Tri the Midlands

After a phone call to my friend Rick, I decided to compete in the Tri the Midlands race in Columbia. I was nowhere near prepared for this race since I am training for longer distances and this one is a short one - a sprint. The distances were: 500m OWS, 11 mile bike, and a 5K. One of Rick's selling points about the race was that the bike course was flat and the run only had a few hills. He said I can do my thing during the swim, hammer out the bike, and get in a good run. I thought, "Okay. I can handle that." So, here's how my day went:

3:50am - Wake up. I did not have too much trouble getting up because I was excited for the race. I was a little tired because we ended up going to bed somewhere between 11 and 12. After I woke up, I took a quick shower to help wake myself up. This did a pretty good job. Next was my coffee. I had to have my caffeine if I was going to make it. So, I made the coffee took Colby out, racked up the bike and loaded up the rest of my gear and I was off.

4:50am - Depart for Columbia. The two hour drive down was very uneventful.

6:47am - Arrive at Lake Carolina Development, Columbia, SC. The volunteers were directing everyone to their proper parking spaces and mine happen to be right next to Rick and Mike's. I got out and said hello to them and proceeded to put my bike together and get my gear together. I loaded up my backpack with everything I needed because it was a good mile from the parking area to transition. At this point, my thermometer in my car is reading 84 degrees.

7:05am - Get registered, go through packet pick up, and body marking

7:15am - Rack my bike and start setting up transition. I made the decision to try going sockless today. We'll see how that works out.

7:50am - I make my way down to the lake. I was chatting with the guy next to me in transition. He was from Greenville too. He was a little nervous. It was his first tri. I jumped in the warm water and took a few strokes out and back. The national anthem was played and the waves began. I was in wave 3.

8:05am - Everyone in wave 3 in the water. The air horn blows and we are underway. It is very crowded. There are people everywhere. The course had three legs. It was a 200m swim out, 100 across, and 200 back in. Right at the end of my first leg, I could tell it was not going to be my best swim. I was tired from my 2500m swim the day before. I managed to pull off 9m 14sec. This ranked me 34th out of 255 people. Not a bad finish, but it could have been alot better.

Swim time: 9min 14 sec

8:15am - I was making my way out of the water and into transition. It was a short run and my bike was in the last race going into transition. The only problem was that I had to run the entire length of the transition area, uphill with bike in hand. It was not too bad. I made it out in about 1min 30 sec. This includes putting my shoes on.

8:17am - I am off on the bike for a short 11 mile ride. We are flying through the Lake Carolina Development and head out onto a couple country roads. The road out was pretty flat for the first 3/4 of a mile, then came the climbing. The hills were not steep, just kind of long. I was trying my best to just pound the pedals and keep my cadence up there. I was averaging a good 17.0 mph up the hills. This was a pretty good pace. Finally, we hit a couple flat sections and I started mashing. I looked down at my bike computer and it showed 27mph on the flats. I kept pedaling and looked down another 10min later and it was still at 27. I was moving it. Then, came some more hills. This one a little steeper - 13mph. At this point, my legs were on fire. Knowing that it was hot and getting hotter, I kept saying "make sure you drink." My plan was to finish my fluids around mile 9.5. At mile 8, I was out. I drank way too much, too quick. That is not good. Then I looked down at my computer again and see I only had another mile to go, so I start pushing it real hard. Then comes mile 11, and 12, and 13. Finally just short of 14 miles, we returned to Lake Carolina.

Bike time: 42min 12sec

9:00am - Return to transition with a little mental and physical fatigue. I had some trouble getting my running shoes on. For some reason, they did not want to go on my feet. Finally, I get them on and I'm off. Again the run start was right next to me. This worked out well. The run started out with a short flat section then came the hills. There were hills for the first 1.5 miles. They were steep hills. Many people were walking, but I said that will not be me. At this point, it must have been close to 90 degrees. Finally I make it to the top and make the turn back to town. I picked up the pace going down hill then, I hear this guy yelling from behind me- "Pick it up, I'm going to catch you!" He kept yelling this repeatedly! So, I said, no one is catching me, and I was in an all out sprint for the last 1/2 mile. I passed about 10 guys.

Run time: 26min 16sec.

Right when I crossed the finish line, I had a really bad feeling. A feeling of "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be sick!" I looked for the closest set of trees and walked towards them. Before getting to them, I stopped an hung my head down and began to feel better.

Total time: 1 hour 21 minutes

After the race, I went to find some water and something with some quick sugar. I found both - water and Coke. I looked for Rick as he finished just ahead of me, but could not find him until I started to leave. We talked about how hard that race was and how he had thought about quitting the run himself. It may have been the hardest race thus far in my short tri - life. It was fun though. I'm glad I made the trip down. Even a couple days after, I am still not sore. I am very tired, but not sore. I guess I am getting in better physical shape. I need to keep it up.

"Long" Run today

Well, I have redefined "long" run. My previous description for my long run was almost 11 miles. Today, my new "long" run is 5.2 miles. It took me almost two days, but I finished. Actually I ran 10 min miles. On a normal day, my run pace is around 9:00-9:30/ mile. Race pace is around 8:00-8:30/ mile. Overall, I was looking to stay moving for :50-:55 minutes. I was right in the middle (around :52). The best thing about the entire run was that I proved to myself that I was not exerting alot of effort and my heart rate showed. It did not get above 155 bpm-even on the hills. That is real good news. The bad news is that my Achilles Tendons really bothered me during my first 1/2 mile. This is the first time I have run with pain in a month. Kind of disappointing. The pain did go away after that 1/2 mile, but I wish it never showed up.

I am still considering the race in Columbia on Saturday. I don't know if "fast" is really my thing at this point. I have been training for distance, not time. I might do it just to get another race under my belt before the big day. Also, it is supposed to be 104 degrees in Columbia. Luckily the race starts at 8:00am.

Good day today

After a long bike and swim yesterday, I had another good workout today. I followed my plan and rode for 1 hour (17.5 miles) and ran for 30 minutes (3.3 miles). At this point, my body has had enough. I have a rest day tomorrow and plan to take full advantage of it~ by not doing anything! - Workoutwise at least. I am happy to say that again~ my run was pain- free.

Good couple weeks of training

It has been awhile since I have posted, but I will say that the past few weeks have been great. I have started running again and everything is going real well. I have not had any pain during my last two or three runs. I have gone up to 4.5 miles. Char said once I hit 5 or 6 miles, I can return to my normal program. I am real excited about that. Therapy has been going well. We are working through the strength training phases now.

The bike has been going great too. No problems at all. Actually I had a real good ride today. I went with a friend Matt and he took me on a new route. We made it 40 miles. My legs were fine. Actually I wanted to keep going to 50 be he wanted to cut it off a little early since he did 47 on Saturday. We spent much of the time riding two wide talking. We still averaged 16.75 mph. It took us 2 hours 25 minutes. Since he knew the way, he was in front and I was on his wheel the entire time, often times hitting my brakes to not get to close. My hr is normally in the mid 140's. This ride my average was 130 bpm. That is real low and means I was not using as much effort as usual when I ride. This ride really gives me some positive reinforcement for my time goal of under 3 hours in Augusta.

Back to training

I feel like I have missed quite a bit of my training time with my busy work schedule lately. I have part of it past me, but not all of it. My biggest event is over. Overall it went very well. I managed to get into my training routine for the past couple days. I did my scheduled 90 minute ride on Sunday and my scheduled workouts for both Monday and Tuesday. I decided to do them in the warm SC heat. It was over 90 yesterday but I stuck it out and did my scheduled 3 mile run. Today (Tuesday) called for a bike then run. I decided to make it a brick day. I did the 60 minute ride then did the 30 minute run. The temp today was 88 degrees. Yesterday it pushed 90. I wanted to get it in today because I want to see how I stood on my hydration. As hot as it is here, hydrating is key. I was spot on. During therapy, Char and I both agreed that my shoes could be a major contributor to my AT. Yesterday, I decided to eliminate those from the equation by getting new shoes. I ended up with the Mizuno Wave Elixir 4. I put them on and immediately I knew they were the ones. They fit me like a glove and were extremely light weight. I should have broken them in before running in them, but I read on runnersworld.com that they are good to go right out of the box. I threw them on and sure enough, no blisters. They felt great yesterday and even better today. I even managed to average 9 min/mile today after the bike and in the heat. This was all with very little Achilles pain. Tomorrow calls for an early swim but short swim because of my therapy at 9:00 and work at 11:00. Mentally I am getting back into it and getting real excited about the upcoming weeks. They are only going to get harder, but I am up for the challenge.

Swim / Run day

I had a decent training day today and recognized something of slight importance. I did a 2500m swim today with only a little fatigue near the end. I was getting tired, but overall felt good. After eating dinner, I had a 30 min run planned. I figured it was going to either be 30 or 2.5 miles. Whichever came first. I was hoping it was the 2.5 and it did. It ended up being a 24 minute run. I am trying to ease back into my runs and not overdo it. This is my longest run since my race. I had a little achilles pain in my left foot. Nothing in the right, but a little in the left. That's kind of strange because I had the least amount of flexibility in my right foot.....hmmm. About the "recognition of something of slight importance," I checked my workout today and saw that I was supposed to do a 3000m swim. That was a ton of mileage especially for only being in the second week of training. I looked at my scheduled distances for the rest of the week and they were crazy!!! I mean like swimming another 3000 and riding for 2 hours. Okay, something was not right. I took another look at my plan and realized that I somehow downloaded the "Ironman Training Plan" into my training log. So, I've been doing some Ironman training for a couple weeks. What a relief. There is no way in the world I am ready for anything like that..................YET.

Small milestone

I ran two miles tonight pain free. It's gotta be the old shoes!