Tri-ing It Again

I ended up signing up for the Amica Ocean Beach triathlon (held this morning). Weather was perfect, albeit a little humid for the lungs but bearable,and apparently it was a record turnout as well. Not sure how many people exactly, but there was just shy of 400 last year I believe. The event is a half mile swim ocean swim (pretty calm today), 16.1 mile bike ride, and a 5k to finish it off. Fairly typical sprint format.

Last year the anxiety and lungs killed me on the swim and I had to breast stroke it for 24+ minutes, not fun. Felt like I had a good bike ride (50:xx) and a really good run (~23:22). This year? Well, I don't know yet on the splits, but know I knocked 4 minutes off the time based on my approximate finish of 1:36:xx. I really wanted a top 100 finish after finishing in the 170's last year, but we'll see.

For the swim this time I had a full wetsuit which makes a HUGE difference over, well, just a swimsuit last time. The buoyancy of those things is amazing and helped me to keep a fairly consistent swim even though I did get a little tight in the lungs again. Still, I was able to keep it together and freestyle the whole time. I gotta start swimming in traffic for practice....oy vey with the swimming over each other, LOL.

Bike was okay...not sure if I improved here or not. My calf started to lock up on me halfway through so I had to ease up a bit....but again, pulled it together to get to the run.

Run is surreal as your mind is there, but e body is doing funky things since it spent the past 50 or so minutes n a bike. Still, I think I managed a good pace, past a couple of people, and was happy to see my parents (first race they came out to see), and Lorraine and the kids at the finish. Kiley apparently volunteered to hand out water bottles, so I gave her a kiss on the head and she continued to help out. Nice how they get the kids involved.

We spent a couple hours hanging out at the beach after so the kids could play, and then headed home to relax as much as one can with the kids!

I'll post the results as soon as they post them.
Update
Overall time - 1:35:03
Overall place - 83 out of 321
35-39 age group place - 9 out of 25
Swim (.5 mile) - 18:36
Transition 1 - 1:52
Bike (16.1 miles) - 49:36
Transition 2 - 1:20
Run (3.1 miles) - 23:41

As compared to last year.....

Overall time - 1:42:03
Overall place - 172 out of 355
35-39 age group - 24 out of 34
Swim (.5 mile) - 24:36
Transition 1 - 2:29
Bike (16.1 miles) - 50:19
Transition 2 - 1:20
Run (3.1 miles) - 23:22

Marathon Musings

So, I was perusing my Disney Marathon results from 2012 for some unknown reason….  I think I told the story of how I was boarding along the line of asthma attack the night prior…yada yada…woe is me… Anyhow, the point is around the results and when I checked them after the race, they were all funkified.  My finish time was correct, but I was more interested in the splits as I wasn’t sure as to what they were.  Anyhow, checking them now and they seem to have been corrected.  Given the whole breathing thing I actually impressed myself…for the first 13 miles anyhow…

5 mile split – 39:20

10 mile split – 1:18:22

Half split – 1:43:54 (my Half Marathon PR 1:48:50)

20 mile split – 2:47:04

Finish – 3:53:36

Fell way off at the end there due to a number of things, probably things well within my control (pre-race nutrition, hydration, fueling duing, etc.).  Was I dissapointed though? Not at all.  I really was having major lung issues and honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to run or finish the race prior to the start.  Not to get all religious, but I said many the prayer for the ability to run and finish the race, and it wasn’t looking good until I actually started to run.  Probably the closest thing to a miracle that I’ve had. 

So what did I take out of all of this.  First, nothing like training for a marathon to make a half marathon seem like a fun run…  Second, I should be able to run a sub 1:40 half marathon this fall when I run it in Hartford.  Third, I really need to watch my marathon week prep and also concentrate on the fueling strategy.  While this wasn’t a PR for me, it was a darn miracle that I finished let alone put in sub-4hrs.   It’s true, the races are really decided during your training and not so much on race day.