Heritage Park Triathlon Duathlon - Race Report

The start of the run around the lake...that we should have been swimming in.

I got up at 4:45am today to give myself plenty of time to get to the race.  I rolled out of bed and the first thing I did was flip on the weather.  It showed pretty much what I expected, 50 degrees, rain and 7-10mph winds.  Not the best weather for a race, but I'd pretty much set myself up for this, so I wasn't that worried about it. 

Oddly enough, I went through my regular morning routine, I shaved, showered, etc. just to kind of wake up and get me into the right frame of mind.  I threw on my tri-shorts and a long sleeve technical shirt - today did not seem like the day to wear a sleevless tri-top - and headed downstairs for a little breakfast.  I choked down some oatmeal and a glass of milk and headed out the door.  I had packed the car with my bike and gear last night, so I was ready to go.

I got to the parking area about 5:45am and proceeded to find a place to rack my bike in transition.  I started to set up my area, but realized that 1) it was raining a bit and I didn't want all my stuff to get wet yet; and 2) it was still waaaay freaking early because the race didn't start until 7:30am. 

I walked over to pick up my chip and get body marked and headed back to my area.  As an aside, it was kind of silly to get body marked today since I was wearing long sleeves and there wasn't a swim, but hey, I'm not in charge. 

Mine's the crappy white bike right in the middle, affectionately known as "Sir Blanco".

I jacked around with my stuff for a bit and chatted up a few people.  About 7am I went for an easy one mile warm up run and stretch, just to get the kinks out.  I visited the porta-potty one more time and I was about ready to start the race.

Who's that goofy tall guy...oh wait.

As I was lining up to start the race, Mrs. Gias walked up and found me.  It was pretty crappy weather, so I told her I wouldn't be offended if she didn't want to come out and watch, but of course, she's awesome and came out and took a bunch of pictures.  Thanks, sweetie! (and if she hadn't come...major guilt trip later)

Well, a minute or two after I saw Mrs. Gias, the race started. The first leg of the duathlon was a two mile run that I wanted to take easy to see how my left knee was going to hold up.  I started running and felt strong, but I held the pace back a bit to make sure I could continue the rest of the race.  Those first two miles went pretty quick and before I knew it I was in T1.  I did the first two miles in 16:39 - an 8:19/mile pace.  Faster than I planned to be going, but it still felt SLOW compared with the monster athletes I was competing with. However, overall I was pretty happy with this first split.

Here's me coming out of T1 trying not to look like a total idiot...mission failure.

T1 was actually a place where I had a bit of anxiety.  Getting on the bike, while running, in front of people, had the potential to be a disaster.  Let's just say I am not nearly as graceful as I should be and I recently took a fall on my driveway that didn't have me brimming with confidence.  Luckily I didn't have any falling incidents and got out of T1 in 54 seconds - that's an excellent time for me (and for most people), I'd take less than a minute in every race.

Quit smiling for the camera and pedal faster!

The bike leg started and it was about a 4 mile loop we did three times.  There were some good and bad things about the ride.  The good: it started with a nice downhill section and ended with a decent downhill section; of course the bad: the middle was pretty much all up hill, which was awful.  Other challenges of the bike course was the fact that it was 50 degrees and drizzling the whole time.  This made visibility through my sunglasses streaky and cloudy at best.  I know what you're asking right now, "Geek, why didn't you take off your sunglasses?" - well the drizzle and wind would have then went directly into my eyes and likely would have been even worse...lesser of two evils I suppose.  I also think I was the only one wearing winter thisulate gloves while riding the bike...what can I say, I'm doing this on the cheap and it was cold. 

The bike went well and I averaged about 16.2 miles per hour, which isn't fast, but it's pretty decent for me on this course.  Only one person in the race averaged more than 20mph, which tells me the course was slow and difficult today. 

What kind of weird ballet-dismount is that?

The other nice thing about the bike was that it was on a loop.  Yes, it was a little monotonous, however, I also got to see Mrs. Gias every 12 minutes when I passed the spectators, so that was a nice bonus.  I finished the bike in 42:08.  The first lap seemed slow, but before I knew it I had finished all three laps and was ready to head into T2.

Me falling down woudl have been a far more interesting picture.

If I was nervous about falling coming out of T1, T2 was a total nightmare scenario.  It was wet and I am not the best and unclipping and continuing to jog next to my bike.  Also, if you've never ridden a bike for a while and then tried to run right afterwords, it's harder than you think.  Your legs are wobbly and it's hard to get your bearings. Luckily, I unclipped waaaaaay early and was able to run into T2 without falling on my butt. 

Frankly, that's like a victory for the day right there.

It was at this point that I began to questioin why the hell I ever decided to try multisport.

I got through transition in :59 seconds, again, less than a minute, I'll take it.  I started the home stretch three mile run.  I have to say, I felt weaker than I thought I would.  I don't know if it was the earlier run, the fact I didn't drink as much as I should have on the bike or if the bike/weather combination really just wore me down more than I think that it should have.  For the most part the run was pretty uneventful and I kept a decent pace, not as fast as I'd like, but not bad.  I did the run in 27:18 or about a 9:06/mile pace.

I was honestly beat near the end of the run and I really couldn't kick much to finish at full speed.  That's odd for me because usually I have a little something left in the tank to finish hard and strong.  I guess I was just really beat today.  Honestly, the cold and rain (and the terribly thick, humid air) got to me. 

In any event, I finished the race with a smile on my face and felt good about it.  My final time was 1:27:56 and since I've never done a duathlon before, it's a Personal Record! Ha!  After I finished I met up with Mrs. Gias, got some post-race goodies (chocolate milk, bagels, etc.) and went to find my stuff in transition.  It was pretty cold and raining still, so I didn't stick around to chat with people too long (and nobody else was sticking around either). 

So a  few thoughts on the race:

•  I'm humbled by the fitness level of these people.  Wow, I thought I was in pretty good shape, but the people I raced today are machines.  They are fast on the run, faster on the bike and just keep going.  It's a lot to take in.
• I've got a race next week that's about twice the distance of this race...I'm a little worried.  Mrs. Gias asked me after I finished (and was totally worn out) if I would have rather gone into the race next week not knowing how hard this was going to be or if I was glad that I had this little warmup/wakeup call.  I told her I wasn't sure...
• Total respect for Ironman triathlons.  They are literally, ten times longer than what I did today.  That's crazy.
• Triathletes love their gear.  I mean, I had kind of figured this out before today, but the number of $6000 bikes with every gadget imaginible, even for people with no hope of ever winning anything was unbelievable. 
• I've got lots of work to do.  I can finish races...but I want to be faster.

Race Report: TriKC Indoor Triathlon

The site of my first triathlon.  Creepy.

So I participated in my first Triathlon on Sunday.  OK, it wasn't outside, it was weird distances and there were less than 10 people entered.  But...there was a clock, we measured distances, we did all three disciplines with transitions and we were racing each other...so I'm calling it a race. 

This weekend was the third (my first) indoor winter triathlon put on by the Kansas City Triathlon Club.  TriKC schedules four of these (one a month, Jan - Apr) prior to the outdoor season starting in May as "tune ups" for the big races.  They are very laid back, very grassroots (no finishing medals, t-shirts or ridiculous entry fees) and a lot of fun.  Basically we get a group of TriKC members together (guests too) on Sunday morning and you start out in the pool.  You swim for 15 minutes counting your laps, the further you swim, the better you do.  Then you get five minutes for a transition to the spin studio where you spin for 20 minutes, again, the further you go, the better you do.  Then you hop off the spin bike and run upstairs to the indoor track and run for the remaining 20 minutes of the hour, again, the further you go, the better you do.

If you do all of these races in the series, you would (hopefully) see an improvement in the distance you can go and it is a good way to measure your progress.  It's also fun to have a few other competitors there to push you to go a little faster under the guise of friendly competition.  It definitely feels more "race like" then working out by yourself. 

For being my first "race" I was a bit more rushed than I would have liked.  We ended up going to 7:30am mass as per usual and then I left straight from church (Mrs. Gias and I drove seperately and she took the girls home) to get to the gym, which was downtown and took me a bit of time to get there.  I found it without any problems and rushed inside, still in my church clothes, with gym bag in hand about 20 minutes before my race was to begin.  Little did I know that the time change must have thrown everyone a loop (spring forward this weeked!) because I was the second to arrive after Jan, one of the TriKC organizers.  I chatted with Jan for a few minutes then headed into the locker room, still thinking that we would get started in about 15 minutes, right at 9:20am.  

I slipped out of my church clothes and into my tri-clothes...OK, full disclosure...I wasn't sure if I would have time or access to a locker room before my heat started, so I wore my speedo under my slacks to church.  I don't know if I had some weird vision of acting like Superman stripping off my church clothes to reveal that I was ready to swim or what.  In fact, if I did have to do that, I'm pretty sure that me getting out of my church clothes and into a speedo on the pool deck would have been even worse than me having to find a bathroom to change.  Anyway...

I left the locker room to check out the pool and a few other volunteers had wandered in.  Amy, Tina and Don had all arrived.  They were volunteering for the race to count laps, keep time, etc.  Awesome of them to show up on a Sunday morning to help.  This was my first event with TriKC and everyone was great, especially the volunteers. 

It was getting to be about 9:12am or so and I was still the only competitor that had shown up.  This might be embarassing if 1) I have to race myself; 2) have 4 volunteers watching me the whole time; 3) haven't ever done this before so I'm not 100% sure how it will all work.  Thankfully a Rick and John sauntered in a minute or two later and we had enough to at least get a little race going. 

I wandered down to the pool to set up my "transition area" (really just a  place on the ground for my towel and shoes) and hopped in to start warming up.  (I did not go to the spin studio to adjust my spin bike, this was a significant mistake we'll learn about later.)  I did a few quick laps to warm up and noticed that the pool was salt water, not chlorine.  Interesting, I've never swum in a salt water pool before, it was kind of cool.  Anyway, I had to jump out and towel off for a minute when the rest of the crew came in becasue we were getting body marked.  Yeah, there were three of us in the heat, (five more showed up for the heat after us) but we still got numbers written on us with permanent marker anyway...kind of fun.  (I was "7", by the way).  (Who am I kidding, getting a number on my arm was awesome!)

Before I knew it we were getting ready to start our three man heat.  One of the competitors, John, was doing his first triathlon, just like me, and training for a half-ironman race in Lawrence in June.  He and I have the same swim coach so I knew he would be pretty good.  Lined up on my other side was Rick, a veteran of triathlons in his 50's.  Although he had a few years on John and myself, he more than made up for the age difference in experience. 

I felt a little nervous going into the swim, not knowing what to expect or how exactly to pace myself.  I knew it was 15 minutes and that I could probably do about 800-900 yards in that time.  However, your nerves get going, you're FINALLY swimming against someone and you just don't know how you'll react.  Luckily I'd done some competitive swimming in high school, so I wasn't going in totally blind. 

Next thing I knew, the clock started and we were off.  I started the first 200 yards waaaaay too fast and knew there was no way I could maintain that pace for the duration.  I also knew that I had pulled away from the other two pretty significantly and that I wanted to continue to pull away from them so I didn't let them creep back into the race.  I continued to pull hard and before I knew it I lapped both of the other guys in my heat.  I checked the clock and noted that about 8 minutes had passed.  I knew I could lap them again if I kept my pace steady, so that became my new goal.  At the 13 minute mark I passed Rick and at about 13:30 I lapped John again.  There was about 45 seconds left and I knew if I sprinted I could pound out one last 50 so that's what I did. 

I hopped out and learned that John and Rick had both done about 700 yards each and I had finished right at 900 yards.  That was the upper limit of where I thought I would finish, so I guess the pacing wasn't too bad after all.  I quick slipped on my shoes and threw on a shirt in the "transition area" (pool deck) and noticed that we still had three or four minutes left before we could start spinning.  I quick ran into the locker room, because I had the extra time and threw my towell in my locker and went to the bathroom.  I ran back out to the spin studio with only a few seconds to spare.  This is where my naivete cost me.  I didn't adjust my bike before the race and by the time I got to the studio the time was about to start.  I ended up with my seat too low on a bike that scraped against the pedal guard (annoying and it slows you down) for the entire 20 minutes.  I considered jumping off and starting on another bike, but I thought with such a short race that would probably cost me too much time.  Instead, I pedaled hard and got through the session in about the same distance as John and Rick, but I think I had to work a lot harder at it because of my lack of preparation.  I won't make that mistake again.

At the end of the spin session we hopped off our bikes and scampered upstairs to the indoor 1/10th mile track and started running.  I have to tell you, swimming to biking to running makes your legs feel weird.  It's different muscles and you are shocking your body from one thing to another.  My legs felt a bit Jello-like for the first couple of laps.  I was ahead of John, but Rick was ahead of me by about 30 or 40 feet.  I hung back, trying to get my legs to feel right and to get my pacing down.  I knew if I kept him close I could try to pass him later in the race.  After about 5 or 6 laps, I decided I needed to make my move and pull in front.  I started to increase my stride and passed by Rick in about a lap or so and continued to pull away from him for the duration of the race.  The run after that point was a little monotonous, 1/10th is a short track, so I ended up going around 21 times; it all starts to look the same after a little while. 

At the end of the time I finished ahead of John and Rick and felt great.  I walked around and thanked all of the volunteers again for their time and traded a few quick stories with them. 

It was a great race experience.  It only took an hour, I had a clock, others to race against and it was a great change of pace for my training.  Overall, I really enjoyed the race and I'm defintely signing up for the next indoor tri in April.