Wish Me Luck

[BruceSteveRoy]

I have been training for my first olympic length triathlon over the past 5 months. That is 2 workouts a day, 6 days a week for 5 months. its been pretty tough. anyway, D-day has almost arrived. Sunday I will be storming the beaches of St. Petersburg (florida, not russia) and jumping in to the bay. swimming a mile, then biking 26.2 miles, and then running 6.2 miles. whats more important is that after this is all over i can return to my regular schedule of kung fu and jiu jitsu. i havent been to either in a little more than 2 months bc the tri training has been so tough. i have a sprint tri in philly in june but i won't have to compromise my MA training for that.

anyway, wish me luck and if i am not too embarrassed of my times i will post them when i get back on Wednesday.

I also wanted to thank all of the people that donated money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society so that this triathlon was possible. Together my wife and I raised about $9,000 dollars which will go towards cancer research and treatments. Your support was and is tremendously appreciated. Thanks.

~Steve

[sanjuro_ronin]

Good luck and here is my token advice to all sport practitioners:
Don't forget to breathe.

[BruceSteveRoy]

thanks. but that goes against my entire strategy of finishing the tri in one breath.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

awesome man ... good luck. good work on the money raising too.

[Lucas]

Awesome to hear man. Good luck, though it sounds like with your training schedule, you shouldnt need any of that pesky luck junk.

[viper]

Im not a believer in luck as such. So i all I can say is well done i think its a inspiring feat with the disipline and hard work youve put in.

[BruceSteveRoy]

and i am back.

so i had set goals for myself starting out. i wanted to finish my swim in under 30 minutes. i wanted to bike in under 1:15 and i wanted to run in less than 1 Hr. These are all reasonable goals. My bike is usually about 1:20 in practice and my run is usually less than an hour but usually more than 50 minutes. the swim is what i was most nervous about. i have never swam in open water and i just learned how to swim about 5 months ago. I figured the course being as flat as it was would mean i would be able to do better than my usual time on the ride and i figured i would be tired for the run so should expect to slow it down from what i normally do in practice.

anyway, my wave left at 9:06 am. beautiful weather. the water was a little choppy but nothing serious. i wasn't sure how i measured up in speed with other people in my wave so i didn't want to start at the front of the wave and be in everyones way and then have to deal with that. so i started more towards the back. i went out and started swimming and bam hit a wall of people. anyway the swim went by before i realized what happened.

Swim Time: 31 Min 15 sec

if i had started at the front of the wave i would have been well under 30 minutes.

I got out of the water and couldn't find my legs. i was so dizzy. anyway i get to my bike and i tried to get my equilibrium back. i took way too long in transition. then i went to bike and it was awesome. i felt great the whole time and i was really pushing myself to do well. my three favorite words are now "on your left" bc that meant i was passing someone and i must've said it like 100 times. anyway, its a flat course and i felt i was keeping a better than my average pace.

Bike time 1 hr 24 min

i was very disappointed by this i didn't know if i got my goal of less than 1:15 but i was sure i was faster than 1:20. so i was surprised to find out it took me so long.

Then i get back to transition and one of the ppl next to me put all their stuff from their bike transition in my transition spot and their wet suit was hanging over the rack where my bike was supposed to be. so i had to spend too much time figuring out what was mine and what i needed. so i racked my bike and went running. i felt good. the swim was fun the bike was fun and i was confident that my run was under control. but in my rush to get out of transition i forgot to grab the nutrition i had planned so i didnt refuel for the run at all and i think that hurt my time. so i get to mile one and i am starting to think "man, this is a lot harder than i expected" and i get to the first water station and i grab a cup and to my dismay it was gatorade. i was very thirsty so i drank it. i had to fight the urge to throw up for like a mile and a half bc of it. it was awful and slowed me down. i eventually had to walk. so i was getting very disappointed but my stomach was not concerned with the fact that i was racing. anyway, the other thing i was not prepared for was the heat. it was mid 80s and no shade. that plus no nutrition plus needing to vomit meant i went very slow and walked way more than i wanted to. i was about 2 miles from the finish and i started feeling cold and shivery. so i had to walk again. so the run was a big bust and i never got a rythym. at the last mile one of the coaches from the NY Team in Training started to yell at me to pick up the pace which i thought was funny bc i am not on his team and wasn't wearing a team in training jersey. but it worked and i really ran the last mile.

Run time 1hr 16 min

but i can say that when i crossed the finish i had nothing left. i could barely walk and that is not an exaggeration. so i left it all out there on the course and i feel ok about that. my times were not as good as i hoped but i learned SO MUCH from the experience and the next time i will be better prepared. so it was very rewarding though not ideal.
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