately. This has been my biggest concern with regards to racing because I do not want to be stuck on a course somewhere with that felling distracting me.  Weird but whatever. The night before was my nephews bday party so I definitely over carbed it up.  Twice the load I needed. Everything was packed up nicely and in the truck by 5:30a and we hit the road. Setup T2 upon arrival and biked over to the swim start with my wetsuit. The wetsuit I use is a full Orca suit that I got at Runner’s High and Tri in Arlington Heights. Mark the owner is fantastic and an Kona Ironman to boot. Met Dave Scott there for a seminar once. Too cool. Anyway, the suit turned out to be the biggest hindrance of the race. My wave started at 6:42a and we hit the water. I purposely started at the back of the wave to make sure that I wasn’t whacked by some stranger during the swim. I hit the water at a nice slow pace so that the adrenaline wouldn’t burn me out to fast. I just felt so damn bloated that the wetsuit restricted my movement beyond comfort. It was horrible. I finished the swim in under 20 min which for a half mile was pathetic for me. I don’t know how many times I stopped for air and floated on my back trying to relax my heart. Getting out of the water was a complete relief. I felt quite wobbly coming out and had a pretty slow T1 transition to the bike. Got on the bike and felt great after about a block. Got into a great rhythm and finished the bike in 53:38 for just over 15 miles on a Trek 7000 hybrid. T2 went much better with a time of 1:01. The run started out tight but I loosened up after about a quarter mile. I started to analyze my form and made a few adjustment I had been reading about in the Chi Running book I was reading the night before. Next thing I know the pains in my lower legs dissipated and my pace picked up over a minute a mile without any increase in heart rate. WOW! So I finished the race in 1:54:23. Pretty close to the last quarter of the racers but if you look at the fact the just over a year ago I had never swam more than 50yds without stopping, never ran more than 2 miles without stopping and never ridden a bike that distance in that short a period of time I think it is pretty damn good. Especially for a 41 year old man.

Now I am not sure when my next race is and I am starting to train now using the Crossfit Endurance site and I will post a link to my plan as soon as it is sufficiently running.

Now this is my first race report so its not going to be the best but I’ll do my best. Let me start by prefacing the few days leading up to the event. We will start with Thursday. That afternoon my son and I were in the house when my daughter comes running in crying that she broke her arm by falling about 5-6 feet out of a tree. At first I thought she was over reacting but after taking a look at how she was holding it I thought better of it. I took her to the ER and they verified that she did break it. being late in the day the orthopedic surgeon was closed for the day and I needed to get in asap in the morning because we had an 6-7 hour drive ahead of us to Traverse City, MI. we pulled some strings and got in at 10am Fri. morning. The doc told us that she would need surgery. My heart dropped. First for my daughter then for my dream of doing a marathon. As luck would have it the weekend basically shut down any chance of getting the operation done until after Memorial Day. So now we had to hit the road and make it in time to get my pre-race meal in my belly early enough before I went to sleep.

Pre-race dinner:

Grilled chicken breast, steamed broccoli, sweet potato & a small salad and 2 miller lites

We got to TC around 7:30pm and immediately unpacked and started cooking. I got everything ready for the next day and staged it all; my race clothes, breakfast, post race smoothies, vitamins and fish oil.

Pre-race Breakfast:

Trader Joe’s Multigrain British Muffin, TJ’s Raw Almond Butter, TJ’s Organic Blueberry Jam, a banana, 24oz Dunkin Donuts coffee, 1 multivitamin and 2 tbl of StrongerFasterHeathier Fish Oil.

In bed by 9:30pm. Woke up at 4:27am. 3 minutes before alarm went off. Strange. Stretched in bed a little. Made breakfast and finished it before 5am. Took a shower. Had 2 bowel movements. That actually took a lot of pressure off mentally. Didn’t want to have to worry about that at all. Hit the road with my sister in law Bridget with her husband and their 2 kids along with our friends Kristen and Brian. Kristen, Bridget and I were the only ones running the marathon. My wife was supposed to run the 10K but because of my daughter’s injury had to back out. So we got to the race start and limbered up while waiting for the start. Once the race began we headed out at a 10:30 pace. From there on out everything went pretty much to plan. GU’s and water almost every half hour or pretty close to it when it wasn’t. Had my caffeinated GU at the halfway point which I think really helped me stay focused during the last 2:30. One thing I did completely forget to do and was RUDELY reminded of at about mile 13 was that I forgot to tape my nipples. I never forget that but this day I did. OUCH! Not to mention the strange looking scabs. Went shirtless from there on out. Took some NUUN tablets about mile 19 or 20 just to be careful. Wasn’t sweating profusely but you never know. Hit a bit of a mental wall around 17 but made it through by redirecting my thoughts. No real intense pains during the run. Just the usual left hip, hip flexors and calf tweaks. Ran into some trouble around 20 when we came up on an older runner stumbling to the right. She could not stand upright and so we stopped and gave her a hand. I should say that Bridget and Kristen gave her a hand with some spectators. God forgive me but I was more concerned with my race than with this poor woman’s health. Dumbass move on my part I know that now. So Bridget was starting to bonk around 22-23 I think and I was still fixated on breaking 5:00 and I knew if I kept stopping that my legs would not start again. So at about 24.5 when they stopped again I kept going. My legs were pissed but I wanted to finish. So I did.

Afterwards I tried to take a dip in the Lake and really did not make it in. Way too cold. Ice baths aren’t even that cold for me but this was crazy. I even tried it later in the weekend with my full tri wetsuit and was nearly leveled by the pain in my face from the coldness of the water. Made it about 5 feet. Done.  Trying to sleep at night proved to be a chore just due to the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness(DOMS). Rolled and rubbed as much as possible. Fish oil and Glucosamine I think helped a bit. In the end it was about 2 days of true soreness but a lifetime of being able to say I did it.