A First Real Taste of Pain

Warning: This entry contains bitching, moaning and self loathing…along with the words “fruit flavored snot”. Proceed with caution.

Boxers say that everyone has a plan until you get hit. The same could be said for triathlon.

Up until now, I have been training each event individually. The only event that I have completed a competition distance for is the swim. It is my best event and sadly the least important time-wise. I have been more focused on running and biking.

So yesterday, I decided to do a 1/3 sprint triathlon complete with no stops and quick transitions. That works out to 300yd swim (no reason not to do the full distance here), 5 mile bike and 1 mile run. This is all without stopping and only using any items that I set up before starting the swim. By the end of it, I'd been "hit".

Did some planning and set up. Really pleased as my transition (moving from one event to another) times were only about 2:30. Swim was good and fast. I only needed to do 1 lap of breaststroke (freestyle is much faster and I'm working to do it nonstop). 5 swims ago, I had to stop twice and rest. Total swim time was around the 4:10 mark. Not bad and not particularly taxing.

Moved from the pool to the bike for transition #1 (T1). The prep and planning paid off. I had everything I needed where I needed it. I was on my bike and pedaling before I knew what was going on.

The bike ride was good but very, very slow. I averaged only 15 MPH. The bike pace is the most important as it is where the most time is spent. Thus improving just 1 MPH on your pace can hack off 5 minutes of total time. During the bike, I drank a bottle of Gatorade and ate one of those nasty packets energy goo. It’s basically a packet of fruit flavored snot. It was nasty enough to be a distraction. I drank the Gatorade too quickly because my stomach started to hurt. By the end of the bike, I was bloated, sweaty and tired.

The transition to the run was effortless. Park the bike, finish the Gatorade and start running…for about 200 feet. I had to stop and walk because my head was swimming. After about 30 seconds. Ran again for a little while and stopped again. Ran for the last ½ mile.

Felt pretty good until I looked at my watch. The whole thing took about 38 minutes. Multiply that by 3 and take off 3 minutes for doing the complete swim and you have little over an hour and 40 minutes. This would be good enough for dead last in my age group and almost all others under 60. Wow.

So it was kind of a bitter sweet thing. On the one hand I finished what I set out to do and it’s a good milestone: all sports together and a good chunk of the competition distance. On the other hand, this kicked my ass. I am going to have to train like a madman over the next four weeks just to suck in the competition. It’s a bit deflating.

The other thing I realized is that I’m probably one of the top fifteen swimmers in the competition. This means that I will start early in the swim portion. I am close the top 25 on transition #1 time, so I will probably be one of the first 20 on the bike. So, for the rest of the race, I will be passed (owned) by hundreds of other competitors aged 15 to 75 (Yes, that is 75 human years). Add the fact that I will be in full bodied agony (crying like my daughter when her brother takes her candy) and I’m set up for the humiliation of my adult life.

Again I must ask. Why the hell am I doing this? Am I willing to get totally owned just to compete sooner? If I train longer to have a better first showing in a later race, will I have the motivation to get there? I need to think about this.