Triathlon

Sunday was the Pewaukee Triathlon that I had been "training" for. Before I get into the review of the race, I would like to state that I am not making any excuses for my time, I am simply just telling the story. Back in March or April, Preston asked me if I wanted to run this race with him. I was coming off back surgery, but had been given a green light to do nearly anything I would like from my doctor. Although he told me to wait a while before running. I began biking right away. I was biking the race course (15 miles) at least once every two weeks. I can recall being out there biking in the cold April rain, looking like a moron for biking in such weather. Towards the end of May, Preston told me he couldn't do the race because that the day of the race was the only day that his son, Patrick, could be baptized. Sounds like a convenient excuse to me. As May turned to June, my training was coming along pretty well. I was biking 4 to 5 times a week, although I did manage to fall off my bike twice. And just started running. But I never start swimming in a lake until mid June. One day I was biking the race course and I was pushing pretty hard when I started to feel a burning sensation in my lower back on the left hand side. I have since developed some of the same signs I had before my surgery. I slowed things with my training down quite a bit. At that point my running hadn't been more than a mile. Again these are not excuses, but just an example of what an idiot I am. It was also around this same time that Tree decided to enter the race. He was going to be in town and wanted to do the race. Last weekend I was at my brother's house and was swimming in the pool with my nephews. I was showing my nephew, Ethan, how to do a flip turn. As I took a stroke with my right arm it came out of socket. It took me about 30 seconds to get it back in place. This was of great concern to me. Allow me to fast forward to the night before the race.
Saturday night I went to bed around 10:00 p.m. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling worrying about two things. 1st and foremost, as I just mentioned, that last time I had swam my arm came out of socket. Now if this were to happen during mid swim, there is a pretty good chance that I could drown. 2nd, going into to this race the last time I ran a distance even close to a 5K, was a year and a half ago. I got next to no sleep with these two things weighing on my mind. I was up at 4:45 a.m. and stretched and got in some sit-ups and push-ups to hopefully loosen my back up. I met Tree at a park and ride near the race at 5:35 and then we headed to the race.
The race is pretty popular and there were 1349 participants. They break everyone up and send them into the water in waves of 50 people at a time. I was in wave 26. This left me waiting around for around 45 minutes before entering the water. In fact I had to wait around so long that the the elite racers, who were in the first wave, had completed the swim and bike and were on to the run before I even entered the water. As my wave was called and they were counting down the final seconds until I entered the water two things entered my mind. 1st, I don't know that my shoulder is going to remain intact and I might drown. 2nd, only a few days earlier they had placed an E Coli ban on the lake. (Oh only 100 colonies per 100 milliliters, that's it? Now I feel better.) With all of the rain we have had lately, the City of Pewaukee's water treatment facilities were unable to handle volume of water. I am assuming like City of Milwaukee, the City of Pewaukee has a combined storm and sanitary sewer. Since they couldn't handle all of the "water", they just dumped the "water" (read fecal matter) into the lake. So entering the water I was worried about getting sick. The horn blew and I walked into the water. I got about 10 strokes in and my shoulder felt fine. That put me somewhat at ease. Then I got a cramp in my foot. I managed to power through that pain and a minute later I was back to feeling fine. Then I got some water up my nose and it got caught between my nose and mouth in my nasal cavity. I eventually swallowed that water and felt repulsed that I just swallowed someone's bodily waste. The rest of the swim went fine. I just relaxed and took my mind off of all of the other problems by counting my strokes. The only other issue with the swim was all of the weeds on the course, but that was nothing compared to the other issues. I got out of the water and headed to the transition area. When I got to the bike rack where my bike and the bikes of everyone else in my wave were waiting, just by looking at the bike rack and the number of bikes that were gone, I would say that I finished the swim in the middle of my wave. I jumped my bike and headed out on the bike course. My legs were pretty dead for the first mile or so but that passed and the ride went really well. That was until I was about 13 miles into the ride and I started to get a familiar burning sensation in my lower back on the left side. I slowed down my pace some and took it a little easy knowing that the 5K run at the end was just going to be brutal. I would say that over the course of the bike, I passed around 100 people and only got passed by maybe 10 other riders. I had my bell on my bike and rang it every time I passed someone. I had mentioned going into the triathlon that my two goals were to average 20 miles per hour on the bike and win the second transition. My watch said that I was well over 45 minutes on the bike so that 20 miles per hour wasn't going to happen. I finished up the bike and entered the transition area. I ran for the first 20 feet and then said to myself screw this and started walking. I was pretty gassed. The fastest transition time wasn't going to happen either. When I racked my bike I saw only 3 or 4 other bikes, which means I was at the front of my wave. I grabbed my jar of "Icy Hot" and slapped some of that on my back. I swallowed two Alieve, grabbed my MP3 player and walked out to the run course. I was still playing with my MP3 player as I walked across the mat that registers that you have begun the run portion of the race. This area has alot of spectators standing and watching. I said to them as I am still walking "How is my pace? Good?" Quite a few of them laughed and said "Yep, you are looking good." The run absolutely sucked. Very hilly. 5 minutes into the run my back was burning. I told myself that I would allow myself to walk for 1 minute after every 5 minutes of running. But I told myself I wasn't a quitter. I made it 9 minutes of running and was half way up this brutal hill when I said to myself "You know what? You are a quitter. If you don't take a break you will be crippled for life." I walked to the top of the hill and there was this professional photographer there taking pictures. I pointed to my face and said to him "See this face, this is the face of defeat." He laughed but said I was doing well. After a minute of walking I got back to running. Well I guess you could call it running. My pace was just barely above walking. There were 3 water stations along the run. At each one, I would walk up to one of the volunteers and tell them, "Just throw it right on me." They always asked if I was serious. I said "Oh yeah, let me have it." Then they would throw a glass of water in my face. It felt great. At 19 minutes into the run, I again slowed to walk. Then I stepped a side and did some quick stretches. At this point, most of the remaining run was down hill, and I felt OK. But due to my lack of running in the weeks leading up to the race, my body just wasn't ready to pick up the pace. I was about a half mile from the end and I was running across an intersection, there was a female police person controlling the intersection. I said to her, "You aren't going to give me a ticket for speeding are you?" She didn't even smile. I got to the final turn of the run and there was Tree yelling "DNF! DNF!" (Short for Did Not Finish). Tree was in wave 20 and started about 15 minutes before me. I crossed the finish line and it was easily the worst I have felt after any triathlon that I have done.

Here are the times from the race:
The winner's swim: 6:11
Tree's swim: 12:48
My swim: 11:52

The winner's 1st transition: 54 seconds
Tree's 1st transition: 3:31
My 1st transition: 3:47

The winner's bike: 34:10 (27.3 mph)
Tree's bike: 52:09 (17.9 mph)
My bike: 53:08 (17.6 mph)

The winner's 2nd transition: 34 seconds
Tree's 2nd transition: 1:45
My 2nd transition: 2:32

The winner's run: 17:56 (5:47 minute miles)
Tree's run: 29:42 (9:35 minute miles)
My run: 34:30 (11:07 minute miles)

The winner's time: 59 minutes and 46 seconds
Tree's time: 1 hour 39 minutes and 57 seconds
My time: 1 hour 45 minutes and 52 seconds

Even though I am 5 months off of back surgery and 1 week off of dislocating a shoulder, I am still very disappointed with my performance. I guess it is more frustrating than anything. I know I needed to train harder but my body really limited my training. In hindsight I should have passed on this triathlon and allowed my body to heal a little more after the surgery before taking on such an endeavor. Two years ago I took part in a triathlon of the same distance and finished in 1 hour 24 minutes and 58 seconds. 20 minutes worse, very disheartening. Even though Tree wore a wetsuit for the swim, he still smoked me. He would have smoked me without a wetsuit. No excuses, he beat me. Tree, next time I see you, I owe you breakfast. Good work my friend. And I will say this for Tree, he played in the Stu on Stu tournament the day before. He rolled his ankle at the tournament, not to mention the toll that playing 3 hours of basketball on concrete can take on your body. So Tree was no where near being properly prepared for the race.

And here is your lyric of the day:
Deer woman in a silk dress,
Girls with beads about their necks,
Kiss the hunter of the green vest,
Who has wrestled before,
With lions in the night,
Out of sight!
The lights are getting brighter,
The radio is moaning,
Calling to the dogs,
There are still a few animals,
Left out in the yard,
But it's getting harder,
To describe,
Sailors,
To the underfed.