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I completed my first triathlon today and wanted to get my thoughts down while they are still relatively fresh. The short story is that I had a great time, finishing 23rd out of 53 in my age group (Male 35-39) and 100th out of 450 overall. Official results are here.

Advance warning, this is going to be a long post. After seeing how long it is I’m breaking it into two parts. Part one is a bit about my personal journey to get to today and part two will be my actual race day experience.

My first experience with triathlon (like many others) was seeing Julie Moss crawl to the finish in the 1982 Hawaii Ironman Triathlon.

I continued to follow triathlons (mostly Ironman) on and off through college when they happened to be on weekend sports shows. When I moved to California in 1996 I found a more active fitness community and I had a friend who actually had competed in a triathlon which raised my interest in the sport. I learned about the shorter distance races and was intrigued that you didn’t have to race 14 hours in order to be a triathlete. I got as far as buying a book or two about triathlon and doing some rough bike and run training, but never planned an actual event. I also was not a very strong swimmer having only learned to front crawl and breathe in 1996 in the MIT pool for a total length of 100m.

When I moved back to Massachusetts in 1999 and started dating Susan we ran a lot together since she was a runner. As we got more serious, our runs also got more serious and we ran a marathon together in October, 2000. I now had a run base and had confidence in my biking ability from all the biking I did as a teenager.

Marriage and job occupied the next several years and in 2004 Susan decided to do a Danskin Womens Sprint Tri with a friend. She trained hard for it, bought her first road bike with clip in pedals, learned how to swim and breathe, and finished in the top 20% of the race on the strength of her killer run fitness. The gauntlet had been thrown down.

By this time my weight had gone from 185 from running the marathon in 2000 up to an all time high of 231. In 2006 I decided it was time to get my weight under control, start working out again, and as an incentive I signed up for the local triathlon. By July when the race rolled around I had done a good job losing weight, but a bad job of sticking to a workout plan. I also had not put any effort into swimming. I figured I would borrow a wetsuit and wing it.

The night before the race I headed to packet pick up and was completely overwhelmed by the crowd. Pickup was taking place in the same tent as the prerace supper, the place was loud and disorganized, and I was not feeling very confident. I used the disorganization and crowd as an excuse to walk away from the race. After that I pretty much fell off of my diet and since I wasn’t really exercising I gained back almost everything I had lost over the previous year.

Since 2006 my weight has mostly been around 220 with some brief dieting based forays down to 205 or so.  At the end of 2008 our friend Heather talked us into signing up for the 2009 Covered Bridges Half Marathon and my little sister decided to run the 2010 Disney Half Marathon in January, 2010.  Starting in March I embarked on a 12 week half marathon running program with a starting weight of  220.5 pounds and the ability to run 4 10 minute miles before being tired.

My run training was progressing well and the miles I was running meant I didn’t have to change my diet too much to start losing weight at about 1 pound per week.  By early April the triathlon urge started again and I decided if I was going to do it, I was going to train for it and do it properly. I signed up for the Powow Sprint Triathlon on July 11, 2009.

I joined the local YWCA pool and decided to start taking swim lessons. I’ve been spending 30 minutes with a coach every 2 to 3 weeks working on my form and getting drills to do for the following weeks. Additionally, my 1/2 marathon training has had me running 25 to 35 miles per week. In early May I finally hauled my bike out of the garage and gave it a quick tune up and started riding.

May and June came and went and our half marathon was a very successful 1:53:xx. My weight fell from 220.5 down to 201 on my way to a theoretical eventual weight of 185. At least that’s where I plan to stop and evaluate how I feel and look. It’s amazing what burning an extra 1000 calories a day will do.

I stopped swimming as much in the pool and added in a few open water training sessions to get used to a wetsuit, sighting, and the fact that swimming in cold, deep, murky water is a bit disconcerting.  I increased my biking mileage although nowhere near as much as I should be doing. Most of my hours are still put in running since Su wants to do a marathon at the end of this year.

My swim times in the pool/open water were pretty consistent at 2:05/100 meters, bike time on the tri course on my 1996 Specialized Allez road bike weighing in at 28 pounds averaged ~19 mph, and my run speed was 7:30/mile for a 5k. Once I had managed to swim 750 yards in open water relatively easily I knew I had the ability to finish the race assuming I didn’t panic during the swim or break down on the bike. I promised to refrain from buying a new bike until I had actually completed a race. I didn’t want to have a $1200 bike sitting in my garage if I decided to freak out and walk away from the starting line again.

Two weeks before the race the weather in New England turned crappy which I didn’t mind too much as I was starting my taper. The week before the race I went on a road trip vacation to the midwest to visit family and friends. I knew I’d manage to workout some this week although I wouldn’t have any biking.

The day before the race I arrived home after a long drive, picked up my wetsuit at the tri shop, drove to the course for packet pickup, and headed home for dinner and to try to get some sleep. I was a bit road weary, but splitting the drive into two days helped with that somewhat and I felt pretty good (~75%) heading into bed the night before the race.

Race day! (part 2)