Hmmm….

So, my first tri is officially over.  I should retire; I’ve set my fastest time ever, why risk going slower?  Overall, it was OK.  A lot of, um, learnings there.

After a brutal night with around 5 wakings from KDA & TAZ, I made it with what I thought was a lot of time.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize they were closing the transition area at 6:45, so I thought I had at least another 20 minutes to orient myself.  Lesson 1: get there earlier.  If I had, I would have spent more time scoping the layout and figuring out where things are.  That would bite me later.

I set up my bike, got my gear out and proceeded to break my swim goggles.  Lesson 2: redundancy is a good thing.  Luckily, I had another pair, which, while tighter and not the greatest, would do the job.  I would proceed to break them coming out of the water and taking them off, so guess I’ll be getting new goggles again.

I waddled to the water area wearing my wetsuit for only the second time (the first being a demo to my kids in the living room).  I stuck my head in the water like a duck with his fins sticking in the air to see how the goggles would work; luckily, they kept the water out.  Looking around, I was surprised to see a fair number of people around me that I figured would be slower than me.  My plan — starting out last in my wave so as not to get thrashed by others in the swim — seemed a little off.  So, I found a pack of like-minded slow dudes and hung around them while the elite wave came out of the water.  That was a depressing way to start my swim — look, Jilani, that’s how your supposed to do it…. GO!…. gurgle, kick, owie, gulp, WTF am I doing here?. 

In general, the swim was absolutely miserable.  There was more than one time that I thought about going to the closest kayak, throwing the ref off and paddling to shore.  Figured there were too many people looking.  I ate my share of kicks as I pulled up to people without realizing it only to have a mouthful of heel.  I bumped left and right in my struggles to go straight - at one point, one of the kayakers pointed out to me that I should probably start turning towards the buoys again.  All thoughts about form and technique — you know, all the stuff I read about and watched on YouTube without actually practicing — went out the window.  It wasn’t until the final 200 or so meters that I felt like I had a rhythm going; the guy next to me, however, may not have thought so as I kept bumping into him as we tried to steer to the exit. 

As I pulled out of the water, I have to admit that I was extremely psyched to have gotten that over with; I was sucking some pretty serious wind and even though I was happy to have not resorted to a breast stroke during the swim, it really wasn’t great. 

The wetsuit came off easier than I expected, although I broke my goggles in the process.  The transition to bike was fine, with nothing eventful.  Even though a lot of stuff I had read said to put the sunglasses on after mounting the bike, I think I’ll put them on in the transition area next time.  Once on the bike, it was pretty uneventful.  I passed a fair number of people, three of which were in TT bikes, which made me giggle.  I definitely should have drunk a little more on the bike.  In general, I felt about as good as I thought I would in that phase, although my heart-rate was through the roof at the start.  I suspect I was still reeling from the swim, although that subsided about 3-4 minutes into the bike ride.

Then came the dismount.  I had decided to try a shoe-less dismount; basically, get my feet out of my shoes as we pulled in and leave them clipped to the bike.  The first shoe came off w/o a hitch; I pedaled a couple times and reached for the other side.  The velcro straps came off easily, and I reached into the heel to pull my foot out… only to end up with my shoe in my hands.  I’m sure KAZ was impressed as this was the first time she & the kids saw me come through.  It made the dismount a little entertaining, although I didn’t take a dive, which was my biggest fear.  Running over to the transition spot (shoe in hand), I had few issues racking the bike, getting my running shoes on and leaving my spot.  Lesson 3: a bottle of Gatorade in the transition spot isn’t a bad idea; it may have slowed my down, but I appreciated having it after the swim and the bike.

As I ran to the main thoroughfare, I was confused as to where the run started from.  A couple of people helpfully pointed it out.  I ran out the transition and started the course, and managed to pass some people from the start.  Something, however, didn’t feel right.  I started feeling my head.  (*@#&$)(*!@#)(!*@#!  In my infinite transition wisdom, I’d forgotten to take off my helmet and was running the course with my damn bike helmet on.  It was right out of There’s Something About Mary.  I took it off and toyed with tossing it by the side of the road to pick up after the race, only to decide to run with it in hand (not sure why; wasn’t actually that heavy).  Wasn’t the highlight of my race; only one wise ass decided to comment on it, saying "You know you don’t need that anymore" as I passed him.

I guess the most amusing thing was that photographers took an instant interest in me; the course was packed with what seemed like official photographers taking random pictures - during the run, there was definitely an increased interest in me.  You know, the jackass with the bicycle helmet in his hands.  KAZ swears it’ll be on the cover of the Seattle Times tomorrow.  I think she’s a little too excited to have me embarrassed… :) 

So, a learning experience.  It was entertaining to say the least, and psyched that the kids and KAZ were there.   Overall, I think my most important lesson was to spend more time in the water… we’ll see where I go from there with that.  (Final time was 1:22, w/ a 17min swim, 38 min bike and 22 min run).

Once I finally committed to the Seafair triathlon, I figured I should line up some of the logistics.  I tend to be a last minute kinda guy, which isn’t always a great thing.  I went online on Tuesday and registered for the race, excited that there was still some space.  I didn’t really have a ton of goals for this race; basically just wanted to see what an overall triathlon would be like.  Frankly, my goals are geared more along a longer race in the fall that I haven’t picked yet (remember, I’m a last minute kinda guy).  Anyway, here’s what I figured would make it a good day:

• Swim: survive.  Seriously, that’s the goal.  That and hopefully don’t come in last from my wave.
• Bike: Figure out transitions, particularly around mounts & dismounts.  During the ride, I just wanted to pass someone on an aero TT bike with my cyclocross.  I know it’s vain, but I just think half the people on those bikes really shouldn’t be on them given skill level.
• Run: See what my legs were like after a swim and run.  And try to make up ground on folks in my initial wave.

Of course, there’s a lot of things I figured I needed to do; that said, I didn’t want to taper too hard - I’m much more focused on the fall.  On Tuesday, I went out for a great speed workout; probably something I never would have done a race week if I was tapering. 

On Wednesday, a buddy and I rode to work, which is about 25 miles on a beautiful trail.  I tried to crank to see how long I could last; we ended up matching Matt’s best time on the trail, which I was pretty psyched about.  It was so beautiful out, that we opted to ride home as well, which may a lot more time in the saddle than I expected that day.  I felt like I’d tweaked my calf, although that may have been the day before.

On Thursday, I worked in Seattle, and rode the three miles in.  At one point, I pulled over to answer a phone call (it still cracks me up to see people riding their bikes in traffic while talking on the phone).  A guy slowly rode by me in a schwank TT bike that must have been worth at least $8k.  It was the whole kid — aero bars wrapped in the same colors as the bike, matching kit & helmet to the bike (fluorescent yellow), carbon everything and biking around 3 miles an hour.  He was on the bull bars; I honestly think the aero bars would have been uncomfortable as I suspect his belly would have been propped on the crossbar.  That’s the guy I wanted to pass on Saturday (well, maybe someone faster). 

The last thing I wanted to try on Thursday night was mounting and dismounting with my shoes clipped on the bike.  I tried mounting once; let’s just say that after bobbing and weaving down our road, I quickly realized that I’d be better off putting my shoes on in the transition area and mounting w/ my shoes on.  Dismounting wasn’t pretty — I bit it once relatively hard — but I’d finally figured it out.  My biggest problem was that once I’d dismounted, my clipped in shoe would hit the ground as I ran with the bike and it would fly off the bike.  The last thing I wanted to do was try to stop, turn around and get my shoe off the floor.  So, while I feel relatively comfortable on the dismount, I’m not sure I’ll do it during the race.

On Friday, I picked up a wetsuit.  I’ve never swum in a wetsuit before.  In fact, I’d only been in the water twice since deciding to try a triathlon 4 months ago (I figured my biggest gains would be on the bike and the run and I was in denial on the swim).  I figured Sunday would be a bad time to discover that I couldn’t swim a 1/2 mile, so I went to the gym, threw on a bathing suit and decided to try to cover the distance.  I think the lifeguard thought of jumping in to save me a couple times given how heavy I was gasping for breath in between strokes on the last couple laps.  While not exactly inspiring, I figured that at least I could say that I’d swum the distance once before the race.

I took Saturday off, and Saturday night, I laid out all the crap I would need for the race.  I watched a ton of transition YouTube videos for hints.  Dude, it’s absurd.  I’m used to slapping a pair of shorts and shoes on; I had multiple piles of things for different components of the race — KAZ just sort of stared at it wondering what the hell I was doing.  I loaded the bike on the car so I wouldn’t have to deal with it in the morning and threw my stuff in the back.

My alarm was set for 5:30 - I wanted to get there in time to scope out the area and figure out my setup.  Wouldn’t you know that both TAZ & KDZ would wake up four times between them.  TAZ woke up at 4am - "Daddy, I keep banging my head against the wall." "For crying out loud, move away from the wall."  "Thanks, daddy, I love you."  Ok, maybe waking up wasn’t so bad.  5:30 came pretty quickly.  The race will have to wait for another posting.

I think my last post from Malawi was how running wasn’t going that hot.  We got back here and that didn’t really change anything - I never seemed to get into a good groove; I think I was simply burned out from running. 

KAZ eventually got tired of hearing me whine about it and I’d talked for a while about getting a bicycle and trying that for some exercise… at Christmas, she decided to force me to put my money (well, her money) where my mouth was and bought me bike. 

I spent a fair amount of time looking for one, mainly because I know nothing about bicycling.  I owned a mountain bike for a couple months in 1997 or something, but proceeded to, um, "give" it away to a jackass that had a pretty darn good story (because I refuse to believe I’m gullible).  Insurance paid me back for it and I never got another one.  I’m hoping Karma’s still paying him back for it.

I had simple criteria for the bike: (i) it had to be a road bike, (ii) it had to be a comfortable bike for commuting and (iii) it had to be something I could grow into.  I figured that if I could sign up for a triathlon this summer with it, great, but that wasn’t really one of the top three.

Pretty much no one had any one-size-fits-all for me.  I finally ended up getting a cyclocross bike; apparently it’s something that folks race in the winter on through mud.  I have no intention of racing through mud on it, but because of its heritage, its apparently great for commuting — fat tires, additional brakes on the bars, and generally stable.  Everything I read pointed to that for solid commuter… although what may have tipped the scales was Matt saying "Dude, you stick some aero-bars on that thing and you’ll have the sickest tri-bike out there!"  I’m still not sure if "sickest" was meant as a good thing or a bad thing.

Now, I knew that I would suck at biking, but never quite as much as I did.  I got pedals that the shoes clip on to.  I fell w/ the bike five times the first month I rode it, pulling up to a light, stopping and in some variation either forgetting or screwing up unclipping my shoe.  I even had an ambulance pull over and ask me if I was OK once. 

Generally, I figured I’d get better at it while commuting.  Commuting in February through May in Seattle is kinda brutal with the rain.  Commuting in 2008 is absurd; because we lived on a massive hill, there were days when I started my commute in snow flurries.  My first day out, my ride in was brutal.  I couldn’t figure out how to work the damn gears — who’s bright idea was it to put the gears on the brakes?  I had no idea which handlebar controlled the front or the rear gear and which direction I had to tap the gears to get into an easier or harder one depending on what I was doing. 

My first ride to work took me an hour and half, including three stops where I got off the bike and just tried to breath without throwing the bike into traffic.  In a previous life, I had run that distance faster than I had just biked it by close to 20 minutes.  The way home wasn’t much better; the last mile and a half to our house was straight up-hill; a quarter of the way up, I stopped, got off and walked my sorry behind for the remainder.

It took me about three weeks before I could do the ride into work w/o stopping; a lot of it was figuring out the gears.  I bought a ton of stuff over that time — KAZ started me why the hell Amazon kept sending us boxes and I think she signed up for Amazon Prime (free shipping!) during this period.  I like to believe a lot of the stuff was necessary — my first ride was in my bulky ski gloves; I couldn’t change gears to save my life w/ those fingers.  Another two weeks later and I’d made it up the hill to our house w/o walking — note, however, that I still wasn’t fast, although I’d cut my commute time to 45 minutes on the same course. 

I’m finally at a place where I feel comfortable on the bike.  My commute has doubled in length since moving back into Seattle (YAY) and is much, much prettier.  I’ve gone for longer rides on the weekend and while it’s not always pretty to see me huffing it, I at least make it home in one piece.  Oh, and my running is going much, much better.  Because I don’t run every day, I’m finding I enjoy it a lot more.  Something tells me that’s also because I don’t suck as running nearly as much as I do on the bike, so it helps to remind me that I’m not a complete loser.

Oh, and I’ve submitted my entry for my first triathlon on Sunday.  Its a simple, short Sprint, but should be amusing.  I originally wanted to race Whisky Dick (it’s on the same day), but realized a one mile swim was probably not the best way to put my proverbial toe in the water.  See, if you think my biking sucks, you should see my swimming (although I really wanted the Whisky Dick T-shirt, if only for the amusement value). 

Gotta run - more useless crap to buy for the race this weekend.  I guess I’ll finally get to learn if "sickest Tri bike" was a good thing or a bad thing!

….well, at least I am since KAZ continues to deny this blog’s existence (not that I necessarily blame her). 

No idea what I’m going to use this for, but, figured I may post random things occasionally.  Expect posts to be few & far between, and generally pretty random.  It should be telling that I almost renamed this blog "Random meets boring… and tries not to get hurt". 

It definitely took me a while to get back to this, mainly for three reasons:

1) Life.  It got a lot more, well, boring from a blog perspective.  I work again.  I’m not going to write about work.  Or driving to work.  Wait, I don’t drive to work.  So, I’ll probably write about that.  But let’s save that for another time.

2) Life2.  There’s other things to write about than work in life.  But those things got in the way keeping this thing up (in a good way).  No idea why I think it’ll be different now… keep your expectations low.  Hopefully we’ll write stuff about that here.  Then again, not sure I want it on such an open site. 

3) Idiocy.  I’m an idiot.  I know it.  Now you know it.  I forgot my password to the blog and didn’t want to go to the trouble to figure it out.  When I did, one of the widgets on it broke the site.  I didn’t want to go to the trouble to fix it.  Now they’re fixed.  Expect a lot of "I’m an idiot posts".  I like those.

We’ll see how this goes…