Race Report - July 12 2009

This isn't a blog I'm looking forward to writing.  It isn't easy facing up to expectations and goals after a lot of hard effort and you miss the mark so completely.   

In the grand scheme of things 10 minutes (this is about how far off I was from my projected time based on my training coming into the race) really isn't a large chunk of time.  It is about as long as it takes to run into a tri store and pick up a couple of GUs and some lace locks.

This weekend I was in the Iron Brother's Super Sprint Tri in Grand Prairie.  Because my season will go into late November this year I started my racing later so, this was my first race of 2009.  The race is short which means I can train normally and get a feel for some of the new equipment and bike adjustments I've made since last year.   

The picture here to the left is probably the best moment I had the entire morning.  From the time I got into the water and started swimming, I just felt off.  Things were manageable until I rounded the first buoy but shortly after that is when things just went from feeling off to being dizzy and nauseous.  I had no idea what was going on.  And I really began to struggle.  Not to the point of panic mind you, but I was incredibly uncomfortable.  Needless to say a simple 400 meter swim became a test of patience and survival.  And given the way I was feeling I was pretty sure, I was done for the day once I reached the boat ramp.

So, after some backstroke, breaststroke, and a chat with one of the guys in a canoe as I treaded water who informed me the water temp was almost 90 degrees (probably not the cause of the nausea, but certainly not helping my situation any) I finally emerged from the water dizzy, probably overheated, but in one piece.  Oh yeah, max heart rate in the swim, 211 (This is not a typo).

I took my time getting to the bike.  In the transition area as I cooled off a little, I took the attitude of "Let's just see how this goes..."  How it went was I suffered.  I've been working on my cycling a lot in the off season and this was one area where I really wanted to see some improvement.  But I still felt like crap so I settled into a gear and a cadence I could stand and just went at it.  The good thing about a crappy swim is you spend all of your time on the bike passing people.  This can make you feel a little better even if you still want to puke.  

After the turn around, things got a little tougher because the slight cross wind became more of a frontal assault.  But I was happy with my effort.  A glance at my heart rate monitor was encouraging, I was spinning a larger gear than I had the year before and my heart rate was 154.  Last year I had an average heart rate on that course of 158 and I was feeling great and it wasn't windy.  I wasn't moving fast, but I wasn't floundering like I had in the water.

Coming into transition, I was fully committed to ending my day with the bike ride,  but somehow found shoes on my feet and WALKED out of transition.  I think I ran about 10 steps before stopping with a cramp under my right arch.  "That's it," I thought.  "I'm having one of the worst races ever and I'm not about to get injured because of my own stupidity."  So I proceeded to walk and would have walked the rest of the run had it not been for a "guardian angel" on the course who ran by me saying "I've been on your feet all race, don't stop now!"  

So I started running with her.  Her pace wasn't uncomfortable so, for the first time all day I wasn't struggling, though I still was dealing with the nausea.  But my foot wasn't cramping and that was a relief.  She was having a hard time with her breathing and began to slow so, I slowed down to stay with her and talked to her about focusing on her footsteps instead of her breathing.  Each time she slowed, I slowed as well.  Finally her husband came and ran with her just before the mile marker and I felt he could run the rest of the way with her.  

I think I went through the 1 mile point at about 10:50 given the walking I'd been doing.  At this point I decided my legs felt great even though the rest of me didn't and if I kept running like that I'd have to run for longer than I wanted so, I let my legs take over.  My second mile was a 6:55.   

Given the day I was having and the expectations I had going into the race, I think I would have rather forgotten the whole thing.  But one of the reasons I race is to learn things about myself I would otherwise not discover such as how I respond when things aren't going my way.  This race was one of those days where I had to come face to face with my expectations and the reality of my capacity at the moment not meeting.  I think this is what allows me to improve not only in a sport I love, but also in other areas of my life.  

The moment of truth came for me not as I crossed the finish line, but when I started writing this blog and I began to realize some of the experiences I was struggling with from my day actually offered me the very information I sought anyway.  As I said, racing for me is a quest for information about who it is I am and what I am capable of even when things don't go as planned.  What I learned as I sat down to write was so small as to almost go totally unnoticed.  Basically what I wanted to know yesterday was if my training was working.  So this is what I found out.  I ran a sub 7 min mile.  I haven't run one of those in a tri since I started doing them again 2 years ago.  And I was sick.  I had a bike split that was 5 sec faster than the year before under much more distressing conditions, both internally and externally.  And my heart rate average was 5 bps lower than last year...  As for the swim, well until the nausea hit I just might have at least equaled last year's time and the water temp that day was no where near 90 degrees.  Oh and even with all the nausea, I never did cover the course or any race volunteers with my pre race meal.  And for that, I'm so very thankful...