Completion Report
I got to sleep at a decent hour last night, around 9:00. I had an alarm set for 4:00, but I woke up at 3:00, finally giving up and getting out of bed at around 3:30. Breakfast was a bowl of Kashi, then I checked the air in my tires and loaded up the car.
It was Florida cold when I arrived, with a temperature in the mid 50’s. I was actually there a bit too early, but I was the second person to get my number. (A wonderful, programmer friendly 256.) I was wishing I was wearing sweats, but by the time I got my bike racked and my transition area set up, I was acclimated. I went for a short run to the start line as a warm up. It was still dark, and I couldn’t even see the finish line across the lake from the start. Still, I’ve been regularly swimming well double that distance in the pool, and I wasn’t really worried about the swim.
After jogging back to the transition area, finalizing my setup, and taking my bike for a fast test spin, I met up with my former co-worker and her husband and we headed for the start. At this point, I’ve removed my shirt and left it in the transition area, and I’m not wearing shoes. I was already starting to feel cold when they announced that the race start would be pushed back to wait for light.
The air was cold, but the water was 80 degrees. They called for the first wave, Elite, Military and Male under 39. I hadn’t registered as a Clydesdale, so I was starting with the first wave. They put us all in the water for a few minutes leading up to the start, then we were off. I tried to get into my normal rhythm, but when I tried to swim fast I would end up clawing the legs of the person ahead of me. There really wasn’t anywhere to go to the right or left, so I tried to slow up a bit.
That’s really where the problems started. Somehow, when I slowed down, I was having trouble keeping my head out of the water. So less than 50 yards from the start, I breathe in a big mouthful of lake water. It was probably just the fact that the water was choppy, but I really felt like I got a good amount into my throat, and I never really caught my breath the rest of the swim. By the time I coughed up the water, the pack had thinned and moved away from me, so at least I wasn’t fighting with the other swimmers any more.
I did try to get back into my normal breath every four strokes routine, but I just wasn’t getting enough air to get through four strokes. My swimming was very sloppy across the lake, but eventually I could see the finish and powered through. Looking at my time, I’m amazed I finished in 11:17, pretty much right on my pool pace. Maybe I was constantly out of breath because I was pushing harder than normal, and it averaged out to a normal time, but it was much better than I expected.
It’s hard to get socks on wet feet, but nothing particularly interesting to talk about in the first transition. I was expecting to see a lot of guys trying running bike mounts, but I actually got by several guys fumbling to get on their bikes and get clipped in. It wasn’t just cold, but also very windy. The bike course was curvy, so it was a lot of riding hard into the wind followed by breaks with the wind at your back. I was passed quite a bit by people who started in the wave behind, me, but I passed some riders as well. I was trying to catch one guy for most of the second lap, but I never managed to get past him. I finished the bike leg with a time of 37:53.
Racking my bike and changing shoes went pretty quickly, then I was running. That’s definitely my worst sport. I don’t have a problem staying in a jog, but my pace is pretty terrible. I normally run roughly 15 minute miles, so I’m happy to see I averaged 11:39 miles, but even that wasn’t even close to enough. My 29:08 run time was only the 15th percentile overall and dead last in my age group. One thing that definitely helped was a woman who encouraged me to keep up with her 9:00 mile pace for a while. I kept up as long as I could, but lost it after probably about half a mile.
My overall time was 1:23:36, for 267th overall out of 334. I’ll take it, given that four months ago I weighed 320 pounds and couldn’t swim a lap in the pool without stopping for air. Miami is about two weeks ago. Right after the event this morning I was saying I was going to defer my entry to next year, but I think I might still try to run that race. I was honestly a bit scared during this morning’s swim, but I think if I relax and don’t try to push so hard early on I’ll be better off.
Full results for the event can be found here, and my individual results are here. We’ll see about the Miami race. Only five or six hours removed from this morning’s race and I’m already starting to consider it again. And I’ll definitely be back for more next season.
