For my fans out there who were wondering how I did here are my overall results:
There were 749 total competitors, 468 male competitors and 51 competitors in my age group - MEN:25-29.
I completed the Swim portion (400 yards) in 9:17, and (I promise this will be the only "excuse" I give in this race report) it should be noted that this includes a 1/4 of a mile hill that competitors must run up with probably a 200 foot vertical rise. Ask Amy, I'm not exaggerating. I planned to run the whole thing but, somewhat tired from the swim and just plain demoralized by the steepness and length of it, I did stop to walk for probably the 30 or 40 steepest yards of it. So the swim itself probably took me in the neighborhood of 7 minutes and the hill another 2 and a quarter. Regardless 9:17 was the 16th fastest time among my fellow M25-29 age groupers, and 143/468 males. Here are pictures taken by the pros of me coming out of the swim.
Next was the transition area. For the transition you run to a little zone along a huge rack of bikes among a huge field of racks (fortunately my spot was the front-most right-most spot in the entire transition area - easy enough to find!) and you prepare yourself as you best see fit for the bike portion. For me this involved putting on a shirt, socks, cycling shoes, helmet, and sun glasses and then running along side my bike to the mount line where I hopped on and clipped in. Some studs will have their bike shoes already clipped into their pedals and they mount with bare feet and slip their feet into their shoes AS they pedal away to save time. I figured the accompanying trip to the hospital wouldn't be a big time saver so I went with the safer albeit possibly slower method. My transition took me 2:59 and was 35th/51 in my age group. Anyone suprised at me being slower than average in changing clothes is probably one of Amy's blog friends and doesn't know me very well.
Next the bike portion - the course was described as "mostly flat with rolling hills". I come from Warner Robins where the grades of the biggest hills are in tenths of a percent. Some of these hills were MONSTERS. I was surprised however that on the big steep hills is where I was able to pass a lot of people or at least make up a lot of ground. Apparently I'm a decent hill climber. The most lasting memory I will have of this portion, however, will be of cruising along feeling good and hearing a loud whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sound coming from behind me and seeing an extremely fit gentleman with a long pointy "spaceman" (as Amy called them") helmet powering by me on a bike with a disk wheel. They were all out of my age group, which I could tell because your age is written on your calves in black magic marker. So one by one dozens of 30-39 year olds blew past me on $10,000 bicycles - no exaggeration - and I could only hope that in 4-13 years I will be as fit as they are. Now for my time - I completed the 13 mile bike course in 40:55 at an average speed of 19.06 mph, good enough for 14/51 in my age group and 193/468 males. Here is an image taken by the pros of me on my bicycle.
After the bike, you return to the transition area, re-rack your bike, shed your cycling shoes for your running shoes, attach your race number (mine was pinned on to some mesh shorts which I put on) and head out for the run. This isn't supposed to take a long time. It took me 1:53, 43/51 in my age group. Again, changing clothes quickly has never been a strength of mine. One competitor in my age group actually completed this in 13 seconds. In all likelihood he was probably biking in his running shoes an already had his number pinned on, or that's what I tell myself. Good times are in the 40 second range.
Finally the run section. Up to this point I'm relatively competitive in my age group. I say relatively because as I'm headed out for my run, the overall winner of this triathlon who also happened to be in my age group was finishing up his run. You can see him in Amy's picture in the red white and black tri-suit going the opposite direction as me. However, I am not a good runner. At all. I find the run slow and laborious, particularly after swimming and biking. The way that your legs are used on a bike leg causes the first portion of the running to be extremely stiff. As a matter of fact, training sessions in which you do a bike session and follow it immediately with a run are known by triathletes as "bricks" probably because that's what your legs feel like. Well the brickiness stuck with me for the first mile which I completed in just shy of an eternity and had eased up pretty well by the turnaround point which was 1.5 miles out. By the 2 mile water station I was hi-5ing volunteers and I felt my strongest near the end of the run - funny huh? Perhaps this means I should have been running faster. When I rounded the final curve and saw the finish line I was scouring the crowd for Amy. When I found her I flashed a funny pose for her camera and then sprinted the last 60 or so yards to the finish line. Once I finished I wanted to keep moving, but they stopped me to remove the timing chip from my ankle. Standing still made me very dizzy and made me realize the exertion I had just given, but I managed to not fall while they took the chip and once I started moving again I felt better. I dumped bottle of water after bottle of water over my head to cool it down and felt (mostly) normal again after 30 minutes. Now for the gory results. I completed the 3.1 miles (5k) in 29:14, which comes out to an average 9:26 pace per mile - actually not bad for me, lately (did 7 minutes in high school but that was high school), and my run time was good(/bad) enough for 41/51 in my age group and 346 among all males.
Here are a couple pictures of me hobbling along, and warning: objects in the image are slower than they appear.
So my overall time was 1:24:17, which corresponded to 28/51 in my age group, 247/468 males, and 321/749 total competitors. I'm pretty pleased with these results, though I wanted to be "better than average" for my own age group. They don't keep these stats so I'll just tell myself that I was probably "better than average" among first timers. I had a GREAT time and I've really caught the bug and I will be doing more than one of these next year. Probably I will do this same event so I can compare my progress directly and my goal is to complete an olympic distance triathlon in the coming summer which ups the swim distance from 400 yards to 1000 meters, ups the bike from 13 miles to 40 km (24.8 miles) and ups the run from a 5k to a 10k - basically double everything. So I need to stop typing and start training!
There were 749 total competitors, 468 male competitors and 51 competitors in my age group - MEN:25-29.
I completed the Swim portion (400 yards) in 9:17, and (I promise this will be the only "excuse" I give in this race report) it should be noted that this includes a 1/4 of a mile hill that competitors must run up with probably a 200 foot vertical rise. Ask Amy, I'm not exaggerating. I planned to run the whole thing but, somewhat tired from the swim and just plain demoralized by the steepness and length of it, I did stop to walk for probably the 30 or 40 steepest yards of it. So the swim itself probably took me in the neighborhood of 7 minutes and the hill another 2 and a quarter. Regardless 9:17 was the 16th fastest time among my fellow M25-29 age groupers, and 143/468 males. Here are pictures taken by the pros of me coming out of the swim.
Next was the transition area. For the transition you run to a little zone along a huge rack of bikes among a huge field of racks (fortunately my spot was the front-most right-most spot in the entire transition area - easy enough to find!) and you prepare yourself as you best see fit for the bike portion. For me this involved putting on a shirt, socks, cycling shoes, helmet, and sun glasses and then running along side my bike to the mount line where I hopped on and clipped in. Some studs will have their bike shoes already clipped into their pedals and they mount with bare feet and slip their feet into their shoes AS they pedal away to save time. I figured the accompanying trip to the hospital wouldn't be a big time saver so I went with the safer albeit possibly slower method. My transition took me 2:59 and was 35th/51 in my age group. Anyone suprised at me being slower than average in changing clothes is probably one of Amy's blog friends and doesn't know me very well.
Next the bike portion - the course was described as "mostly flat with rolling hills". I come from Warner Robins where the grades of the biggest hills are in tenths of a percent. Some of these hills were MONSTERS. I was surprised however that on the big steep hills is where I was able to pass a lot of people or at least make up a lot of ground. Apparently I'm a decent hill climber. The most lasting memory I will have of this portion, however, will be of cruising along feeling good and hearing a loud whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sound coming from behind me and seeing an extremely fit gentleman with a long pointy "spaceman" (as Amy called them") helmet powering by me on a bike with a disk wheel. They were all out of my age group, which I could tell because your age is written on your calves in black magic marker. So one by one dozens of 30-39 year olds blew past me on $10,000 bicycles - no exaggeration - and I could only hope that in 4-13 years I will be as fit as they are. Now for my time - I completed the 13 mile bike course in 40:55 at an average speed of 19.06 mph, good enough for 14/51 in my age group and 193/468 males. Here is an image taken by the pros of me on my bicycle.
After the bike, you return to the transition area, re-rack your bike, shed your cycling shoes for your running shoes, attach your race number (mine was pinned on to some mesh shorts which I put on) and head out for the run. This isn't supposed to take a long time. It took me 1:53, 43/51 in my age group. Again, changing clothes quickly has never been a strength of mine. One competitor in my age group actually completed this in 13 seconds. In all likelihood he was probably biking in his running shoes an already had his number pinned on, or that's what I tell myself. Good times are in the 40 second range.
Finally the run section. Up to this point I'm relatively competitive in my age group. I say relatively because as I'm headed out for my run, the overall winner of this triathlon who also happened to be in my age group was finishing up his run. You can see him in Amy's picture in the red white and black tri-suit going the opposite direction as me. However, I am not a good runner. At all. I find the run slow and laborious, particularly after swimming and biking. The way that your legs are used on a bike leg causes the first portion of the running to be extremely stiff. As a matter of fact, training sessions in which you do a bike session and follow it immediately with a run are known by triathletes as "bricks" probably because that's what your legs feel like. Well the brickiness stuck with me for the first mile which I completed in just shy of an eternity and had eased up pretty well by the turnaround point which was 1.5 miles out. By the 2 mile water station I was hi-5ing volunteers and I felt my strongest near the end of the run - funny huh? Perhaps this means I should have been running faster. When I rounded the final curve and saw the finish line I was scouring the crowd for Amy. When I found her I flashed a funny pose for her camera and then sprinted the last 60 or so yards to the finish line. Once I finished I wanted to keep moving, but they stopped me to remove the timing chip from my ankle. Standing still made me very dizzy and made me realize the exertion I had just given, but I managed to not fall while they took the chip and once I started moving again I felt better. I dumped bottle of water after bottle of water over my head to cool it down and felt (mostly) normal again after 30 minutes. Now for the gory results. I completed the 3.1 miles (5k) in 29:14, which comes out to an average 9:26 pace per mile - actually not bad for me, lately (did 7 minutes in high school but that was high school), and my run time was good(/bad) enough for 41/51 in my age group and 346 among all males.
Here are a couple pictures of me hobbling along, and warning: objects in the image are slower than they appear.
So my overall time was 1:24:17, which corresponded to 28/51 in my age group, 247/468 males, and 321/749 total competitors. I'm pretty pleased with these results, though I wanted to be "better than average" for my own age group. They don't keep these stats so I'll just tell myself that I was probably "better than average" among first timers. I had a GREAT time and I've really caught the bug and I will be doing more than one of these next year. Probably I will do this same event so I can compare my progress directly and my goal is to complete an olympic distance triathlon in the coming summer which ups the swim distance from 400 yards to 1000 meters, ups the bike from 13 miles to 40 km (24.8 miles) and ups the run from a 5k to a 10k - basically double everything. So I need to stop typing and start training!
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