Yesterday, I did the
Presidential Lakes Olympic Challenge in Pemberton, NJ. It was my first Olympic Tri of the year, and my third Olympic ever. Any tri where I don't drown, don't fall off my bike, or don't have to walk during the run is one that I consider a success. But I do feel good about my performance yesterday, although I now know that I really do need to work on the biking.
* * *
Six Front Runners / Tritons went down for the race: Me, Jeff, Mike Terry, Kyle, Peter Lozito and Janice. The boys and I went down on Saturday to stay overnight. Jeff was able to find a motel within about 10 minutes from the start, the
Executive Inn in Pemberton. Initially, we thought it was odd that the motel was not listed on the race list of nearby motels, but we thought that the motel had a decent enough website, and it was cheap and close by.
Seriously, words cannot explain how sketchy this motel was. Most of the rooms were occupied by day laborers or farm workers. There were bugs flying all around when we walked in. The water in the bathroom smelled like it was connected to a sewage line--we had to keep the bathroom door closed so the room wouldn't be permeated with the smell of rotten eggs. We were all afraid to touch the remote control because that's supposedly the germiest part of a hotel room. I tried to check for bed bugs, but Jeff convinced me that it was probably best not to know. Fortunately, Peter brought a can of Lysol so he sprayed down the beds before we got into them. It was gross.
The one good thing about where we were staying was that we were able to discover a dinner spot not to far away that was actually quite good:
Charley's Other Brother in Mt. Holly, NJ. We took it as a good sign that there was a half hour wait when we got there. The place has a very long wine and beer list, and an even more extensive dinner menu. I got a blackened tuna steak, which came with a side of Cajun dirty rice. It was very good, but as soon as I ordered it, I remembered that I generally try to avoid spicy foods the night before a big race, since sometimes I get stomach issues the next day. Oh well, I enjoyed the meal anyway.
* * *
The next morning we woke up around 5am and headed over to the start. For breakfast I had about half a Clif bar and half a cinnamon raisin bagel, plus some Gatorade. I regretted not having a banana, which Mike Terry offered me. When we got to the start, we headed over to the transition area, which was pretty small since there were only about 120 people doing the race. We were able to choose where we wanted to set up our bikes, so I picked a spot right along the main path to save time during transitions. I set up right next to a former-lawyer-turned-military-guy from Texas who literally had done the Harriman State Park Triathlon the day before. He looked pretty hardcore, but I don't ever want to be the guy who does two triathlons in a weekend, that's just insane.
After setting up, I put on my wetsuit and went for a dip in the lake. Ever since my disastrous swim in the Metroman Triathlon in Asbury Park last year, I've made it a point to do a little swimming in the water before a race so I don't freak out at the race start (like I did at Metroman). This was especially necessary at this race, though, because the lake has this freakish reddish-brown color, like it was full of dead bodies leaching blood into the water (sorry about the imagery, but I've been watching a lot of Dexter lately). It turns out the the water is red because of all of the cedar trees in the area, and that it's perfectly clean and typical of many South Jersey lakes. But it's freaky nonetheless.
The swim was two half-mile loops in the lake. After the first loop, we had to get out of the water and run on the beach for about 5 seconds. It looked like a reaaaallly long swim when standing on the beach and seeing how far the buoys were.
When the announcer called the start, I was pretty much just in the middle of all of the swimmers in my wave. At my last tri, I purposely stayed at the back of the pack in order not to get trampled, but I found that there were actually swimmers who were slower than me who just got in my way. So this time I figured I would just go with the flow. I actually found it OK swimming with the pack because it made it a little easier to figure out what direction I should be swimming in. About a quarter of the way through the first loop, the swimmers end up facing east, which made it difficult to sight the buoys because the sun was in my eye (Is this why people wear tinted goggles? Mine are clear only because I think it's kind of weird to be swimming in yellow pool water). But I was able to follow the pack to figure out where I was going. I finished the first loop in about 15:30.
The second loop ended up taking about a minute longer. I think this was because the people in my wave had mostly long passed me, and I was left to sight on my own. The sun was really in my eye, and I kind of got a little disoriented. There was a straightaway with a bunch of buoys in a row, and we were supposed to turn left at the very last one. Not seeing the last two buoys, I turned at the third to last one, thinking it was time to turn. Fortunately, I figured out within a few seconds that there were still people going forward, and I realized that I turned too soon and had to get back on course. But the same thing happened to me at the next buoy, which I figured was
really the last, and I turned left. Luckily the girl swimming next to me saw me kind of confused and shouted out "this way," pointing forward. Ugh, one more buoy. Fortunately, this was not like my experience at Metroman, where I turned too early, and ended up swimming almost back to shore by the time a kayaker told me that I skipped a buoy. So now I've learned a valuable lesson: count the number of buoys before the race, so I'll know exactly when I should be turning.
* * *
Transition #1 was pretty uneventful. Seeing my four Gus laying on my towel (1 pre-race, 1 post-swim, 1 mid-bike, and 1 post-bike), I realized that I forgot to have my pre-race Gu. Also, I think I lost valuable seconds putting on my biking gloves, which have an annoying velcro tab thing.
The bike ride took a looooong time. It was a 24.8-mile route, from the transition area to the road, and then three times back-and-forth on a four-mile road, the name of which was Four Mile Road. As soon as I got on the bike, I realized that I forgot to reset the odometer on my bike computer, which still had 10.7 miles on it left from my last tri. I tried to reset it but couldn't figure out how and was too nervous doing it while on a moving bike, so I had to do math to figure out how far I had gone. OK, it's a very minor annoyance, but it could have been completely preventable.
I liked the three times back-and-forth route. It was helpful to be able to break down the bike course into three parts, and to say to myself I had gone a third of the way, or a half, or whatever. It was also good to see all the other Front Runners / Tritons on the way. I saw Jeff leave the transition about 90 seconds before me, and it was helpful to see him on the course coming in the opposite direction to know if I was closing the gap with him at all (I wasn't).
The one thing I didn't like about the course were the tight turnarounds. We had to make all of our 180 degree turns on the street, which was not particularly wide. This meant slowing down drastically for each turn. One time I didn't slow down enough, and ended up not being able to stay on the asphalt for my turn, veering for a bit into the gravelly side of the road. Fortunately, I steered my bike back on the road, but it was a bit scary.
Also, toward the end of the bike, my right foot started to feel a little tingly. I didn't know if this was because my bike shoe was too small, or it it was the result of my right butt/hamstring issue, which sometimes radiates down my legs. Regardless, it didn't become a problem that interfered with the biking or was particularly painful, but it was something that I was aware of and may have caused me to not push as hard as I could have.
Oh, halfway through the bike, I realized I forgot bring with me what was supposed to be my mid-bike Gu. So then I was two Gus short of where I wanted to be. Note to self: next time maybe tape a Gu to my bike.
I think the main problem with the bike for me was that it was just too damn hard to pedal faster. My legs were pretty beat after the first loop; I was dreading doing two more. And I felt like I was slowing down considerably with each loop. Because the course was relatively flat, I didn't have much help from gravity giving me a boost downhill.
Part of me is wondering whether my bike is not properly fitted. The other part of me knows that I rarely go out on bike rides and that the reason I'm not faster is because I hardly ever train on the bike. But I feel that as runner, I should have leg muscles that put me well above the bottom 10% of bikers (My bike time of 1:30:21 placed me #100 out of 111 finishers. Among the people who biked faster than me were Heysoon Lee, a 66 year old woman from Morristown, NJ). Mike Terry said he brought his bike to a bike fitter who apparently worked wonders on the bike, so I think I'm going to give it a try.
* * *
My run was miserable. It seemed like I was running in slow motion. It was so hot. There was no breeze. My timing chip was chafing my leg. The first and last mile were on this sandy trail that was like running on the beach. There were not enough water stations, and instead of Gatorade they handed out this nasty pink stuff that was like drinking liquid chalk.
The worst part was, about 30 seconds after I left the transition area, I felt the effects the the prior evening's blackened cajun tuna catching up with me. Although I was fine for an hour and a half on the bike, as soon as I started jostling around my insides on the run, I knew I needed a porta potty, and stat! I started going into panic mode, realizing that there'd be no porta potties on the course, and I wasn't going to pull a Paula Radcliffe or a Ginny (if you don't know what this refers to, I am not going to enlighten you). Luckily, the first quarter mile of the run kind of circled around the transition area, and I was able to go back in (I had to tell everyone watching that I wasn't cheating, I was just going to use the porta potty), and do my business. I figure I lost about 2 or 3 minutes doing so.
Despite the pit stop, I managed to eke out a sub-8 minute pace, which put my run at #30 out of 112 finishers. I must have passed about 25 people on that run, so it was a good lift at the end of a race. Considering how little I've been running lately, I think it was not too shabby.
Here are my final results:
Place: 72 / 111
Name: David lin
Age: 33
Bib: 42
SwPlace: 84
Swim: 32:18
SwPace: 2:02
T1Place: 69
T1: 2:36
BkPlace: 100
Bike: 1:30:21
BiPace: 16.5
T2Place: 44
T2: 1:14
RuPlace: 30
Run: 49:10
RuPace: 7:56
Time: 2:55:36
* * *
My next races are the
Park-to-Park 2-Mile Swim in the Hudson River on Saturday, the
Avon Ocean Swim on July 11, and the
Metroman Asbury Park Triathlon on July 18. It's not too late to sign up for them if you'd like to join me!
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