I am a Tri Geek Part 3...and unrelated cool stuff

OK, the above pics are part of the "unrelated" but cool part of this story taken from us helping out at the Larry Kemp junior Camp this weekend, Left is Head Coach Kristi with firefighting mad man husband, EMT, awesome bunk mate Chad with junior phenom Holden in the foreground...the other shot is the whole group, just had to share, it was a blast, kids and bikes, like peas and carrots...more at the end...now back to my Tri story...

so I made it to the run, sorry for the pause here, but my run was the least exciting part of my first Olympic Tri. If you check results, another cool thing about triathlon, you get really detailed information on times it takes between swimming and cycling (your Transition times) and all legs of your event as opposed to some road races where there is no physical record of your brave feat. My run was less than specatular...until you factor in how little I trained and how sore I was for the 4 days afterwards...then it was pretty ferocious...to me.

So for the run I headed out at a crawl and remembered Tom's words from Triumph to just keep going, and I began to play the game. IF I kept going I could stop and take a pee after the first lap (3 of them). So I pressed on. Finally the water I had swallowed in the swim had worked it's way through my body and it was building pressure, but anther little tip here...hold it. Some how the urgency it creates is a good thing, it can make you go faster assuming it is not a full blown emergency. So I plodded on, willing my legs to keep going.

Soon I noticed that whenver I got passed, it was by hummingbirds, runners with a fast turn over. One thing about only being a cyclocross racer who runs occasionally is that I am used to bounding up stairs, not flying over flat ground at high speeds. My legs were sllllllloooooooowww. I would hear the bam, bam, bam, bam, bam of someone coming up on me as their shoes hit the ground and I was about half their pace BAM...........BAM............BAM...........BAM.....maybe that was why I was so sore the next week???

So I made it around once, then even though I could have claimed my reward, there really wasn't any place to pull over except the woods at the transition, but when I got there it wasn't that full of vegetation and there were lots of people around, so I told myself "next lap FOR SURE! I will pee and be free of this extra 10 oz!" and picked up the pace as I headed back out on the pavement.

Now the last post I did I said "why run when you can fly" and this is where the mental power of Cycle U came in. I preach to anyone who will listen that you set your vision on what you want to have happen and belive it as if it already has. I had invisioned a good run. I began to let my body do a good run despite what my pain sensors were telling me. I started to stride out a bit more on the flats, and dig deep on the rises or small hills. I fought to stay with those who passed me or at least maintain my speed. I held my head up and let my legs go.

At times I couldn't feel my legs much, they were working and flying beneath me but they didn't necessarily feel attached to my body. I had a few aches to work through, which slowed me down a bit, so I wasn't shutting out all pain but the last half of the run I was going for it and fighting to keep my pace as high as I could.

On the final lap, when I knew I was about 1/2 mile away I started to really go as fast as I could. I actually passed a few people and was striding long and fast and felt like I was really racing for the first time on the run. I sprinted across the line knowing I had given it my all. I didn't have to pee anymore. I think that h2o had be reabsorbed cause it was kinda hot by then. It was great to finish, and especially great to get the cheers from fellow teammates, wife and son and total strangers as I came into the finish line. Wow, that was great. And it totally stoked my ego to do OK at something I thought I might not finish during the swim.

Thanks for reading, look for me at Kirkland...I just might make it. I have to post a few pics from our Larry Kemp 10-14 year old camp in Cle Elum this past weekend, that was a blast! If you know of any kids this age who like cycling, it might be their favorite 3 days of summer next year.

This is us after a swim in the river and a road ride. Below is some cyclocross with Tim Rutledge. Great crew of kids!

I am a Tri Geek, Part two..

Now I don't want this to be a brag session, but if you are reading I am assuming that you are fine with some pointers on how to ride a good TT since I really can't help myself. At one time I was the 2nd or 3rd best TT rider in the state and it was the discipline I won my first stage race with, practiced every other week my first year of racing and loved for the simple fact that it was a pure measure of how you compared with other riders...once you factor in the "Geek Bike" savings.

OK, here we go with the play by play... I shuffled out of the water, and luckily had placed my bike at the far side so I know how to find it. Peeled off the wetsuit and got the shoes on and struggled getting a dry jersey over a wet body and finally was on the road and riding. I had visualized a good race. I knew I wanted to work hard and steady on the bike so I immediatly took it up to a hard level on the first little hill and on the first downhill got a Clif Shot down my throat with a few gulps of water. Now I settled in to reel in some fish that got away.

The way I approach the bike is to ride the entire bike leg with similar speeds in similar sections, go hard on the uphills hold that over the tops until rest portions of the course. We were doing 4 laps so the first lap I was not exactly railing the corners, just getting to know what the lines where and how hard I could push it when I got cooking on the last 3 laps. I was looking for pavement quality, gravel, potholes and other hazards to work around, besides the obvious like course marshals, turns and traffic. I clocked a steady first lap passing folks pretty regularly, swallowed another Shot with a few gulps of water and put my head down for lap 2.

I knew to get the best time that I had to average similar times each lap, and I purposely held back a bit on the first lap, planning to ratchet it up each lap until the last one was a full sprint to hold the speed, taking risks in the corners and really maxing out on the uphill parts. That is what came to me as I was riding, the places I made the most time was on the uphills where lots of people settle in, I was jamming them hard knowing I could rest on the downhills.

The other key is not resting UNTIL you are up to speed on the downhill. If you let up when you hit the summit you are wasting kinetic energy, keep pushing until you are going at a fast speed downhill, only then can you get a breather!

I have to admit, I enjoyed passing all those fast swimmers. I enjoyed giving "atta boys" to everyone as I passed and encouraging everyone. I know cycling can be hard, but after the swim I was like "born again!" I was just so happy to be back in my element. The other thing I did that I didn't see anyone else really do was stand up on the climbs. This course was really fun, rollers with each climb less than 20 seconds so standing up to jam them was perfect. It was a joy to find the right gear to stand on, then throw the bike side to side to use the last of my upper body energy before the run.

I reloaded Shot and water for my last lap and really poured it on. I tried not to think of other riders as I passed them, but it is very helpful mentally to have a target. I THANK all those who were in front of me as I was rabbit hunting and there was a steady stream where I was pursuing people all the way until the transition. I didn't intentionally hammer by anyone, I just maintained my speed and sometimes it took me half a lap to catch someone.

I was just on my regular road bike so I had to ride the "fake aero" position (above). I just put my elbows on the tops of the handlebars (thankyou FSA bars with the flat tops and Coach Adrian for wrapping my bars last year!). was yelling at me that I was doing great when I came in. I must say that I am salvating for a "real" Tri Geek machine...with "real" wheels and positioning. Here is a little hint for Santa : )

I don't know how much I moved up on the bike leg but Carla from our Team (she was course marshalling, how cool!) was telling me to go for it cause I was rocking my age group or something.

I rolled into the transition and got onto the run, wow, did I have to pee. I was doing the 90 year old man shuffle powered mostly by willpower and Tom's words from Triumph Multisport "just keep running, it gets better". He was kinda right, it did, but not until the finish...next time...why run when you can fly or Are those really my legs running underneath me?

Thanks for reading, now go enjoy the summer!

Coach Craig

I am a Tri Geek, Part one.

I accept it, I am now a Tri Geek. I am suprised by this realization, and proud to have survived my first Olympic Tri, especially the damn swim. Here is my story of the swim (that is me in the middle with fellow Cycle U Teamates, ignorantly blissful).

Swimming in a Triathlon is like doing a Mountain bike race at night without lights. Thank goodness for Triumph Multisport for saving my life with a wetsuit rental!

Who ever heard of going as hard as you can with 100 other guys in pitch black darkness, not able to breath when you want, getting kicked, bumped into, going the wrong direction, barely able to see even when you lift your head out of the water, and despite giving it 110% still moving the pace of a slug. That is swimming in my first Olympic Triathlon...and that was the good part.

Let me tell you about after the adrenaline wore off and I was about 1 minute into it...I had relegated myself to breathing every stroke, and still it wasn't enough to get into any kind of grove. I was fighting the water, trying to keep my head and chest down as our awesome Tri Goddess Ironwoman Coach Tammy had instructed me, looking at the bouey that seemed to be getting farther away rather than closer. I was starting to look up so much to keep my "line" (I am a pure bike racer after all and 20 years of racing and working on line and angle and trajectory through courses taught me it was key to not go any farther out of my way than necessary) that I was essentially doing the dog paddle with my head out of the water.

I was spazzing. My breathing was frantic and I had nothing going for me other than determination. I looked into the black water, not able to see a thing and tried again...the thought that I wouldn't make it appeared. I tried to ignore it...it came back. I didn't look for a rescue boat since at the start the organizer told us that the ambulance and medic crew was late but he was going to start the race anyway. I was looking to escape the Federal Escape.

Then an interesting thought occured to me. It wasn't the physical effort to swim, I could do that, it was really that my vision had been taken away from me. I had done a couple 30 minutes in open water at Magnuson Park, but I knew the lake and it was in a roped off swiming area and there weren't any other people swimming around me. In the blackness of 5 mile lake I couldn't tell if I was going to ram into someone ahead of me, and I was certainly getting run into from guys going sideways, or me going sideways. It was like riding a mountain bike race at night, you could kinda see but you really needed to use *the force*, not worry about hitting the tree or rock and just keep going smooth and feeling your way.

Then I was finally coming to the bouy and brushed it and felt the rope hit my legs, and another guy came swiming into me...I looked up for the next one and tried again to find my rhythm...and just keeped hammering away with the arms. Damn this was hard.

Then I remembered what my 5 year old son told me the other week when he tried his first swim team workout, with eyes big as we went to the showeres early " WOW Dad! That was REALLY hard swimming across the whole pool!" I smiled and drank some black lake brew and spit it out and kept truckin...gotta do it for the little man. He is brave every day taking on the world, I gotta suck it up and keep going.

I flailed miserably to the next bouy and headed on the homestretch of lap 1. Eventually I could see a dock with people yelling but my earplugs blocked all sound. I knew people were watching me so I tried to get long and smooth again, tried to focus on the game and doing it well. It was embarassing, ego not happy. Pretty soon I was past the dock and at the end of lap one, half way, and it actually started to feel do-able. I settled into a slow and steady stroke, kept my head down more, there were only 1-2 guys around me now which helped. I broke through at that point. I was happy being slow and steady, breathing every stroke if I needed it, and soon I didn't, I was hitting the breath on both sides and making steady progress. Hey, this is alright afterall. Hope is alive!!!

Pretty soon (felt like an eternity) I was back on the homestretch and remembered what Cameron had told me at the pool, start to kick your legs at the end of the swim to get them warmed up for the bike.

The best feeling in the world was feeling the sand of the beach hit my hands as I swam it in hard and came out of the water like a monster. I HAD MADE IT!
Got on the bike and was back home, loving the challenge of tring to catch the 100 guys and gals in front of me now : ) rabbits watch out! Here I come!

I started to see Cycle U teammates and exchange "atta boys" with the rest of the natives! It was like heaven, free and back in control! Next stop is our Triathlon Team open water swimming clinic to keep improving on this very challenging sport.(next, the bike and how I made back all that time).

Craig out.