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Monday, May 04, 2009

Swim, Run, Bike

Sunday was the big day: my first triathlon of season 2. If I said that I wasn't nervous particulary after my wretched bout with stomach flu, I would be lying.

I stuck to my dairy free diet for 24 hours before the triathlon, as per the suggestion in Runner's World for dealing with Runner's Gut. It was soy milk city over here! Sally HP even got me a soy latte from Starbucks. Do I dare say this next part? I've had a few of them now as I've been trying to stay away from milk right before and after big runs, and I think I now prefer them to regular lattes. They have a nice flavor and are actually filling.

After eating my Ezekial bread with almond butter and drinking my coffee with soy milk, I met my triathlon training buddy to carpool to the triathlon. Not suprisingly we talked about what made us nervous about the race. Also not suprisingly, we ended up talking about my bike chain and my strategy for dealing with a recurring slipped chain. We got there pretty early and had our pick of prime spots. How ironic is it that we were about to do a triathlon, yet parked as close as we could? In our defense, we did have all of our stuff to lug.

I was even more nervous when I found out that my racing number was 28. Your number corresponds to your swimming time, and even though I was a competitive swimmer in college, I was not convinced that my current swimming speed is fast enough to avoid being swarmed by swimmers whose time was fast enough to be numbered 29 and 30. I went over to be "marked" which generally involved having your racing number and age written on various parts of your body. The woman doing the marking asked me my age and my number. She then wrote 33 on one of my arms. I clarified that I am 33 years old, but my racing number was 28. She got a little snippy with me and insisted that she was supposed to mark me with my age. I argued that I had done FIRM triathlons before and it was always my race number on my arms and left calf and my age solely on my right calf. She asked me if I had done this specific race before. When I replied "no," she told me that this race was different. She then marked up my other arm and both of my legs. Then my triathlon training buddy walked over with 90 written on her arms.

While that crazy lady from our gym thought that my triathlon training buddy was my mother a couple months ago, no one is going to say that she looks 90! After declaring that my friend had been marked wrong, the marker swaggered over to complain to a colleague, who promptly corrected her. She had marked me up incorrectly...with a permanant marker of course! After a combination of crossing out and correcting my numbers, they were completely illegible. I looked like I had hyrogriphics on me.

After warming up, we lined in our respective locations at the pool for the swim. It was me and the guys. Seriously, it was pretty much all men lined up by me. The guy behind me turned to me and said that his time was off by 45 seconds meaning that he was actually 45 seconds faster than he had claimed. That meant that if he swam at full speed, he was likely to swim right through me around two-thirds of the way through the swim. He kindly told the others around us, including me, that he would just pass us. That didn't help my nerves. It all ended up being fine. My swim time was correct, and the guy behind me passed me very politely. The pool swim was much better than the one I did last year. It was better controlled, and people's "seed times" seemed to be more accurate, or at least all of the rapid swimmers were polite. To my knowledge there weren't any pileups in the pool, unlike last year.

Another friend who had done this triathlon last year advised my friend and me not to wear jackets when biking because we would get too hot. I took that advice. Then I ended up freezing because I was sopping weton a bike when it was only 53 degrees outside. I wish I wore my jacket and a pair of earmuffs. Like other triathlons, this one had photographers positioned along the course to take action photos. Nothing like a photo of soaking wet and freezing cyclists with snot dripping out of their noses. Yes, I would love to pay money to order that photo of myself! Despite all that, I still feel the biking went well. Why? My bike chain stayed on! Unfortunately that wasn't the case for my training buddy. Her chain fell off. She remained calm and focused and was able to get it back on in a minute. Afterward she showed me a lever that can be pushed to give the chain enough slack to slip it back on in case I need it for next weekend. Hmmm...let's not think about that happening.

The running went well also...fortunately without the same level of excitement. When I finished the triathlon I felt really good. Despite feeling a little off from the stomach flu, I still felt like it was a better performance than my other tris last year. Almost as important, I had absolutely no issues whatsoever with Runner's Gut. Not even an alien kick! The 24 hours without dairy seemed to really have worked. I also think it helped that it was cold out. Of course, like all the other triathletes, I was covered in sweat when I finished.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Avoiding dairy for 24 hours before a race helps prevent Runner's Gut.

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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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