It’s GO time!


So, as I mentioned back last post, I have been practicing for an upcoming triathlon. As the date got closer and closer, I got a bit nervous about the event. I did my practice triathlon on Tuesday, and completing that did give me a fair bit of confidence that I could do it, but still, I was filled with excitement crossed with dread as the weekend loomed closer.

Packet pickup was listed as from 6:30 to 7:45 a.m. I had originally planned to set my alarm for 6 am and then go out the door up to Oxford (about an hour drive). But then Friday night I heard through the grapevine that my friend PJ was getting up at 5. I couldn’t stand for that so I decided to split the difference, eventually getting up at about 5:30. Then came the most important question of the day, at least for a road geek such as myself – should I take 275 or Cross County over to US-27? The last time I was in Oxford was probably 3 or 4 years ago, and one thing I noticed is that there were a lot more stoplights on the way now than there were then.

I got into Oxford at about 6:45. I parked over on a side street (paying for a parking garage? for suckers.) and made my way to where all the people were. I figured (correctly) that if there were a large group of people congregating on a college campus at 6:45 on a Saturday morning, the odds were pretty good that it was for the triathlon. I left my stuff in the car and just took my bike off of the car rack and wheeled it across the street into the transition area. At first, I didn’t realize there was an order to things, so I was going to just stick my bike up at the front (hey anything to get a better transition time!) but then I was told that I had to go in and register first, and based on my “bib” number, that would tell me what rack to put my bike in.

I left my bike there and went inside to the rec center. It was kind of intimidating with all the stuff going on. PJ was there already and he showed me where to start the registration process. There had been some problems with my registration. I had mailed in my registration before my first trip to Chicago, but I had emailed the registration committee a few times to verify that I was in. Because the registration and signup is handled by a separate company, there had been some confusion as to whether or not I was actually registered. When the first list of participants came out on Thursday, I was not on the list. I ended up talking to Rachel, the lady in charge, and she took down my information and told me not to worry, that I would participate. Still, I was a bit worried as I went up to the registration desk that my name wouldn’t be there. But, it was – Racer #342.

Also at the table, I picked up my free swim cap, my T-shirt, a “goodie bag” and my timing chip. A few notes on these: Naturally I have never worn a swim cap before. The swim cap was not mandatory, but we figured out it was also useful for keeping your hair dry so it wasn’t so cold when you made it outside (it was still kind of cold this early in the day). And of course it probably helps your swim time, but, as you will see later on, there’s not a whole lot that can really help MY swim time anyways…. The timing chip was on a velcro strap that went around your ankle. That’s so no matter when you actually start, your time doesn’t start counting down until you hit the water. It’s also handy in calculating your various split times (bike/run/swim/transition)

So after I registered, I went back outside and found I was in rack “Red I”. Upon further review, it actually didn’t matter which rack you were on, since because you are exiting and entering the transition area from different sides. For instance, after the swim you come in the south side of the transition area and you go out the north (and the same between the bike and the run). Since you’re not allowed to ride your bike inside the TA, it’s pretty much the same, since if you’re at the front of the transition area, it is true that you will have a short trip after you get your bike, you have a longer way to actually GET to your bike. The one thing you can do is put your bike as close to the middle aisle as possible, and because I was there fairly early, I did snake the 2nd-closest spot.

PJ and I at the transition area
Overview of the transition area. My “Red I” bike is off behind some people. You see the Red D, E and F. My bike is (*counts on fingers*) 3 racks further down.

It took us awhile to realize this, but you have to put all your stuff with your bike. Meaning there is no locker room or anything, so no place to change out of your swimsuit. When I did my practice triathlon, I just changed into some shorts at the locker room at the Y. But here, unless I wanted to seriously waste some time trying to find a locker room, or just drop trou out in the parking lot, there was not going to be an opportunity to do that. Luckily, I didn’t really have a problem with doing the bike and run in my swim trunks.

Sometime around here I called my co-worker Jason and told him “you BETTER be already on the road!” He was, and I met up with him and my other co-worker Lawson a bit later. Neither of them had brought a bicycle helmet, and luckily they were able to borrow some from the race committee (otherwise it would have been a disqualification). They both claimed that I was just trying to improve my own times by disqualifying them (by not telling them that they would need to bring a helmet) but frankly I figured it was obvious. Who doesn’t wear a bike helmet when riding?!!? At about 7:30, I took off my shoes, socks and shirt, and made my way across the gravel parking lot into the rec center building. They should really put padded carpet on the way in. PJ pointed out that next time, sandals would definitely be a thing to bring, but later we both agreed that really, there would be nowhere to put them.

At 8:00, the announcer guy made a big deal of announcing about how they were starting on time and how most races don’t start on time but by golly they were. Of course, the first person didn’t actually hit the water till at least 5-7 after, leading me to comment that it’s not so much the saying you’re starting at 8:00 as the actual starting at 8:00 that’s important, at least in my book… The way that the swim worked was that there were 8 lanes of a 50-meter pool. You swim up one lane, down the next, and so on until you finish all 8 lanes for 400 meters total. Upon registration, you were supposed to put in your swim time, with the theory being that they would start the faster swimmers first, to try and minimize passing. Then they gave you your number based on that time. I put in 13 minutes, and got number 342. PJ apparently didn’t see that part of the registration form, so he didn’t put in anything, and thus got number 23.

At “8:00” they called down racers 1-50 to start the swim. It didn’t really matter when you actually went down, but for the most part, that’s how it went. For instance, PJ didn’t want to go down with all the super fast swimmers, so he went down with us in the 300 group. It took till about 8:45 before they called our group and we went down from the stands to the pool level. We made our way to the front and it was almost exactly 9:00 by the time the 3 of us got to the front of the line (Jason was further back). You were not allowed to run in the pool area, nor dive into the pool, but your time started as soon as you crossed the brown mat right by the entrance to the water. We were intrigued by the carefree attitudes some of the people had towards getting in the area. Our thought was “Hey your time is running, get a move on!” When I got up there I just went right in. I did decide that if I do this next year or ever again, I’m totally doing a cannonball into the pool.

The swim was hard. I found that my biggest problem was changing strokes mid-lap. I’m not good enough to be able to do the crawl stroke for very long, and have to swap to a sort of poor-mans backstroke. At the Y, since it’s a 25 meter pool, I was able to just swap mostly at the ends of each lane. At Miami though, as a 50 meter pool, I found myself wanting / needing to swap strokes more often than at the end of each lane. It was tiring, but I was able to finish it. I almost passed PJ a few times during the swim, but mostly I just stayed on the right sides of the lanes and got passed by people. I did pass 1 person at the end of the 7th lap as he was resting / holding on to the end of the lane, and a 2nd person right at the very end of the swim.

I noticed that some people had put out towels on the bleachers nearby – I think that would have been a good idea, just to cut down on the transition time by drying off as you make your way to the bike area. Next time…. I was not able to make good time out of the swim; I’m sure I was staggering. I didn’t feel that great. I passed PJ who was getting his bike ready (his rack was on the way to mine) and quickly dried off, put on my socks and shoes and shirt, took a swig of water and headed out on the bike course.

I had gotten out faster than PJ, but he passed me on the bike within the first mile or so. As a matter of fact, a LOT of people passed me. The first part of the course (through Oxford) was fairly flat, so I was able to get into my routine fairly easily. That would be the routine of having everyone pass me, of course. I did pass one lady on the way out, and out on Bonham Road I passed another lady. She then passed me, but then I passed her again. Coming up out of the creekbed from 4 Mile Creek there was a nice hill. I was able to make it up to the top, and then downhill for most of Harris Road. A slight uphill on OH-177 and then a left on to Oxford-Middletown Road. This was the most brutal part of the bike course – a windy, steep hill. I actually felt decent going up these hills – I passed my 3rd person on this hill like she was standing still. I don’t mean that as a brag as plenty of people were passing me (both here and in every other part of the course). I made my way back through Oxford and as I was returning to Bonham Road, I *thought* I saw Jason coming the other way, but I couldn’t be sure. After I finished the course, I caught up with him and found that the course officials had convinced him to stop racing at just about that point. But you will find nowhere in here me making fun of him – I admire him for having the courage to show up for the race and give his best effort. So unlike the 5k when he just didn’t show up, there will be no “Scarlet N”s (for Nancy) affixed to his cube.

Another note was that they had cop cars out at the intersections of the course directing the traffic. Car traffic was allowed on the course, but the cops did make it yield to any race traffic. It wasn’t ever really an issue, probably due to the relatively sparse traffic out in the middle of nowhere early on a Saturday morning.

Finally making it back to the transition area, I dismounted and walked (jogged?) my bike back to the rack. Since most people were already back from the bike, I didn’t feel like my bike would be in the way if I didn’t put it back up on to the rack, so I just dropped the kickstand and set it more or less in its place. When I was explaining this afterwards to PJ, I realized that most “real” bikes don’t even HAVE kickstands! :-). So that’s one thing I have going for me.

Transitioning out of the bike to the run was difficult. If I felt like I was staggering after the swim, I was definitely staggering now. The run was pretty difficult as you could imagine. I had to slow down and walk several times. Still, I felt good – whereas I passed 2 and 5 people respectively on the swim and bike, on the run I passed quite a few. It’s hard to tell the exact number since when I would stop and walk some (but usually not all) of the people would re-pass me, but I feel like net I passed about 20-30 people on the run. Including Lawson – twice during my run segments I got up almost to him, only to drop back a bit when I had to walk. Eventually I was able to pass him and I kept him behind me for the rest of the race.

I’m really not sure how people manage to drink those cups of water that they hand out to you during the runs at the aid stations, but I’m just grateful that nobody pulled a Kramer on me and handed me hot chocolate. I did feel liberated by throwing my used cup on the ground though, in true racer fashion :-).

I was really impressed with the quality and organization of the race by the race staff. It was just very well done and I definitely had a great time. As I mentioned to several people yesterday, this is something that I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I used to watch the Ironman triathlon on ABC’s Wide World of Sports when I was a kid. In fact, I would say that I got a fair share of crap from friends growing up about how I was never going to do this. Soooo.. now that I have done this as well as EFC they can all officially bite me. So afterwards, it felt really great to have done this – extremely satisfying.

After the race, PJ and I hung around for a few hours eating free food and just kind of hanging out. We joked about how we needed to stay for the awards ceremony “just in case” we won (we didn’t). As we left, I took a slightly detoured route home. Why is that, you might ask!?!

COUNTIES BABY! Actually in this case just county. There are 2 counties in Eastern Indiana (Union and Fayette) that aren’t traversed by either I-74 or I-70. Research had shown me that while geocaching I had been in Union county some time a few years ago (while visiting this cache. Okay, it was December 26, 2002 at about 8:30 in the morning. Anyways, as far as I could tell, I had never been in Fayette. What doubly annoyed me (see the Law of Conservation of Counties) is that I had been probably no more than 5 minutes from Fayette county when I had made that trip back in 2002. Fayette county was, until yesterday, the geographically closest county to my home that I had not visited. Now it’s either Harrison or Robertson county, Kentucky, depending on how you define “closest”.

So… how did I do, you might ask? Well, since HFP made ME wait a day before posting the results, I figured I could make you wait too. Here are the overall results, and the results by age group.

Swim time was 13:50.52 (369th out of 396 finishers), bike was 54:44.19 (313rd) and run was 27:22 (265th). Overall I came in at 1:38:45.38, in 306th place. My goal had been 100 minutes, so I was glad to see that I beat that (by a minute and change). After the participant list came out on Thursday I joked with my co-workers that the only 2 people I wanted to beat were the 56 year old woman and the 13 year old girl. I beat neither. Though had I known I would end up only 26 seconds behind 13 year old Mandi Sosnowski, maybe I would have kicked it up a notch :-). Since everyone started at a different time, you couldn’t really tell people’s time based on when they crossed the finish line. Speaking of close finishes though, I did manage to beat the oldest guy in the race (77 year old David Staley) by (*cough, cough*) 15 seconds. The thing about the old people is that sure they are older. But the older you get, the more the fact that you are in a triathlon says that you are in some serious shape. In your 20s and even somewhat in your 30s, if you want to just run a triathlon, you can definitely do it if you apply yourself. When you’re 77, it’s a lot harder to just say “You know what, I think I’m going to run a triathlon in a few months”

One thing I did notice from reviewing the results was that my transition times were pretty good. As I mentioned before, I was able to pass PJ out of the pool on the bike leg by just being quicker in the TA. My 2 transition times took me a total of 2:47, which was 93rd (out of the 396 finishers). And really it was 81st, since you can’t really count the 12 “teams”, since of course they were going to be faster since they had a different person for each leg. The lesson to be learned, of course, is that even though I can’t swim, bike or run very fast, at least I can do nothing faster than most people :-).

So to recap – lots of fun. As of now, I’m definitely interested in doing this again next year. Though we’ll see how I feel when it actually IS next year.


13 responses to “It’s GO time!”

  1. Well done, Dan. What was PJ’s time? In your honor, I went out and rode 22 miles yesterday. Based on my average of 17.8 mph, my 20k time would have been about 42 minutes.–of course that was not after swimming 400 meters.

    Jeff
    p.s. time to lose the kickstand, dude. just take it off. Really. Embarrassing, that.

  2. You can get PJ’s time by following my link to the results. It was like 1:25 or so

    And I think before I lose the kickstand I’ll just go buy a real bike, rather than one that was put together from parts other people threw away, grateful though I am to have any bike in the first place

  3. i just don’t understand the whole kick stand thing. dan was explaining to me last night how pros take it off because it’s extra weight they have to bike with. but still. what do they do when they need to stop and get off their bikes?? lean it against a tree? what if no tree? ack??!! guess i’ll never go pro.

  4. the problem with kickstands is that the majority of the weight is up high, so the bike is easy to tip over, which can break things…. laying the bike on the ground is best, as a bike on the ground cannot fall over….

    anyway, well done Dan! this is really a great accomplishment, and a very well done report!

  5. I have to say, i never knew that you “always” wanted to do a triathalon, but i sure am impressed that you went and did it and trained for it, etc. and after that long post, i definitely need to comment. extremely well done!!! and sorry about the 77 year old:) i am very proud of you, seriously. mom

  6. I bought my bike from Biowheels down near the university. You can’t go wrong with them, I think. If you can get one of “last year’s” models, it will be a cheaper ride, and just as good.

  7. how pros take it off because it’s extra weight they have to bike with. but still. what do they do when they need to stop and get off their bikes?? lean it against a tree? what if no tree?

    I’m not a pro, never played one on TV, but I’ve been in enough races to know the answer to this…

    They don’t take OFF the kickstand, the bike never had one to begin with.

    Anyhow, with a racing bike, you’re not parking for very long anywhere, you’re racing or training, but 95% of the time you are ON the bike. If you get off, it’s usually a pit stop or coffee run, and you lean the bike on whatever is handy, side of coffee shop; or else find a curb, place the wheels right up along the curb, and rotate the pedals backwards until the pedal touches the curb– the bike will stay upright.

  8. Hello my friend from Turkey who I’m not sure who you are.

    When I said they take the kickstands off, I didn’t mean that they actually take them off the bike, but more what you said – thank you for clarifying.

    I was unaware of the reason Scott mentioned upthread about it risking falling over – I just figured it was a weight thing.

    Who knew that TPMHTDM would turn out to be the Internet’s foremost authority on kickstands and racing bikes?!? 🙂

  9. Hello my friend from Turkey who I’m not sure who you are.

    Hee, hee, you know who I am, you just haven’t thought it out.

    YOU sent me the link to this blog.
    We were talking about this race last week.

    Here’s the giveaway– I’m from Turkey, but right now I’m living in Calif.

  10. Congratulations, from your old road-biker Dad. If I could still run, I might even think about doing one of these Tri’s with you. Maybe we could do a team one? I could do the bike leg, though I’m not as fast as I used to be. Looks like your pace on the 20K bike leg was about 13.6 mph. That’s about what I’m averaging lately on my 10 to 15 mile rides.
    There’s a 50-something guy at church (Sid) who used to run marathons, and is now doing triathalons. He has a very nice (i.e. expensive/lightweight) road bike. But that wasn’t good enough – last fall he bought a “tri bike” (probably in the $1,000 range). So you KNOW he’s serious about this. He does the half iron man distances (1 mile swim, 50 mile bike, 13 mile run). He talks about keeping his pace ABOVE 20mph on the bike, so I’m afraid to even try riding with him.
    As for equipment – so you don’t like that “tree-lawn treasure” I put together for you? Perhaps you could find a better bike on Craig’s list? Get the right frame size though. I wouldn’t obsess about ultra lightweight. I added Aerobars to my bike (about a $90 add-on) and they do make a difference – perhaps 1 mph faster. As one of my Australian co-workers once said “its no use having a 100 pound bike if ya got 10 pound legs”. (as in British pounds sterling). I.e. the quality of the bike should match the quality of the training/conditioning.
    Again – well done.

  11. Just one more thing, on the popular “kickstand” topic. When you lay the bike down, put in on it’s left side – keeps the whole drive train out of the dirt.

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