Sunday:
I did an hour of aikido class. Due to snow storms, karate classes were cancelled.
Monday:
I swam 1.2 miles at the pool doing one length freestyle, one length backstroke. I had fun.
Tuesday:
I did 2 hours of karate classes. I never did do my planned intervals.
Wednesday:
I spun on my fluid trainer for about an hour.
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Completed my first triathlon. I even won my age group. It was just a small indoor triathlon. 15 minutes pool, 15 minutes stationary bike, 15 minutes treadmill.
Later, after a nap, I went and did 2 hours of karate classes.
Monday:
I went to pool and swam a mile, doing half freestyle, half backstroke. Then I played a little bit floating, diving to the bottom and just having fun in the water.
Tuesday:
I did 2 hours of karate. When I got home, I ran an easy mile, then did 6 x .26 mile intervals @ 6:00 pace.
Wednesday:
I swam one mile doing freestyle. Then I swam maybe another half mile doing backstroke. I also played around in the water just having fun.
Thursday:
I ran 6 miles. I ran 2 miles @ 10:00 pace, 2 miles @ 6:56 pace, 2 miles @ 10:00 pace.
Friday:
Due to a snow storm, I skipped swimming and karate classes. I spun on my bike for an hour.
Saturday:
I ran a little over 9 miles of my planned 10 miles. I was in the middle of my 9th mile when my dad called. After talking to him for a while, I didn’t feel like getting back on the treadmill.
I had already signed up for the Ironman next august, and was looking at which half-iron distance race to do. A co-worker of mine who has attempted Ironman Louisville twice (DNF’d during the run both times) (she is signed up for Lake Placid this next year), mentioned a small indoor triathlon that was going to be held at a local YMCA. The format was 15 minutes in a pool, 5 minute transition, 15 minutes on a stationary bike, 5 minute transition, 15 minutes on a treadmill. It sounded like a good start to get my triathlon feet wet. So I signed up. It only cost $30.
I wasn’t sure how they would score the event. I did a search and found that other YMCA’s converted the bike and run to yards, and scored be yardage covered. But this logic, I wasn’t going to kill myself in the swim to cover and extra 50 yards.
I got up this morning at 6am, vegged a bit, ate some breakfast of a PB&J sandwich, and drank some Diet Pepsi. My wave (the second wave) started at 8:20, and I needed to be there at 20 minutes before. I had already had my stuff together the night before, so we got out, and got to the place about 7:45. I checked in. I went to the locker room, and got ready to go.
I check out the bikes. I spun the cranks and felt little resistance. Nice. The pedals had clipless mounts on one side, and straps of the other side. I hadn’t brought my cycling shoes. Oh well. I quickly figured out how to adjust the bike for me, and memorized the numbers.
I went to the pool and watched the 8:00 wave go. The pool area was warm. There was a smaller pool next to the lap pool. I stuck my finger in, and felt that the water was warm. Nice! When they finished, I got my ear plugs in, swim cap and goggles on. I got into the water, and it was colder than I am used to. Much colder than the other smaller pool and colder than the lap pool where I normally swim. I adjusted quickly. Each of the lanes would be split down the middle shared by two people. We got warnings, then the siren went off, and we started.
I intended to the do the swim nice and easy. I was just going to work on my form, and count stroke. I had a hard time focusing on my swimming form and counting strokes. Maybe it was the lack of the mp3 player I normally swim with? I did the best at I could. Instead of breathing every third stroke, sometimes I breathed every other stroke, sometimes every fourth stroke. And I couldn’t count the strokes at all, so I stopped trying. One thin I noticed right away was that weirdly, I was swimming faster than most everybody in the pool At least at the beginning. After that I couldn’t keep track. I mostly did freestyle, but did flip on my back and did a couple half lengths of backstroke to catch my breath. I also caught my breath at the ends of the pool before turning around. I wasn’t counting my laps. I had 42 second left, and swam one more length of the pool, then started backstroking back to the start knowing when I couldn’t get back to the other end of the pool before the siren. I asked the guy how my laps I did, he said 30 I must have swam 30 lengths. I figured I should have had an odd number since I swam that last half lap but I guess they didn’t count the half lap (single length). The card was marked like 2,4,6,8…30 as he wrote down when I hit the wall. Later I noticed other people had off numbers of lengths. So maybe I lost a length here. Oh well.
My wife took video of me swimming in the pool. Unfortunately she had a brain fart. She took about 10 short videos of me swimming, and did them all with the camera turned sideways in portrait format. So the video plays sideways on the screen. She didn’t realize what she had done wrong until she start videoing me on the bike.
I quickly got out of the pool, my cap, goggles, and ear plugs off. I dried off, got my running shoes on, and headed for the bikes. I set up the bike. This was the hardest transition as there was so much to do in 5 minutes. I was going to wear my mp3 player for this, but the ear bud wires were all tangled. I gave up trying to untangle them.
I wore my LVM21 shirt. Not the cycling jersey, but the older one. The only race I had worn this at before was the Wakely Dam Ultra where I got DQ’d for flashing obscene gestures at the finish line.
I got on the bike and when the siren went off, I started spinning. I held the bike up at around 33-34 mph. I really had to spin those cranks! The guy next to me was spinning just a little faster than me. The volunteers said that we were the two fastest in this wave. Part way through the bike, I pulled the shirt off. I was also drinking Gatorade on the bike. Just before the end, the guy next to me was at 8.3 miles, and I was at 8. With 10 seconds left, spun as fast as I could, and got to 8.1 miles, narrowing the difference to .2 miles.
Next to the treadmills. They were upstairs. The climb up the stairs was interesting after the 15 minute super-spin on the bike.
I grabbed treadmill #5. Five is my lucky number. My goal was the start off at 7:00 minute/mile pace, and see how I felt. When the siren went off, I turned the TM on, and start hitting the speed up button. I took a long time for the thing to get up to 8.7mph. There wasn’t a dedicated pace display. There was a scrolling display at the top that would occasionally display pace. I was pretty sure 8.7 mph was about 7:00 minute/mile pace. I was running better than I thought I would be able to right off the bike.
About 1.5 minutes in, the treadmill started slowing down. I thought maybe I bumped the emergency stop button. They warned us not to hit that. I started hitting the speed up button and nothing was happening. I started freaking out a bit. The TM just shut down, and displayed the message “Check Speed System”. I don’t know exactly what I said, but I think I used some cuss words, but hopefully nothing too bad. I know I said “crap” a bunch of times. They had me move to another TM. But I had already lost some time. I started running, but was concerned about the lost time and distance. I figured the run would be my best event. I asked the guy about a do-over (I was running at sub-7:00 pace at the time). The guy said I could either run in the next wave, or they could take my time on this TM, and calculate it out to the 15 minutes. I opted for that as it wouldn’t have been fair to everyone else for me to have a 15-20 minute rest before starting the run.
I was running about 8.7, and bumped it up to 8.8 pace. In the last couple minutes I bumped it up more, and was up to like 9.5 mph at the end. I ran most of the time with a side stitch. I am not sure how far I ran, but they assured me they would calculate out the 15 minute distance. Then I was done!
I didn’t know how I did. I figured I might have a shot and an age group place. I checked out the awards information, and saw that the top 3 men, top women would get awards. Also the top finisher in each age group would get an award. Knowing that my age group tends to be very competitive, I figured I probably didn’t do THAT well.
It was 10:00 and there were still waves starting. And the last wave would start around 11:40 I think. So they wouldn’t be finished till around 12:30. I didn’t want to wait around that long. I asked about the results, and they said they would be emailed later. So my wife and I left, and went and got some breakfast at McDonalds.
When I got home, I took a nap. Shortly after I got up, I received the results email. It looks like they way they scored the race was to do points based on where you fell into each event. So I got 68.2 points for the swim, 88 points for the bike, and 71.8 points for the run. The credited me for 2.22 mile run, which is probably about right as I think I averaged about 8.8mph.
It turns out I won my age group! Actually there was one guy in my age group who went faster (44 laps in the pool, 8.5 miles on the bike, and 2.16 miles on the TM). He got first place overall. But the info sheet said no duplication of performance awards, so I guess that is why I got first place in my age group (45-49 males).
The guy who was next to me on the bike, did 3.09 miles on the TM. He bumped it up to 12mph (the TM’s max) and ran that for 15 minutes. But he was only 37. He got third place overall.
I sent them an email about picking up my award. I drive by the YMCA twice a day, going to work, and coming home. Not sure if it is a medal, or a certificate or what. But it’s way cool!
p.s. I might not wear that LVM21 shirt for another race. Two races, and both ended with me cussing. I think it’s cursed!
Sunday:
Ran a half marathon on my treadmill. I finished in 1:54 actual time. But I ran 1:47 something if you don’t count the time off the TM to refill my Gatorade. I didn’t have any volunteers to pass me cups at the mile markers.
Monday:
I swam 1.2 miles. I started off doing freestyle, one length at a time, working on form, and stroke count reduction on the freestyle. Then I transitioned into doing one length freestyle, one length backstroke. After the push off, I was managing to cross the 25 yard pool in 17-21 strokes, mostly doing 18-19 strokes.
Tuesday:
I was intending to run intervals, but I started experiencing some foot pain, like the bottom of my foot was bruised. I skipped my run. I di do 2 hours of karate classes.
Wednesday:
I swam 2 miles, doing one length freestyle, one length backstroke. I again worked on my freestyle form, trying to reduce my stroke count. I was managing to take mostly 16-17 strokes (sometimes 18 or 19), after my push off. A lady showed up and was swimming in the next lane. She had fins, and was doing breast stroke and freestyle. I was almost keeping up with her while we were both doing freestyle, and I wasn’t wearing fins, and was working on my long easy stroke.
Thursday:
I ran 6 miles. 2 miles @ 10:00 minute/miles, 2 miles @ 6:56 minute/miles, 2 miles @ 10:00 minute/miles.
Friday:
I skipped swimming before karate, planning to do a swim on Saturday. I did 2 hours of karate classes.
Saturday:
I went to swimming pool to do laps, only to find a big inflatable kiddie slide in the middle of the pool. I thought maybe I could swim laps on either side of it until I saw ropes tethering it to each side of the pool. They said it was going to be there the rest of the day! I turned around and went home with no swimming.
I have been reading book about the Total Immersion method of swimming. The overall goal of Total Immersion is to make people more efficient swimmers, thus faster. Part of figuring out how efficiently you are swimming is by counting how many strokes it takes you to get from one end of the pool to the other.
The first time I tried counting strokes, I started to swallow pool water, and came up coughing. Ack! I was still just starting to learn to swim at the time. Later I managed to estimate how many strokes I was taking by counting how many times I breathed. Since I was breathing every third stroke, I figured out I was taking close to 30 strokes to get across the 25 yard pool. That was pretty bad.
I have been working on making my swim stroke more efficient, and taking a little more glide, etc. I managed to get my strokes down to maybe 22-25. Still not good.
Yesterday I decided to work on reducing my strokes, and get better at counting strokes. I would push off the wall, and count hand entries. My first stroke was with my right hand. Since I was breathing every third stroke, I would breathe to the left on my third stroke. I figured out that I really only need to count by threes when I breathe. So I would breathe to the left on 3 strokes, right at 6 strokes, left at 9 strokes, right at 12 strokes, left at 15, and right at 18 strokes. I managed to get across the pool in about 17-21 strokes, with 18-19 strokes being the mean stroke count. I worked on my form, and counting. I swam slow, and easy not worrying about time at all. I would like to get a metronome to work on a nice even efficient stroke.