Race Report - 6/24/2012

Event:  Twin Lakes Triathlon
Location:  Twin Lakes Recreational Area, Palatine, Illinois
Date:  June 24, 2012
Format:  700 meter swim, 14 mile bike, 4.5 mile run.  Eight waves consisting of up to 60 participants each, commencing the swim one wave at a time, in two minute intervals.  Based on seeded swim time I was assigned to the third wave.
Weather:  Sunny to start, clouding over later, mid 60s, no wind.
Scoring:  By age group (20 males aged 55-59), gender (about 280 men), and overall (over 450 male/female) based on total elapsed time including transitions.

After all of the training and at age 56, I've finally made it to the day of my first outdoor triathlon !  It's been a bumpy road of late.  Three different injuries to contend with over the last three months, the latest being posterior shin splints in my lower right leg - that issue popped up about two weeks before the race.  After researching the problem I discovered Rocktape and a method for taping over the "hot spot" - that has virtually eliminated discomfort while running.  One of my twin daughters, now age 23, and my wife were on hand to cheer me on.  Also, two friends from my church also competed in this triathlon.

Prerace:   Loaded up the SUV with bike and most other equipment the night before.  Set two alarms for 4am and turned in early.  Turns out I didn't have to rely on them, because another early riser in our family made sure to wake me up twenty minutes beforehand.

The first alarm clock to go off, better known as Phoebe, our Brittany.

Ate three pieces of whole wheat bread and a banana, then said goodbye to the dog.  Drove 1/2 hour to Palatine and arrived at 5am.  I was one of the first to arrive in my wave so was able to pick out a prime transition spot on the end of the row with plenty of room.  Set up my area, saw both of my friends from church and chatted briefly, then jogged 1/2 mile and stretched, and put on my wetsuit for a brief warmup swim.  Greeted my wife and daughter, who would end up taking some excellent pictures at key moments in the upcoming race.

Swim:  It's been just a couple weeks since I started training in Lake Michigan with a full Orca S4 wetsuit.  Took some getting used to, but after seeing improvements in bouyancy, drag reduction and forearm propulsion, have become a true believer in using it, no matter what the water temperature (a toasty 78 degrees at race time).  Plus I took a test swim at Twin Lakes the day before the event to become familiar with the course, which has everyone swim out to and then clockwise around an island in the center of the lake, then return roughly to the starting point.

This pic was taken just after completing my warmup swim.

So I set a goal of 1:30 per hundred meters, or 10:30 total elapsed time in the water itself.  Prior to the start of the race, and at the narrow entrance to the lake at waters' edge, I was standing near the shoreline edge stacked 2/3 of the way back in wave 3.

Here's wave three, color coded with those yellow caps, just moments before the start.  I can be seen adjusting my goggles just behind and to the left of the forewardmost male fan clad in shorts and visor standing next to the competitors on the embankment.

Consequently I was unable to wade into the lake through the narrow starting area until about five seconds after the starting horn sounded.  Once there, felt I had no choice but to break immediately to the outside to avoid the crowd and secure an open stretch of water.  That added some extra distance right off the bat.  And although I kept my cadence under control from the beginning (circa 50 strokes per minute), after 200 meters was surprised to find myself out front of the pack alongside two other swimmers.  However, sighting and navigation issues soon caused me to zig zag too much - particularly after rounding the first of two turns at the far end of the lake.  That's where I began to come up on and eventually pass roughly twenty swimmers from the two waves ahead of me.  Then on the return leg, we found ourselves heading straight into the sun - a problem compounded by my non shaded goggles.  It's likely that all the detours and zig zags tacked on at least an additional 25 meters.  Despite those issues I felt great and opted to keep a consistent, semi relaxed pace through the remainder of the swim to emerge fresh for the bike leg.  My daughter tells me I was the first swimmer in my wave to emerge from the water.  A five second run from waters edge to the timing mat completed that phase.  Finished 37th overall in 10:45 ( 10+ seconds of which were on land ), close to my goal.

The return leg of the swim, circa 100 meters from shore.  I'm wearing a yellow cap at top of picture and locked into a good, comfortable cadence here.  Some swimmers wearing red caps (from wave 2) and even a gray cap (from the first wave) can also be seen.

T1:  Ran down the wrong row but soon got my bearings and found my bike along the wave 3 transition row with no big loss of time.  But the temporary disorientation caused me to forget pulling off cap and goggles, then unzipping and pulling down wetsuit to waist enroute to bike and that cost five to ten seconds. Otherwise, wetsuit removal went smoothly.

Emerging from the water and heading for the bike in T1.  A look at the watch confirms a nice swim leg, but instead I should be in process of removing the top of the wetsuit on the fly at this point..

Sandy and muddy conditions in transition area helped force a prerace decision to don my bike shoes before grabbing for my bike.  Shoes, helmet and sunglasses went on in a breeze and I was ready to go.  Running in bike shoes was awkward but tradeoff of having no sand on feet for comfort's sake was worth it.  Emerged from T1 with no traffic in front of me at the bike mount line.  1:42 elapsed time including a full wetsuit removal in T1 placing 87th here (many others did not need to discard a wetsuit), not bad for a rookie but still could have been faster.

Bike:  Once mounted, found some difficulty in engaging both cleats - it seemed like at least ten seconds to complete that process before I could really get rolling.

Struggling to snap those Shimano SPD cleats into my clipless pedals at the start of the bike phase - yet another transition related issue here.

After that I found my rhythm and got up to speed, passing several bikers early in the ride.  I had a goal not to exceed a heart rate of 150 per minute so as to save something for the run to follow.  Except for the time pedaling up a few short inclines, that goal was accomplished.  However, I was pretty much on my own - no drafting opportunities for all but about 1/2 mile of the bike leg (this race is draft legal).  The route itself was well paved and in great condition with few potholes - however, there were a ton of turns on this course.  Despite dry pavement plus having scouted the route on my bike the day before (at a leisurely pace), decided I still wasn't familiar enough with it to take the turns aggressively.  I probably passed 20-30 bikers and was passed myself by four others during the entire leg.  Made sure to hydrate frequently throughout (perhaps too much as it turned out) and consumed a Gu energy gel packet halfway through.  As with the swim I felt good throughout the bike ride.  Finished bike leg in 38:56, a 21.6 mph pace over 14 miles, good enough to place 64th overall for the bike leg (I had a stretch target in mind of 22 mph but would have really paid the price later on if I'd actually hit it).

Preparing to dismount heading into the transition area after a good bike leg.  But yet another rookie mistake in transition:  I should have been in process of disengaging my feet from the bike shoes at this point instead of posing for this picture !

T2:  Found my transition station easily enough but problems mounted from there.  Forgot to unstrap bike shoes and ride barefoot while slowing down toward end of bike phase.  Taking them off afterwards instead of leaving them affixed to the pedals cost valuable time in transition.  Had trouble hooking my bike back onto the rope, despite the underside of the seat being designed for that purpose.  Sand and mud had found their way onto the towel I had laid out.  With no water bucket present had difficulty removing sand from feet.  Running in practice without socks was uncomfortable so decided prerace that I needed them.  So proceeded to put my socks on - despite applying Bodyglide to feet prerace that did not go smoothly either.  Running shoes went on okay and speed laces worked like a charm, but fumbled with my race belt while running toward the timing mat so I stopped to secure it properly around my waist - more wasted time.  Finally struggled out 1:52 later - earning a dreadful 295th overall placement for the T2 portion of the race - had been hoping for 1:15 or better.  Yikes !

Heading out of T2 for the start of the 4.5 mile run.  Running in tandem with a gentleman wearing a Purdue tri top - my undergrad alma mater.  Could have tapped an extra "boiler" for this leg as I was soon left to grasp for some reserve energy that wasn't there.

Run:  This leg is where I'd hoped to be positioned for a big push.  Had knocked down a 7:06 mile pace over four miles in my new Brooks ST-5 Racers in a time trial several weeks earlier - however, I ran that fresh and after a recovery day.  In retrospect should have mixed in more bike/run "brick" workouts (did only one of these in training).  Had felt good leading up to this point in this race, but lack of bike/run combo training prep reared its ugly head the moment I emerged from T2.  Quads immediately began to stiffen and burn out of the gate, my legs felt heavy as a result, and for some reason my heart rate readouts started going haywire - spiking over 200 beats per minute.  I'd had some similar issues with the monitor in the past but usually after a few minutes I'd start getting reliable readings again.  But the readings did not calm down after the first mile mark, so I didn't know what was really going on.  I'd hoped to stay around 160 for the first half of the run phase but couldn't rely on my monitor, so resorted to reading my breathing pattern instead.  On top of that, a burning urge to hit the porta potty left me feeling quite uncomfortable (I probably consumed too much Gatorade/water mix during the bike phase).  Each portable john I passed on the run (there were probably three) looked like an oasis in the desert - but I resisted the urge to stop and just plowed on.  With some mile markers missing (one of the few complaints I had about an otherwise well conducted event by the organizers) I didn't get a feel for the pace I was running but could have sworn I wasn't running too much faster than an 8 minute pace.  So I was quite surprised that I wasn't getting passed by several runners - maybe 4 or 5 actually did - plus I probably passed ten others as the run progressed.  Found no energy for any semblance of a push until about 1/2 mile from the finish, when I could hear more and more voices cheering the runners on.  Crossed the chip timing mat at the finish with a 33:30 run, producing a 7:27 mile split (had a stretch goal in mind of 7:15) which was 71st overall.

Race Summary:  Finished in 1:26:44, 54th overall.  Goal was to complete the entire race somewhere below 1:30:00 and that was accomplished.  Awaited the finish of my two friends - one of whom is an accomplished Ironman veteran who began in the wave behind me.  Would later learn that that he and I would finish the race within a mere 24 one hundreths of a second of one another - we had some fun talking about that.

Two fellow church members shown with me postrace.  The guy on the right is unlikely to compete in future Ironman or HIM races, distances my colleague on the left is quite accustomed to.

My friend had completed a 10k race a weekend earlier and entered this race with sore hips - still, I'm sure if we had competed in the same wave, he would have taken me down big time in the stretch run !  When the results were posted, learned that I'd won my age group by over four minutes !  Looking back, I was pleased with my first outdoor tri effort and have come away with several things I need to work on before entering my next race.

Crash Landing

Of all the obstacles those fiftysomethings have to dodge when training.  Lots of things can go wrong.  Margin of training related errors shrink.  Tri-geezers learn from bitter experience to pay more attention to things like stretching, strengthening, recovery, biomechanics and nutrition than those young studs that always seem to leave the over-the-hill gang in the dust, all the while making it look easy.

And now this - barely two months before my first outdoor triathlon.  Last month I was biking - going along about 20 mph on an area bike path, one which I'd traveled many times before.  A well maintained and lightly traveled asphault surface with just a few intersections to navigate.  And one bridge specifically built for the bike path which spans above and across the busiest highway on the nine mile route.

That bridge would be the scene of another infamous biking dustup.  Upon approaching the bridge and attempting to "hop" the bike over a bridge expansion joint like I had so many times in the past, I suddenly found myself flying though the air, clutching handlebars that were somehow no longer attached to the rest of the bike.  With a crash landing inevitable, I went into a crouch and landed on the right knee, elbow, shoulder and helmet.  It took me a minute or two to gather myself, sitting in the middle of the pathway on the bridge.  Meanwhile, two bikers stopped to offer assistance - and upon seeing the bloodied state of knee and elbow, offered to call 911.  I soon rose to my feet and, aside from the bruises noticed no other huge discomfort, so I thanked them but declined.  I instead used my cellphone to call for "spousal roadside assistance."  My wife was at home and within a 20 minute drive, and she was soon on her way.

While walking the bike through the nearby busy intersection to a gas station where she would pick me up, it soon became apparent that my shoulder had taken the brunt of the impact.  It didn't hurt at rest, but certain arm motions caused some pain.  Still, not enough of an issue to make a beeline for the emergency room, but enough for a visit to my primary physician - with whom it turns out, I had previously scheduled my annual physical for the next morning.

So next day, my doctor greeted me and immediately commented on my bandaged elbow (that was the least of the issue.)  He then conducted shoulder range of motion and resistance tests and concluded that there were no tears of any tendons or ligaments.  He prescribed rest and ice - followed several days later by heat therapy.  Not mentioned in his Rx was immobilization (eg. with a sling) - good news from a training standpoint.

Looking back, I view this experience as a glass half full.  I'm lucky to have walked away from that accident.  Fortunate to sustain no broken bones, concussion or worse.  And also thankful that no one else - bikers, pedestrians or vehicles - was involved.  As for the bike, it turns out that a single bolt - the one securing the stem to the handlebars - had sheared in half, causing the crash (unknown to me, that bolt had been the subject of an NTSB recall several years earlier).  Otherwise, the bike sustained no serious damage but needed a replacement stem, a repair to be supplied gratis by the manufacturer.  To top off the good fortune, a benefit inherent in the sport of triathlon presented itself - the opportunity to cross train over the next couple of weeks.  While resting that shoulder (no swimming or resistance work) and awaiting the bike's return from a local bike shop, extra time presented itself to focus on the run.  That period allowed me to further build an aerobic running base and eventually see some noticeable improvement in that phase.

The accident culprit:  A sheared bolt intended to clamp down the end of the bike stem around the handlebars on my Trek 2200 road bike.

Fibular Stress Reaction

It's been awhile since my last post, and alot of things have happened since then.  I'd been hampered by persistent calf problems, so much so that I was forced to cut a late February treadmill workout short and put the run training on ice until I could get in to see an orthopedic specialist.  Of concern wasn't so much the level of pain as it was the location.  The discomfort was most apparent along the sides of my lower legs - specifically near the peroneal tendons and fibula.

So my biggest fear going into the mid March appointment was stress fracture.  If xrays came back positive, the required rehab period would derail (again) at least part of the outdoor triathlon season.

Fortunately, my mid March visit to the specialist revealed no stress fractures, but according to the doctor I was well on the way toward that outcome.  At one point during the visit he observed my walking gait and told me I was overpronating - particularly on the left side.  That was news to me, as several years earlier I was told by a shoe store salesperson that, based on the wear pattern of my old running shoes I was an underpronator.

The doctor suggested custom orthotics and visits to a personal trainer.  Not eager to spend hundreds of dollars on either, I asked for his view on perhaps ditching my neutral running shoes and investing first in a pair of motion control trainers.  I'd then ramp things up slowly and see what happens.  He concurred but wanted me to return if I was experiencing any discomfort along the fibula.  He also suggested the name of a local athletic apparrel retailer equipped with a video gait analysis capability.

So off to the store I went.  The video revealed what the doctor observed - a serious overpronation problem.  That was corrected by purchasing a pair of Brooks Trance 11s - a motion control training shoe.  I've been training in these shoes ever since and haven't experienced the kind of calf pain felt during the winter months.  Calf stretches, rolling and massage are also part of the process now, and warmup and cooldown runs have helped too.