Monday, June 7, 2010

Searching for the Silver Lining



About mile twenty of the bike segment of the Keuka Lake Triathlon the clouds returned and it started to rain. For an instant I sort of hoped it would start lightning and the race would be canceled. That’s a terrible admission, but as a writer I’m trying to be more honest. The moment passed and my wishing didn’t bring any lightning. In fact the sky cleared up so it could be hot and humid for the run segment.

I had a terrible race. I got off-track on the swim, which is really hard to do, but I almost missed a buoy and had to swim several hundred yards to get back on course. The swim took me ten minutes longer than I expected and I had gone out fast, intent on not ending the race with too much left in the tank. That was the only goal I accomplished as I was whipped by the time I got on the bike and it took me longer to recover on that segment which hurt my time and when I got off the bike I had nothing left. My run time was the poorest I’ve ever had. A combination of expending so much energy on the swim and bike compounded by the difficulty of trying to push the run when I know the race has already been ruined by the first segment.

It’s like having a triple bogey on the first hole. I’m supposed to forget about it and move on, but I never was able to do that on the golf course either. All through the bike and run I kept coming back to the swim and how I screwed it up. I can’t even blame the weather. It rained hard before and after the race, but not during the time I was on the course. The water was perfect, 70 degrees and smooth as glass. Lots of volunteers who did a great job, too. I can’t come up with any good excuses.

Anyway it’s over and my next race is the Musselman Half-Ironman in Geneva, NY on July 11, 2010. This will be my first attempt at a Half-Ironman. I will be at the Masters Fiction Class of the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College from June 28th to July 9th so it is going to be a challenge for me to prepare for that race. My goal will be to finish in good form (meaning I don’t walk to the finish line) – it will more of a training exercise. And I’m going to really study the swim course in advance so I don’t get lost.

I hate to post these numbers, but here are the official results:

                     2009 Actual           2010 Actual
Event            Time      Pace          Time    Pace
------------    ------- -------       ------ -------

Swim:             34:31     2:07         39:13     2:37
Transition:        2:20                       2:29
Bike:              83:02  18.75 mph  86:39    17.3 mph
Transition:        1:42                       1:50
Run:               50:40    8:06          55:18     8:55
                 ----------               ---------
Total          2:52:15                    3:05:29

Age Group Place: 5th                 6th (out of 7)

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