This was to be my "A Race" as Friel would put it. 5 years ago I volunteered to do body marking in the wee morning hours of a cold and slightly wet September. I remember many nervous people anxiously getting marked on their calves with race number and age. It was still before dawn, and as a volunteer I didn't realize how much fun it could be to be out early in the morning for such an masochistic activity as Triathlon.
Back then I remember thinking that
1. "These people are crazy"
2. "Shouldn't they all be asleep right now on a Saturday morning, shouldn't I?"
3. "Is that guys legs shaved?"
4. "this looks like it could be fun!"
Goals: So setting a few personal goals for this event while registering I wanted to hit top 10 for my age group in my two dominant portions cycling and running. Swimming I didn't care about time. Also, it would be nice to get transition time down to a reasonable level to have something to benchmark against.
Training:
Last year I started training too late to do the Kirkland Tri, and to be frank I didn't think it was in the realm of possible back then. My primary reason to train was to get better at cycling to enjoy a ride with the younger brother up Mt. Saint Helens.
That was how it all started....
There was the MS 150 ride in September, then a friend suggested some crazy 200 mile ride in Davis, CA. This of course was not outside the realm of reason, as the cycling thing was really quite fun by that point. Group cycling class for training on Mondays and Fridays, sometimes double classes, sometimes "bricks".
Group Cycling tends to be very high intensity 85-100% of Maximum Heartrate for 45 minutes, immediately followed by a moderately aggressive run for 30 minutes on the treadmill. Fun times. What's funny is you truly do start to crave the workouts. Yes, really.
Pre-Race Night:
Like a good student of Joe Friel, Mark Allen, and Dave Scott I laid out my gear bag. Had my nutrition figured out, thank you Hammer Nutrition and Nuun. Hammer gel has the complex carbs, to avoid a rapid blood sugar spike followed by crash. Nuun is just so freaking convenient in the water bottle. I would carry the gel in a flask attached to the bike and rip it off on the way out of transition or on the first couple miles of the bike. This would save 'fumble time' while in transition.
In the center of the picture you can see the masking tape holding on my gel flask, just to the right of my race number 521.
I was also repeating to myself the famous motto: "Nothing New on Race Day" over and over. Then it was off to bed.
Race Day:
Woke up early enough to finish the last minute prep. Got coffee, oatmeal (yes traditional race food for me), finished laying out the gear. Practiced going from wearing wetsuit, cap, and goggles to stripping off and donning cycling gear. Then into running clothes. Over and over. Everything stuffed into the duffle bag, just as the kiddos were getting up. Out the door we go!
Once we got to Kirkland, I had the wife drop me on top of the biggest hill to test out the wet roadway, and remind the instincts of what potholes and painted lines to watch out for. Then led the wife down into the designated parking area for athletes at Carillon Point.
The transition area is at Houghton Beach Park, a smaller park located next to a very busy (normally) road in Kirkland. The road of course was blocked off, and coned off to allow easy entry and exit for racers headed out by bike and foot. It looked like a ton of prep work. All for us.
The other interesting note about transition was that since it had been raining heavily the last 18 hours the grassy lanes between racks were starting the day a muddy mess.
It would be fun to see how muddy they'd get by the end of the day!
Upon arriving at my spot on the rack, I saw a few of my buddies from previous events. Also, I noticed that folks generally seemed calm, but definitely anxious. If only people wouldn't lose the sense of humor first upon getting stressed out. So regardless to say I'm sure some folks were just flat out annoyed at my mellow humor. But also, some I hope found it refreshing.
Next got the wetsuit and cap on. As it turns out my age group was due to go out right after the elite wave. Event started at 8:00am, we were going out at 8:01. Then all the rest of the folks were out to chase us down and swim over the top of us, if you believe the horror stories from Ironman distance events. After our race briefing, (don't ride to fast on the slippery road, play it safe and don't pass people on blah blah road, follow the rules...) all us red caps huddled around near the corral for the water start.
That's when it hit me. Oh crap I've gotta swim a long ways. Half a mile to be exact, and I've never completed a half mile swim in the pool or in the Columbia river for training. Although both have been attempted... and DNF as they say. Now was show time and I finally started to get anxious.
One more cliff hanger for dramatic purposes only, I was wearing my wedding ring and it likes to fall off these days, since I've lost a bit of body fat in the last couple years. I had almost lost the ring in many pool swims, but now I was about to go out on lake Washington for a half mile swim in just over 4 minutes with no family in sight and no pockets to be found.
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