Nanci
09-05-2005, 04:14 AM
Well, I lived through it! And did not finish last.
Swim: The bouy looked so far out there! 800 yard swim in a bay in the Gulf of Mexico, but not as you'd imagine it. The water was brown and not very clear, and the bottom was soft deep mud. There were sharp rocks with oyster beds on either side of the bay that we were warned to stay away from. During the briefing, we were told that the current was strong and to the north, so since we were swimming north, we should stay on the outside of the little bouys on the way out, so as not to have to swim back to the big turn around buoy, and to stay on the inside of the marker buoys on the way back in, so as to not miss the beach and get dashed in the rocks. Yikes! I was in the second of three waves- there were 104 people total. I started out at the back, side stroked and back stroked and did a few strokes of freestyle. Sooner than I thought, I was at the turnaround. After the turn, even the last wave soon passed me, and the lifeguards, one in a kayak and one on a surfboard, were following me. "Are you sure you don't need to hang on and rest?" (Apparently that's allowed, you just can't make any forward progress). "Yes, I'm sure. I'm fine, I just can't freestyle, so that makes me slow." I'm sure they were horrified by my breathing, which was pretty heavy, but I was trying to hurry as much as I could without getting so tired I had to stop. Finally I got to where I could stand, and then I was back on land, the last swimmer out. But- 15:49, which was right at my predicted time, and I was very happy with that. I just wanted to make it. (The overall female winner also won the swim, overall, even beating the men, at 5:34!!!)
Bike: They had a little shower coming into T1, which I stopped in for a second, then I had a bottle of water at my space. I was almost the only one to not have a pan of water, but this was the third race in a series, so everyone else was more experienced with the site. Hard to get my bike shorts on over my wet swimsuit. I promised myself that if I made it through the swim, I would buy a pair of tri shorts that I could swim in. (But when I got home, the sale at TE was over :-( Anyway, I had my stuff all laid out perfectly, having seen BF do it a thousand times. Only spent 1:32 in T1, then I was out on the bike. I felt like I was going as fast as I could, but it wasn't as fast as I expected. I was in the drops almost the whole time, very comfortable. It was much harder to drink my Endurox though, because I was closer to anaerobic and my stomach wasn't cooperating, and I didn't want to push it. Normally, I can eat and drink whatever I want while riding. I was concerned about getting something down, because I didn't eat much for breakfast. I had put my gloves on the bars, and my sunglasses in my bento box, but I didn't feel like wasting the time to put on either, and was comfortable without them. So I biked as hard as I could- 7.5 miles out, 7.5 miles back. I picked up 12 places on the bike. Still, my average speed was only 16.3, and I feel like it should have been faster, more like 17 or 18...Bike time: 55:22. I'm happy with that, I'd planned on an hour.
Run: I had my shoes loose coming into T2, and dismounted and ran in my socks. Took a minute to get my running shoes on, and they felt weird. Well, I hadn't run since Memorial Day, the Wickham Park Marathon (look that up online sometime if you want to see a CRAZY race) and so all my running miseries are all my fault. I lost two places on the run, and both the runners who passed me were doing a combination of run/walk.
I had hoped that my calf muscles would be warm enough after the bike to not give me compartment syndrome symptoms when I started running, but that was not to be. What happens is the muscles (on the front, outsides of my shins) swell up about five to ten minutes after I start running, and they get too big for their sheath, and the blood supply gets cut off, and it hurts like crazy. It's very rare, and I've been tested for it (they check the internal pressure of the muscle compartment before, immediately after and five minutes after running) and had surgery scheduled last summer to fix it, but then the surgeon had a heart attack a couple days before I was supposed to go, (he lived) and he was the only one qualified to do it, because it's so rare (they say an ortho surgeon normally only sees two cases in a lifetime of practice) and then I chickened out. So anyway, almost immediately, I could feel the pain from that, and though it didn't develope into full-blown numbness and pain, I was always aware of it. I ran as much as I could, walked a lot, feel like I could have run more and suffered more. After the turn around, it was better.
So my run time was 42:23, dropping me back the 12 places I had gained on the bike. 14:08 minute miles, (don't laugh!) which I was actually happy to see, because lately, trail running, I've been in the 16-20 minute mile range. My very fastest ever was a 5k in 29 minutes, which is a 9-something minute mile, and that was a long time and many pounds ago...I'm just not a fast runner, but I can run for ten hours in a long race, for whatever good that does! I had planned on an hour for the run, so I was _very_ happy with my run time.
Running in, I could see I had a chance to stay under two hours. (Overall winner, 1:02:30, master winner 1:08:09, female overall 1:11:56, master 1:22:33, clyde 1:18:38, athena 1:29:26) So I forced myself to run faster/longer, and my final time was 1:56:47. 100th. But age group second, so I got a medal!! And the T-shirt was long sleeved, and very pretty, with a manatee on it.
Swim: The bouy looked so far out there! 800 yard swim in a bay in the Gulf of Mexico, but not as you'd imagine it. The water was brown and not very clear, and the bottom was soft deep mud. There were sharp rocks with oyster beds on either side of the bay that we were warned to stay away from. During the briefing, we were told that the current was strong and to the north, so since we were swimming north, we should stay on the outside of the little bouys on the way out, so as not to have to swim back to the big turn around buoy, and to stay on the inside of the marker buoys on the way back in, so as to not miss the beach and get dashed in the rocks. Yikes! I was in the second of three waves- there were 104 people total. I started out at the back, side stroked and back stroked and did a few strokes of freestyle. Sooner than I thought, I was at the turnaround. After the turn, even the last wave soon passed me, and the lifeguards, one in a kayak and one on a surfboard, were following me. "Are you sure you don't need to hang on and rest?" (Apparently that's allowed, you just can't make any forward progress). "Yes, I'm sure. I'm fine, I just can't freestyle, so that makes me slow." I'm sure they were horrified by my breathing, which was pretty heavy, but I was trying to hurry as much as I could without getting so tired I had to stop. Finally I got to where I could stand, and then I was back on land, the last swimmer out. But- 15:49, which was right at my predicted time, and I was very happy with that. I just wanted to make it. (The overall female winner also won the swim, overall, even beating the men, at 5:34!!!)
Bike: They had a little shower coming into T1, which I stopped in for a second, then I had a bottle of water at my space. I was almost the only one to not have a pan of water, but this was the third race in a series, so everyone else was more experienced with the site. Hard to get my bike shorts on over my wet swimsuit. I promised myself that if I made it through the swim, I would buy a pair of tri shorts that I could swim in. (But when I got home, the sale at TE was over :-( Anyway, I had my stuff all laid out perfectly, having seen BF do it a thousand times. Only spent 1:32 in T1, then I was out on the bike. I felt like I was going as fast as I could, but it wasn't as fast as I expected. I was in the drops almost the whole time, very comfortable. It was much harder to drink my Endurox though, because I was closer to anaerobic and my stomach wasn't cooperating, and I didn't want to push it. Normally, I can eat and drink whatever I want while riding. I was concerned about getting something down, because I didn't eat much for breakfast. I had put my gloves on the bars, and my sunglasses in my bento box, but I didn't feel like wasting the time to put on either, and was comfortable without them. So I biked as hard as I could- 7.5 miles out, 7.5 miles back. I picked up 12 places on the bike. Still, my average speed was only 16.3, and I feel like it should have been faster, more like 17 or 18...Bike time: 55:22. I'm happy with that, I'd planned on an hour.
Run: I had my shoes loose coming into T2, and dismounted and ran in my socks. Took a minute to get my running shoes on, and they felt weird. Well, I hadn't run since Memorial Day, the Wickham Park Marathon (look that up online sometime if you want to see a CRAZY race) and so all my running miseries are all my fault. I lost two places on the run, and both the runners who passed me were doing a combination of run/walk.
I had hoped that my calf muscles would be warm enough after the bike to not give me compartment syndrome symptoms when I started running, but that was not to be. What happens is the muscles (on the front, outsides of my shins) swell up about five to ten minutes after I start running, and they get too big for their sheath, and the blood supply gets cut off, and it hurts like crazy. It's very rare, and I've been tested for it (they check the internal pressure of the muscle compartment before, immediately after and five minutes after running) and had surgery scheduled last summer to fix it, but then the surgeon had a heart attack a couple days before I was supposed to go, (he lived) and he was the only one qualified to do it, because it's so rare (they say an ortho surgeon normally only sees two cases in a lifetime of practice) and then I chickened out. So anyway, almost immediately, I could feel the pain from that, and though it didn't develope into full-blown numbness and pain, I was always aware of it. I ran as much as I could, walked a lot, feel like I could have run more and suffered more. After the turn around, it was better.
So my run time was 42:23, dropping me back the 12 places I had gained on the bike. 14:08 minute miles, (don't laugh!) which I was actually happy to see, because lately, trail running, I've been in the 16-20 minute mile range. My very fastest ever was a 5k in 29 minutes, which is a 9-something minute mile, and that was a long time and many pounds ago...I'm just not a fast runner, but I can run for ten hours in a long race, for whatever good that does! I had planned on an hour for the run, so I was _very_ happy with my run time.
Running in, I could see I had a chance to stay under two hours. (Overall winner, 1:02:30, master winner 1:08:09, female overall 1:11:56, master 1:22:33, clyde 1:18:38, athena 1:29:26) So I forced myself to run faster/longer, and my final time was 1:56:47. 100th. But age group second, so I got a medal!! And the T-shirt was long sleeved, and very pretty, with a manatee on it.