2012 SOMA Triathlon recap

Well, this recap is a bit overdue...almost a month actually.  Like I wrote in my previous post (also a while ago), my life has become pretty busy as of late.  Anyway, no excuses.  Here's the recap!

I was a bit nervous for this race.  Well, maybe nervous isn't the right word.  Let's just say that my training had taken a back seat to some other important things (like the birth of my son!), so I felt as if I was going into this race very under prepared.  The nice part of the whole thing was that I really had no expectations because I knew that life had happened, and there wasn't a lot I could do about it.  I was just hoping to go out and have fun and do the best I could.

The race started at 6:30 am for the pros, and then my wave was supposed to start at 6:35.  I had a very relaxed pre-race routine, not really having expectations and all.  By the time I jumped in the water, I was feeling pretty ready to go, and was actually getting excited to see how the day would unfold.

The Rock Star and me before the swim...looking nervous due to my lack of training

SWIM

The swim started and I just went ahead and started near the back.  I really had done virtually no swimming (like maybe one swim workout per week) for the last couple months, so I was doing my best to not get in the way of the other people who had really put in the time.  I seemed to get in a pretty comfortable groove quite quickly, and just kept to myself and motored my way through the one loop swim course.  My final swim time was 40:33 for the 1.2 mile swim, which is pretty bad, even for me.  I've never been a fast swimmer, but I'm usually a bit faster than this.  However, I achieved my goal of getting through the swim without drowning, and actually felt really good when I exited the water.

T1

I exited the water and made my way to my bike.  I quickly changed and hopped on my bike to get the rest of this show on the road!  I had decided that since I hadn't really trained, and had no real goals, I was going to push pretty hard on the bike and just see what happened.  The beauty was that if I blew up, it was no big deal because I didn't have any goals!

cruisin' on the bike

BIKE

This bike course is not the greatest.  There's about a TON of turns, and a number of U-turns, making it pretty hard to get into a rhythm.  There's virtually no straight aways, which means not a lot of holding that aero position for long periods of time.  Oh well.  I kept on pushing, avoided having any flats (last time I did this race I had 2!), and ended up with a pretty decent bike split.  My time for the 56 mile bike course was 2:43:31, for an average of 20.55 mile per hour.  I actually felt great when I got off the bike, and was ready to get on to the run, which is usually my stronger of the events.  I hopped off my bike and ran over to switch my battle garb from biking to running.

T2

I got off my bike and hustled on over to re-rack it, and quickly changed my shoes.  This was probably one of the fastest transition times I've had.  The time on my Garmin said 2:05, but I know it was actually a little quicker than that because I hit the "lap" button before I got off my bike, and forgot to hit it right when I left the transition area.  Oh well.  Off to the run!

RUN

By this point, I could tell that I was going to be pretty close to setting a new PR, which is totally not what I expected for the day.  However, I knew that my run would have to pretty better than I was expecting.  On the plus side, I was still feeling pretty good!  I started the run and made a conscious decision to stop and walk for about 15 seconds at the first aid station.  My game-plan was to run at a solid effort to each aid station and then walk for anywhere between 10-30 seconds at each aid station, giving me time to get in my nutrition and give my legs a bit of a breather.  This was a 2-lap run, and I actually felt great until about mile 10.  It was at this point that I could feel my lack of training, and really had to work to try and hold a pace.

Thumbs up for feeling great so far!

The beginning of the second lap, and still feeling great

Throwing out some love to my support crew!

By the time I finished up the second lap, I was definitely spent.  I was way under-trained for this race, but I was still able to put up a decent enough effort to set a new PR!  My fun ended up being 1:45:22 for the 13.1 miles, which was 8:02/mile.

I finished with a time of 5:13:55.  This was good enough for 14th in my AG, 77th in the male category, and 93rd out of 666 total finishers!  I was very happy with my effort, and couldn't have asked for a better day under the given circumstances.

After the race, however, I felt like crap.  This is when I paid for the effort I put out, without being trained well enough.  I was pretty nauseous, and couldn't really eat or drink anything.  I occasionally get migraines, and I actually got one during the second lap of the run.  Luckily, it didn't effect my run much, but the aftermath really intensified the nauseous feeling that I was having.  But I'm proud to say that I still have a streak of no throwing up after a race!  I'm sure that streak will end some day though...

Now it's time to get ready for by Boston Qualifying attempt!  More details to come...