Mixing Pleasure With Pain: My First Triathlon of 2012

Is it better to lose the championship game by 1 point in heartbreaking fashion or lose by 30 where you never really had a chance?  Would you rather have dated the hottest girl and have her dump you or never had the opportunity to be with her at all?  Should I be happy about finishing in the top 17% of a Sprint Triathlon this past weekend or upset that I barely missed finishing top 15% and achieving another one of my 35 goals?

That last question has been on my mind since crossing the finish line and seeing the results last Sunday.  When I did the first Triathlon of my life a few short months ago, I didn’t even finish in the top 50%.  On Sunday, I finished 24^th out of 136 (top 17%) in my first Sprint Tri of 2012.  I was just 4 places away from one of my 35for35 goals of top 15%.  It was a significant improvement for sure but I didn’t meet my goal. 

To finish in the top 15%, I needed to finish 20^th or better out of the 136 people who competed.  20^th place (top 14.7% for the Math majors reading) came in at 1 hour, 2 minutes, and 24 seconds.  I finished a measly 18 seconds behind.  That means I needed to go 0.5% faster and I would have placed top 15%.  If that wasn’t bad enough, I went the wrong way on the run course which cost me a full minute.  How’d that happen?  Great question.  It was just one issue in a long line of things that screwed me on my time and left me wondering what might have been.  Here’s how it went all went down:

2 days before the race, I was doing some light swimming and I got a shooting pain on the right side of my lower back.  I immediately stopped, got out of the pool, and stretched for a good 20 minutes.  The next morning (1 day before the race), I could barely get out of bed.  For those of you who haven’t noticed, I’m a freaking walking injury these days.  I’ve had knee problems since starting Schmeis35for35 and now my back gave out on a light swim…not exactly a good sign. 

I spent the day icing and attempting to set the world record for number of Advil taken in a 24 hour period without overdosing.  That combination worked well enough that I got up on race morning and decided to give it a go. 

The race started with a 300 yard swim.  All participants had to submit their 100 yard swim pace in order to be seeded for the start.  Triathlon pool swims are notoriously difficult as people inevitably swim at drastically different speeds which can create logjams.  The seeding is supposed to help because it places you around people who swim close to your pace.  I was seeded 14^th overall so that was my starting position. 

The top seed started at 8:00am and then every 15 seconds another person was released.  At 8:03:30, the starter sent me off.  I definitely didn’t feel great during the swim.  My back never got loose and each stroke didn’t seem to have much power.  I exited the pool thinking my time was very slow.  I looked down at my watch and was shocked when I saw it still said 00:00:00.  I assumed I hadn’t done the swim in 0 seconds, so realized my watch didn’t start for some reason.  I hit start again so I could at least know my time for the rest of the race.

There was a long run from the pool to the transition area where I had my bike set up and ready to rock.  It was about 60 degrees that morning which sounds pleasant until you run out basically naked from the pool and feel the wind hit you.  I threw on my bike shoes and helmet, grabbed my bike, and ran to the mounting line.  As I was getting on my bike, a race volunteer yelled at me that my helmet wasn’t strapped (automatic disqualification if you mount the bike with helmet not fastened).  I tried to snap it with one hand as I was checking my watch again….it still said 00:00:00.  WTF? 

Now I knew something was messed up.  While I was simultaneously trying to snap my helmet and fix my watch, I ended up dropping my bike.  This wasn’t exactly the smoothest swim to bike transition I could have imagined.  After restarting my watch and seeing it still wasn’t working, I decided I didn’t have any more time to waste fixing it and just took off.

Not having my watch may not seem like a big deal but it tells me the distance I’ve gone as well as the time.  I’d never been on this bike course so I had no idea at any point how close I was to the end.  My watch would have told me how many miles I had left which obviously helps for pacing. 

I was so upset with my terrible transition that I went into kill mode on the bike.  I hammered it and was chasing down and picking off people one by one in front of me.  The course was extremely hilly and I found myself to be much stronger on the climbs than others.  Apparently all the work I’ve done with spin classes was paying off.  I ended up passing 6 people and didn’t get passed by anyone. 

After 10 miles of rolling hills, I heard the crowd and music playing around the corner so knew I was coming to the finish of the bike.  I pulled in, threw off my bike shoes and helmet, threw on my running shoes, grabbed my race belt with bib number and off I went on the final leg of the race…a 5k run to the finish.

The first .5 miles of the run I couldn’t feel my legs.  It felt like I was barely moving.  If you haven’t ever done it, try going really hard on a stationary bike at the gym for 30 minutes and then immediately jump off and hop on the treadmill for a few mile run.  If you don’t want to try that, you can just take my word for it…it sucks. 

I had never run the course before but typically tri courses have the turns very clearly marked and volunteers are usually at every turn to help.  Even if the course isn’t marked well and there aren’t volunteers, you can usually see someone in front of you and follow them.  Of course, none of this was true for me when I approached a fork in the road with arrows literally pointed exactly in between both directions.  Awesome.  I looked for volunteers and there were none around.  I looked for other racers in front of me and I couldn’t see any in either direction. 

I ended up taking a wild guess and then I heard a racer behind me yell “other way.”  I quickly turned back and went the other direction.  After about 30 seconds going that way, more racers appeared from behind and they were all yelling that I was going the wrong way.  It turns out, the way I originally chose was correct but the guy behind me was wrong.  In any event, this cost me a full minute of time.  I didn’t know it while I was out there, but this would come back to haunt me.

After about 2.5 miles, I actually started feeling pretty good with my cardio and leg strength.  My knee was starting to really hurt but I was pleasantly surprised that my back loosened up and wasn’t an issue at all.  I kicked into high gear for the last ~1/2 mile and crossed the finish line with a full race time of 1:02:42.  It was faster than I would have guessed, but I didn’t yet know how that would stack up against the rest of the field.  

Remember, with a staggered start in the pool, you could cross the finish line behind someone else but actually have a faster overall time than them depending on when you started.

I waited for the preliminary results and knew I was going to be close to my goal.  I kept going through “what ifs” in my head about my watch not working, dropping my bike at transition, going the wrong way on the run, etc.  I knew all those things cost me time but wasn’t sure if I’d still make my goal of top 15%.

The race official posted the results and my heart sank.  I was 24^th.  The guy that finished 23^rd (5 seconds ahead of me), was the one who had yelled at me to go the other way on the run.  20^th, 21^st, and 22^nd were all just a few seconds in front of me as well.  So painful.  I ended up finishing 15^th in the swim, 13^th on the bike and 30^th on the run…good enough for 24^th overall.  Here is a pic of me right after finishing…

The first thing that went through my head is I actually achieved my goal after factoring in my run issues.  I mean, what if the guy behind me hadn’t yelled “other way!?”  I lost a full minute from going the wrong direction and was only 18 seconds from finishing top 15%.  That has to count, right? 

Wrong.  There was no way I was counting this goal as complete.  I don’t want asterisks by any of the 35.  I need to do as many as I can…100% officially.  Triathlons are very physical but there is a gigantic mental component as well.  The race course was posted online and I could have studied it before the race.  I didn’t prepare mentally and it cost me.

In football, a kicker can miss a last second field goal and that can be the difference between a quarterback being regarded as someone who comes through in the clutch or someone who doesn’t have what it takes. 

In golf, a ball staying 1 inch away from the water vs. turning one more revolution into the creek allowed Fred Couples to win the Masters 20 years ago.  If the ball goes in the water, life is a lot different for him.

The point is this:  there is an enormous amount of randomness/luck/unfairness in life and an infinite amount of “what-ifs” you can ask yourself.  We’ve all heard the phrase “woulda, coulda, shoulda.” In other words, nobody cares about the nuances of a story…people want results. 

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard is “focus on what you can control.”  So, instead of dwelling on all of “what-ifs” from my race, I’m going to use them as motivation to get better.  Next time, there will be no doubt. 

Plus, if that isn’t motivation enough, I found out that another triathlon was happening 1000 miles away in Carmel, Indiana that same day and my brother competed.  How’d he do?  Well, he pretty much dominated…24th out of more than 800 (~top 3%). 

Obviously, he doesn’t need to spend several pages explaining those results and dwelling on what-ifs like I do.

Schmeis