Name of Race – Lakeside Sprint Triathlon
Website for the Race – http://www.multisportcanada.com/ms/events/showevent.cfm?showeventID=52
Date of Race – Saturday, June 7, 2007
Location of Race – Lakeside, Ontario
Type of Race – Sprint Triathlon
Distance or duration of Race – Swim – 500m; Bike – 18K, Run 4K
Description of Race – a beautiful venue to host a triathlon; swim was warm with a few weeds at the start, bike was wide open, a few rollers and fast, run was flat out and back on gravel roads.
The Race
This was my first race of the new season…after almost 3 years of constant training, I took a long time off after Ironman…and it showed. I am a big guy by nature and to keep the weight off and the fitness on, I can’t take breaks. So this break was bad in more ways than one.
The positive is that I refurbished this for my kids…
And finished a master bathroom for my wife (I am now a master plumber!)
Oh, and I got to spend so much more time with these two sweet hearts…
Things that were way overdue after being an Ironman athlete for a few years. Amazing what you can do with some extra time on your hands!
Pre-race
As I am no longer an owner of 2 cars, I got picked up morning of the race…was getting picked up at 6:30am so the alarm was set nice and early to make sure I was up and awake. I started coming down with a cold the night before so I had chugged back some cough syrup to help me sleep. Which was great until 2am when my daughter was up in the middle of the night calling for daddy. Which is fine usually but seeing as I got to bed late, don’t do well on interrupted sleep and needed to get up and race the next morning, it just compounded matters. I slept through my alarm…woke up at 6:28am to my buddy knocking on the door and calling the house repeatedly (which was useless since all but one ringer is turned off…two small kids in the house, no need to wake them all up). I was out the door in about 5 minutes flat on no food and a big chug of cough syrup (again!). We got to the site by 8:45am for the 10am start which was fine. Oh, and I had breakfast…a Tim Horton’s Apple Fritter…
Swim
Seeing as my last swim was November 3rd, 2007, not sure what to expect. Planned to take it nice and easy, swim on the inside, find some feet and enjoy the race. That was the plan for the day. Did a quick warm up and felt OK – the cold was playing a bit of havoc with my breathing so that would be interesting. Short swim, felt OK, and came out of the water around 9 minutes. Similar to last year, so happy about that. Proves that the swim is my thing…even on no training, I feel pretty good. Swim time – approx. 9:00 (1:48/100m), no idea of placing…more on that next…
T1
I had a decent transition and went no socks this year. That made a big difference. Heard Roger call out my name…gave the big hang loose wave and was out on my bike. T1 time – no idea…
Bike
Well, this is where the fitness (both physically and mentally) really kicked in…or should I say lack of fitness. By the first turn, I was gased. The small hills felt likemountains. I was out of breath and getting passed by tons of people. I felt horrible…felt sick, felt tired, and mentally was out of it by 5K in to the ride. On a short race, I didn’t think this would happen…but it did. Tried a few times to get my mind back in it, but my body kept letting me down so quickly that my head finally gave up at about 10k…wow, the letters DNF had potentially crept back in to my life. I figured I would just sit up, gently roll back into transition and go from there. By then, I didn’t feel like racing, running, walking or doing anything by then. So I hopped off the bike, racked it and pulled off the time chip. My day was done. Wow, the big DNF (editor’s note: I have a t-shirt with the caption “In my alphabet there is no D, N or F” – doesn’t really suit me anymore! :)).
Overall
That just plain old stank the big one. Not much else to say. First time I have ever DNF’d a race. Looking back, I was not even close to being physically fit to race, even a short race. I greatly over estimated being able to carry over Ironman fitness for 7 months…big mistake. Compound that with being up late, no sleep and the comings of a cold (which broke out into full blown chest/ear/throat infection by Tuesday). And mentally, I was out of it. When you’ve been fit, raced fast and felt great and then start getting passed by people you don’t think should pass you on a short race…it plays with your head. And mine wasn’t there on the day.
Next up is the Gravenhurst Sprint Triathlon in July. I loved this race last year and hoping I can regain some fitness for this year. I have been sick for the past 9 days and still trying to kick it…antibiotics, rest and sleep. But still no training. Should make for an interesting day!
Thanks for taking the time to read.
Hey Mike, don’t sweat it man – just shake this one off if possible.
To be honest with you, I had this killer virus in and around the end of May – and it pretty well had me bed ridden for a week. During that week I had a Mountain Bike race to which I barely made it through it, what I’m trying to say I guess is I believe it was more the flu than the lack of fitness. To finish an Ironman requires strength and a lot of focus – I beleive it would take a lot longer than 7 months to lose that.
Rest up, bring your A-game to Gravenhurst and I look forward to reading about a great race with a podium finish.
Beauty Tree House by the way!
Hi Mike,
My guess is that your tough day had more to do with the impending cold than it did with undertraining. Agree with Mark your IM training/experience would allow you to gut it out in a sprint. You also may want to rethink your pre-race meal strategy, pretty sure that wasn’t helping either:)
Have a great race in Gravenhurst.
Thanks Mark and Gary…yea agreed, the prerace meal was not ideal…that’s what I get for sleeping in and missing my alarm…hope that the issue is purely the cold…we’ll see how Gravenhurst goes.