A shoehorn cost me third place (for my age group) in the Lake Zurich
Triathlon yesterday.
On June 25th, in a freak accident, which
I am not going to blame on my coach even though it happened because I was
waiting for her to catch up to me, I fell off my bike and cracked a back rib.
The injury, while minor, made it difficult to
maintain a normal training program. It
hurt to run and I couldn’t swim because I couldn’t raise my arm over my head,
but ironically, I could still bike without difficulty. However to be prudent
and avoid the possibility of another freak accident I trained on the
computrainer (pretty hard to fall off a stationary bike). J.P. Bordeleau of Precision Multisport set me
up on a series of rides called “Sufferlandia”.
Those training rides hurt more than falling off the bike.
So I was able to maintain a fitness level, but it was
still doubtful I would be ready to race on July 12.
A week ago, I went back to the pool to see if I
could swim. I could dog paddle, but it
would have taken me an hour to finish the course. I also tried to run, and I was fine for the
first ten yards, then not so fine.
But as they say, time heals all wounds. Last week I was feeling much improved. I
still couldn’t roll over, but I could tie my shoes and feed the cat and do
other important household chores. Wednesday I went for a slow jog and it didn’t
hurt. So the Saturday before the race I
went to Lake Michigan with my wetsuit – which is like wearing a life raft on
your body. Lots of buoyancy which I figured might make it easier to swim. My
theory was correct and once I took a few strokes my back loosened up and I
could extend my arm so that my stroke was almost normal. It was a little hard
to lift my head to spot for buoys but I thought I could manage it and decided
to go ahead with the race. By the way –
Lake Michigan is still really cold.
It was perfect weather for the race: cloudy and
cool. And Lake Zurich was 75 degrees – wetsuit legal, but comfortable. This is a small race (about 500 competitors)
and the waves were only about 60 swimmers at a time so I wasn’t too worried
about getting kicked or mauled during the swim.
I didn’t quite have my normal stroke – but I just took it easy and
completed the swim without incident in about 35 minutes. In my last race I covered that distance in 32
minutes.
I had an easy transition. I had decided not to wear
socks so I didn’t have to bend over and struggle to put them on. I had no
problem on the bike, although as a concession to the injury I didn’t ride in
aero position– as I promised my wife I would be careful. I also slowed down a
lot on the corners. Even with all the
caution I averaged over 20 mph (it’s a pretty flat course). I had a good ride
and it was way easier than the computrainer rides.
It was on the transition to the run that the
shoehorn did me in. I had a two part
plan for managing the transitions with my limited mobility and that was to 1)
skip the socks (which worked fine except that I ended up with blisters on the
tops of my toes); and 2) use a long shoehorn to get my quick-tied running shoes
on.
It almost worked great.
The problem was that my
sweaty sockless feet stuck to the tongue of the shoe and when I pried it on
with the shoehorn – the tongue got all wrinkled. I couldn’t fix it so I had to
take the shoe off and put it on the way I always do. That escapade with the shoehorn, cost me at
least twenty seconds.
Full disclosure requires that I point out that my
coach (the one who IS NOT IN ANYWAY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCIDENT EVEN THOUGH IT
HAPPENED WHILE I WAS WAITING FOR HER) has always suggested I not try
anything during a race that I have not practiced beforehand (like using a
shoehorn). I almost always follow her
suggestions because
1) she tends to be right MOST of the time and
2) her
suggestions don’t really sound like suggestions;
I had a great run. Maybe because my legs were fresh
from not running at all for two weeks. I
did the 10K at a 8:10 pace which is better than my other two races this year.
I finished in 2:45 and thought I had really good
chance to make it to the podium. But I finished fourth – just .93 of a second out
of 3rd place.
I blame the shoehorn.
Next race:
The USAT Age Group Championships
August 8, 2015 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
