The joys of being a triathlete!

Saturday I’d planned to write about what a great training week I’d had.  Because I do want to mention something else, this summary will be a bit abbreviated.

Normally my weekend training starts on Friday, with everything building up to my swim Friday, bike Saturday and my run on Sunday.  With a race last weekend we moved around the training somewhat and my weekend started on Thursday with a brutal ride and run combination.  Either workout was difficult on its own, but with both in the same day it was a solid start to a 4 day training weekend.

Having had a rough swim at my last race, I pushed pretty hard on my Friday swim, and finished the 3000 meters in 5-7 minutes faster than normal.  It could be due to the actual workout that I finished earlier than normal, but I went to bed that night with very tired shoulders.

Next on tap was a 3 hour bike ride.  I figured it would be hot, so my fluids were loaded with electrolytes, and I brought a frozen bottle of water for after the ride.  There was road work on one of the roads I normally ride that I didn’t want to traverse twice, so the out and back became a loop, a loop of whose distance I wasn’t really certain.  The hills on the new roads are a bit better than my normal route.  They also have less traffic and more shade as I rode through the state park.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this course.  It is also longer than my normal route.  I ended up going 3:23 hours.  The entire time I repeated to myself that I’d rather do a longer ride than have to go over that rough road again.  It’s about one hour from my start to Grimes county where the road work started, so anything longer than 2 hours will have to use some other route that I’ve got to figure out.

Before I jump into my Sunday run, I need to disclose  the chain of events that got me where I am now.  Wednesday brought Houston the first real rain in almost 150 days.  It was a wonderful feeling running in the rain.  Many years ago I hated it, but after running in the heat for so long it was a welcome respite.  Unfortunately my shoes didn’t dry in time for my Thursday run and running in wet shoes gave me blisters (which popped and tore up) on both insoles.

I made sure that my shoes were good and dry before running again on Sunday.  I also started out with band aids to protect the raw areas.  As I stepped out of the house I couldn’t believe how humid it was.  It wasn’t hot, but it was like a steam room.  Within minutes I was soaked, and not long after that I could feel new blisters developing and the old ones flaring up.  I’d planned to run to the trail, do 5 loops, and then run home.  Halfway through my second lap I knew I was tearing up my feet.  I decided to run one more lap and see if it was getting worse or had stabilized.  I’m not sure if it got worse or not, but I knew that doing two more laps was going to do me more damage than the extra 3 miles would do good and abandoned the run.  It was a good thing too, as the first step on the hard road surface really started doing damage.

After limping home I removed my shoes only to find them soaked.  I’d sweat enough to make them as wet as earlier in the week when running in the rain.  My feet looked exactly how they felt, with new blisters and callus damage now on the heels.  The band aids I’d put on as protection didn’t stay adhered to my sweaty skin and those areas were exposed and more torn up.

Needless to say I won’t be running sockless for a while so my feet can heal, especially with camp coming up in two weeks and Nationals not much later.  I’ll be working up a plan to deal with this in the next few days/weeks, but it is suffice to say that I’ll be wearing socks on my longer runs, and trying different things for race day.

Ah, the joys of being a triathlete!  And to think that a full Ironman may be on the horizon makes me wonder what other tortures I will put my body through.

Not the gift I wanted, but I’ll take it

I started my Father’s Day with a short race at Lake Pflugerville, north of Austin.  I raced up there earlier this year and really enjoyed the venue.  The swim is in a small lake that is pretty clear, the run on a crushed gravel trail, and while the bike course had some cracks (probably due to the heat and lack of rain) it was pleasant and fast.

I was a bit anxious about the swim because it was my first non-wetsuit open water swim this year.  I’d watched the kayaks struggle to get the buoys in position, and the choppy water, but for what ever reason didn’t think about how that might impact my swim and maybe adjust my strategy accordingly.  I positioned myself where I would for any other swim, and took off when the gun sounded.

Not far into the swim I realized two things:  I was out near the front of the pack, and I’d gone out way too fast.  I pulled back some and then the real problems began.  The chop made it difficult to get regular breaths, and people caught up to me and I started to get pounded.  I remember one guy swam halfway up my back, and then stayed there.  I finally reared up and kicked him hard in the stomach to get him off.

I told myself to settle down, put my face in the water and just get into a groove.  The chop just wouldn’t let me and I finally grabbed on to a kayak for a bit to try and settle down.  I couldn’t believe how hard the swim was, and had to stop at the halfway point.  Two stops in just 250 meters!  My mistake here was in not getting a good sight on the next buoy.  I was so excited to be going with the current and finding some clean water that I didn’t realize I’d sighted in on the wrong buoy.  It’s no wonder my water was clean, I was headed back to the start instead of the finish!

At about 100 meters from the start I ran into another kayaker, where I stopped to figure out what was going on.  I didn’t stay there long because he told me I was cheating.  Although all the rules I’ve ever read said that I could stay there as long as I wanted as long as he wasn’t assisting my forward progress, I wasn’t really in a position to argue and took off for the finish line.

When I finally got out of the water I was absolutely disgusted.  I walked out of the water with my head hung low and very upset.  After just a few steps I started running.  At first I told myself that I was going to use the rest of the day as a couple of hard workouts.  Someone passed me on the bike while I was putting my feet in my shoes, which further angered me.  Once I was fully cleated in I took off.  I passed that rider back within minutes, and then started to reel in other riders.

I used my anger as riding fuel.  As a result no one else passed me the rest of the day, perhaps because all the fast people were in front of me!  Regardless, I had one of the best bike rides ever.  I had neglected to reset my computer before the race, and didn’t realize it until I was some distance into the ride.  That meant that I had no idea how far I’d traveled or how long.  This was actually good for me because I focused on riding hard by feel and not what my computer was saying.  I did finally notice someone had written big numbers on the road, which I think represented the miles remaining.  I’m not certain that’s what they were because I didn’t really pay attention to them.  At one point I calculated what my finish miles would be using those number, but then didn’t really use that.

I passed a LOT of riders on the back side where it was into the wind and hilly.  I figured that would slow down once I hit the front side as it was very flat and with the wind.  As I hit the freeway I really pushed and kept increasing my gear.  I was holding about 33 mph and still flying past people, people with nice bikes that I know thought they were going fast.

Before I hit the last hill I pulled my feet out of my shoes for a quick dismount, only to turn the corner and discover another up and downhill.  I couldn’t go quite as fast this way, but there was a large group of people I wanted to get in front of before the dash to transition.  Approaching the dismount line for my flying dismount I saw two cyclists blocking the line while they dismounted.  I did the best I could to go around them, and heard someone comment “now that’s a dismount!”

I knew I’d pushed myself hard on the bike and wasn’t sure how much I had saved for the run.  The thought of blowing up like the previous race entered my mind, but I was still pretty angry over my swim.  I was so focused on what I was doing that I climbed the hill before I knew what I was doing.  I thought I’d missed the timing mat and started my watch for the run, only to encounter it further on once I was on the track.  Someone came running up to me to hand me a cup of water which I took.  I gulped down some and then dumped the rest over my head.  Only the wind was so strong I completely missed my head!  I checked my pace, and at 7:30 thought I’d better back off or I’d never finish.  I don’t know that I really ever used my watch again.

The first leg of the run was into the wind, and while it was difficult running, I told myself that it was hurting the other runners more.  I continued to pass runners, and it wasn’t long before some of them started walking.  I saw one guy in front of me that looked stronger than most of the others around me.  I was still thinking that most of the fast people were in front of me, probably long done, until he started to pull away from me.  That didn’t sit well so I tried to pick it up and stay with him.  I was actually closing the gap when he pulled over to the side of the trail to, get this, put his cup into a trash can with a lid!  I was shocked, but used it to pass him.  I heard his footsteps behind me for a while and expected him to pass me back, but his steps died and he never showed up again.

With one mile left I passed a fellow age grouper.  I felt guilty for passing him so late in the game, but not enough to slow down.

The last leg was back into the wind and was really tough, especially because I was determined to pick up the pace even more.  I tried to draft off of other runners, but they were all going to slowly for anything but a brief respite from the wind.

I finished very strongly, and while I feel like I gave it everything I had on the run, I wished I’d had another mile to run down some more people.  I finished 5th in my age group, two minutes off the podium.  There is little doubt in my mind where I lost those precious minutes, nor any doubt that I will be working harder on my swim in the months to come.

Surprisingly I am pleased with my race.  I was able to overcome a horrible swim, not putting it out of my mind but using it as motivation to work harder on the remaining events, and really had a great bike and run.

And for anybody who might be following, yes I did run the tangents on the course!

The shortest distance

If you have done much running, then you are familiar with the concept of running tangents and please skip to the next paragraph.  It follows the idea that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  Instead of following the right or left hand side of the road/trail, look ahead and choose a path that goes straight through the curves.  I wouldn’t recommend this on a road unless it is closed off, but it works great on trails.

This season I’ve gotten back to running our local trail as the crushed gravel is easier on my joints and most of it is shaded.  It does wind a lot and I use that to practice running tangents.  It’s not that taking the inside of curve is complicated, but as you get more and more tired it is progressively easier to just stay on one side.

It would be easier for me if this was my personal trail and no one else was allowed.  Alas, that isn’t the case and I find myself having to dodge walkers, runners, dog owners and baby strollers.  Bicycles aren’t supposed to be on the trail (I’m not sure why), but they do allow baby strollers, even the double-wide model that takes up most of the trail.  I digress though, let me save that rant for another day!

It is an obvious decision, if the road curves to the right, to take a straight line and end up on the right side of the trail.  I’ve tried doing the math in my head while I run as to how much distance I’m saving.  At first I thought it was just twice the width of the trail.  I can’t imagine that is accurate or correct.  Perhaps I need to get out there with a tape measure.  I’m sure the other runners would appreciate that!

There is bound to be a mathematical formula to calculate the distance for staying in the lane vs. running the tangent.  I suspect it will require values for things I don’t know, such as the width, length and curve of the trail, which puts me back out there with my tape measure.  Instead, I resigned myself to the fact that I’m taking the shortest distance and not knowing by how much.

Here then is the real question, one I have posed to a math wiz, a math wiz runner, and my son who is burning up money at UT Austin as a computer science major:  What if the curve is just a little curve such that running a straight line wouldn’t cause you to change sides of the trail?  Maybe it just moves you out of your lane by a foot or so.  Taking the straight line would be shorter, but here is the interesting twist:  the trail on this sorter path isn’t as nicely worn as the outer part of the trail and it takes a bit more energy to run on it at the same pace.

This is where it would be helpful to know how much distance I was saving by running the tangent.  If I was saving 2 steps by running the tangent on the harder part of the trail it might be worth it, whereas if it was only a few inches it might not.

Everyone has their own opinion, but no one, even the math wiz runner, has one based on any sort of math.  Until I hear differently from someone who can speak with authority and a conviction I can believe, I’m going to stick with my gut and only run tangents when I think they will shorten my total run time.