I fell off the wagon big time before this race, and didn't train on the bike as much as I should have, but anyway, here's my recap.
The drive up to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater was quite nice. Virtually no highways and some beautiful scenery.
Arrived about 3 hours early and I knew going into the race I was in trouble. I had ingested pizza on Friday, cheesecake on Saturday and had ZERO bowel movements. Sorry to be disgusting, but that's something that is very important to one's digestive health and with no movements, I was concerned about cramping.
The Swim
The swim was staged in waves of 3 in each lane. I was in the 44th wave. One of my competitors didn't show up, so I shared the lane with another guy in my division.
I felt slow instantly. The other guy took off and was WAY ahead early. I could tell he slowed near the end after he opened up the huge gap, but he was a length ahead of me when he got out of the pool. I felt my side tighten during the 6th lap. Not good. Ended up with a 9:45. Not too bad, considering I did a 9:32 for 400 meters in Naperville and this was a 500 meter swim.
T1
First transition was something I worked hard on to fix. At the Naperville Tri, I had a 3:35 Transition as I struggled to get on my socks, shoes, etc.
This time, I went sockless and had no problems getting going and did a 1:34. Not bad at all
Bike
As I jumped onto the bike, I saw the leader in my division and the guy in my pool lane just ahead (I trimmed some of the two minutes I lost on the pool by hustling to T1 and getting that transition done quick), I figured, hey I can catch these guys and pull ahead.
This is when it went all wrong. Not 5 minutes in, I started to cramp everywhere. Legs, back, side. I was in pain and felt like I was riding in molasses. Just couldn't get going and watched the leaders disappear in the distance. I lost 4 minutes on the bike ride. 44:04 as opposed to 40:48 in Naperville. True we were more exposed in the wind, but I blame myself. I just didn't have any energy and was fighting my body.
It was the worst part of any race I've ever had outside of the last two miles in the spring half marathon.
T2
1:35 for my second transition. This included one of my toes getting caught in my toe shoes. I will not be wearing them next year for any tris. However, due to getting out of my cycling shoes faster, I improved from 2:07 in Naperville. So not bad, but I should have been closer to 1 minute flat.
Run
I had trained hard for the running portion and that saved this race from being really bad. I was in pain from the outset of the run. Couple notes. This was a trail run. Which I instantly loved because that's how I train usually is on the trails of the Crumby Rec Area. However, I didn't have the right shoes for this run at all. I was hurting from the rocks going into the bottom of my Vibram Five Fingers early on.
About a mile in, I finally settled into a halfway decent groove (Couldn't push any harder due to all the cramping and pain in my side). Mile 2 wasn't too bad and I caught one of the guys in front of me that was REALLY struggling. I dusted him, then as I hit Mile 3 and another climb, my quadriceps started tightening up... I tried to push through it, and at one point tried to stretch my leg, but couldn't bend it far enough into my hand. I just decided to get through it. It loosened up during the next downhill section and then as we hit a tenth of a mile to go, I was able to FINALLY go hard. Not my usual 5th gear run, but I pushed hard. Final time 25:28. All things considered, on a MUCH tougher course than Naperville, this wasn't that bad. However, with my training, I should have been down in the low 23's at the most.
Overall time 1:22:17
Diet killed me. As did my lack of bike training and my newness to the swim. I really felt that I could have won this in my division. And if I would have eaten correctly (My diet since August 5th has been pure garbage.) I probably would have and definitely would have placed in the top 3. I ended up as the 38th best time and 4th best in my division.
I like this race (However, not a huge fan of the cotton t shirt. Note to all races. Please give out tech shirts rather than cotton. I'll happily pay an extra ten bucks for it.) and I'll be back in May for their Earlybird Tri and next fall for their Latebird tri.
Next on the docket is a buttload of strength training for the next three months. Then, I'll be planning my 2013 Schedule. Already planned are these two races, the Naperville Tri, the Chicago Triathlon, and the South Shore Tri. That's five, plus races I'm waiting to hear on are a Ironman 70.3 that's close, the Rev 3 Tri in Wisconsin Dells and whatever else I can pick up. I'm hearing there are a lot of tris in the Wisconsin area, so I may be looking there.
So the key to performance isn't just training. It's your diet. Lesson learned. Time to get better.
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