I made it!

So, I a made it through my first Triathlon! It was a wonderful morning in the Pocono mountains. The best news is that I exceeded my expectations and beat all of my split goals.

• The actual swim was 12:01 minutes v. a goal of 15-20.
• The actual bike was 1:07:52 hours v. a goal of 1:15
• The actual run was 24:18 minutes v. a goal of 30:00
• The actual overall time was 1:49:51 hours v. a goal of roughly 2:15 (with transitions)

(note: in the picture to above you will see that along with my age group, they started the "Clydesdale" class. Sort of like swimming with water buffalo - but, really nice chaps!)

Hmm.... maybe I should set tougher goals...
Anyway, that all resulted in a finish in my age group (50-55) of 11th out of 31 competitors. Overall, I was 151st out of 331. So, in the top "third'ish" in my age group - exceeding my goal of "middle of the pack". With a baseline of wondering if I could even do this 6 months ago, I'm pretty pleased.
I am also happy to report that I see plenty of room for improvement:

• The swim sort of freaked me out since it was my first experience in the "open water". With that said, I came out near the top of my "wave" and was 58th of 337 overall. I know I can improve on that by relaxing and being more prepared for overtaking "slowpokes" from the wave in front.
• My swim to bike transition was really slow because I was pretty winded by the swim, so some room for improvement there - possible 1.5 minutes, easy.
• The bike met my expectations as being my "weakest link". My overall position on the bike portion was 186th overall. Plenty of room to improve on the climbing portions - need to work on my leg strength. I was pretty speedy on the descents - maxing out at around 42 mph at one point - woo hoo!
• The run was fairly wobbly at first - I blame that on never having put all three of these sports together (should have done some "brick" workouts in my training!). I finished 142 overall in the run - slightly better than my overall for the whole shooting match.

This was a great experience and I really enjoyed having Brad II there to cheer me on - and to snap a few pictures for this blog.

Looking forward to the next event in Philly: June 27
I know what to work on! And - I now know it is possible.

p.s. if you "mouse click" on the pictures they will "blow up" in your browser with pretty nice resolution - so, be careful!

Tomorrow

Well, tomorrow is my first Triathlon. I believe that I am ready - to at least finish.
Brad Jr. and I drove up this afternoon for the registration and a pre-race meeting. This venue is beautiful - a lovely lake surrounded by trees. The state park has excellent facilities with bath houses, a nice sandy beach and boat launches. Definitely need to get back here with the sailboat.
The start is at 7:45am. So, I'm figuring a swim time of somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 minutes (750 meters), a bike time of an hour and 15 minutes or so (17.6 miles) followed by a run under a half hour (I hope - 3.1 miles). All in - expecting a time in the neighborhood of 2-2.5 hours. Not exactly lightning fast, but a reasonable goal.
Tune in tomorrow evening for the actual results!

Almost ready!

I haven't posted anything for a while. Mainly because I didn't think anyone would be all that interested in a "blow by blow" on my training.
Here's a summary:
Things have gone pretty well. I've been pretty diligent about 6 workouts a week (2 swim, 2 bike, 2 run). Some of the changes in my body have been pretty encouraging: my aches and pains are diminished, lower back pain is rare (and it was a constant before I started this program), and my weight is down nicely. When I started I was hovering in the 190-195lb range, which is fairly reasonable for my height (6'2"). Today, I am right at 171. Nice.
The actual workouts are pretty wimpy by "Ironman" standards, but that's not my goal -

• At the outset, a "long" run was 4 miles and my normal was around 3. Now, my normal runs are between 5 and 8 miles, depending on how much time I have and what I did the day before.
  
• My first swim workouts were around 20-25 laps (1,000 to 1,250 meters). Now the workouts are more constrained by the time available and are usually 40-45 laps. That includes a fairly long extended swim, some intervals (sprints), and some drills ("catch up", sighting, etc.)
  
• My first rides on the new bike were 10 miles at a pretty low average speed. Last week I had two 30 mile rides on our hilly roads at a much improved average speed.
  

That's all good because my first event - the Black Bear Triathlon - is just two weeks away. I'm starting to get excited. I've heard that this event is tough because it is very hilly and most events are relatively flat. So, I'm glad I've been training on similar terrain. I'm trying to treat the event as just a tough workout day (it is a sprint distance triathlon), so I won't be "tapering" for the event. However, I am going with Brad II to see my Dad down in Texas next weekend and so I will probably miss a couple of "long" workouts that I usually do on weekends. That should leave me pretty rested for the event.
Even though I know that I should be primarily focused on just finishing rather than on where I finish, it is hard to not think about trying to do well - at least in my age group. I think middle of the pack would be a pretty decent goal.
Watch this space for results!