Milkman Triathlon 2011 - A humbling experience

Well run tri with wave start by age group. Arrived early on Friday before race and so Gretchen, Bobby and I drove the bike route to get a feel for it. The road felt rough sitting in a brand new Yukon so I knew it was going to be rattly.  

I did the Milkman last year and it was the hottest most miserable race in which I've competed. My time last year was 1:33 which for a 500 meter swim, 12.4 mile bike, and 5K run is pretty slow for me. I went to bed about 10 but couldn't get to sleep until about 1 a.m. so had lots of time to formulate how well I was going to do the next day. I told the race director at packet pick up that 1:15 was my goal. Sounded reasonable when I was standing between two legends - my coach and Bobby Gonzalez.  While I was trying to go to sleep, I thought I could do the 500 meters in about 10 minutes, bike less than 40 (only have to average 20 mph to do that), and counting quick transitions I could run the 5K in under 25 minutes and be golden. All those times are slow compared to my training. I just did a 550 yard swim time trial in 9:57 and my fastest 5K time is a little less than 21.  All these thoughts were racing in my tired head at the glamorous and luxurious Fairfield Inn in scenic Roswell (gotta love Marriott Rewards Points!)

Got up at 5:30 on race morning and this time didn't stop at a gas station to get a honey bun for breakfast (did that last year - one of my many excuses for the 1:33). My beautiful wife actually packed me breakfast stuff so I had a banana and some almond butter and a lara bar. Good to go!

Got sat up and my friend John Gardea was there and we wished each other luck, knowing that we had been chasing each other in 4 or 5 prior races. A lot of people were vacillating between wearing a wet suit or not. I had already made up my mind that I was going to wear mine even though the only one I have is full suit. The people that were wearing suits had on sleeveless. Water was 67 degrees and clear.

I started with my wave and felt much better than I did last year when I was uncomfortable and freaking about swimming "that far" in a lake. Came out of the water in 12:00. Oops, a little behind schedule but I figured I can make that up on the bike.

This is where it started to fall apart. I came out of the water before my good friend/competition John but I COULD NOT get the damn wetsuit off my feet! I know, I know, everybody said that would be a problem and I did practice taking the wet suit off.  Unfortunately, I just don't think you can simulate trying to get a wet suit off after swimming 500 meters being pushed around, digging seaweed off your face, and the general free for all that is the swim start of a triathlon.  I was so slow in transition, that John beat me out and was gone on the bike.

Felt good going out and was averaging well over 20 mph until I started climbing a hill that went up down and up for about 2 1/2 miles. I didn't even remember any hill climbing in last year's race but apparently I just blocked that out b/c they were definitely there and killed my speed to the 12-14 mph department. Gretchen started 5 minutes after me and passed me on the bike with first 4 miles. Also, the damn road was so bumpy, my fancy aero bottle bounced out from between my aero bars.  Thankfully they were handing out actual waters bottles that were blessedly cold at the half way turnaround on the bike.

I was trying to get John in my sights and saw him coming back when i was 1/2 mile from turnaround. Bobby passed me about 2 miles into the return trip.   I thought if I can just get close enough to John that I could see him starting his run when I'm coming in off the bike, I'd be able to catch him on the run.  He's a beast on the bike but I'm a lot faster than him on the run so I figured I could catch him if I saw him.  The ride back was hot and into a headwind.  Unfortunately for all my "catch John Gardea plans," I wrecked - again. Turning last corner to go back into the park area and all of sudden it was like my wheels were on ice and they just slid right from underneath me! I landed by sliding on my left side. Here's some photos

I'm proud to say I didn't stay down very long. I didn't even give the two guys that were standing at that particular corner to get to me. I just jumped back on my bike (no obvious damage this time), and kept going - and promptly fell at the next corner too. No new injuries that time but by this point, I was afraid to look. I just got back into transition area and put on my running shoes.

At least I thought they were running shoes, but apparently some jerk replaced my shoes with concrete replicas because I could not manager any better than 9:30 pace.  I don't know why, but the Dexter Milkman just kicks my ass for some reason.  My two worst performances last year was this race and the Eagle in the Sun and the only things those have in common is a swim start.

I faded worse in the last part of the run but managed to finish the run despite the blood, sweat and tears. Finished in 1:27 so that's 6 minutes better than last year but no where near what I thought I could do. Bad news John came in around 1:17 and kicked everybody's butt in the Clydesdale division, 7 minutes ahead of closest competitor. I was 4th out of 5.  Sucky, sucky, sucky. I have Ruidoso this weekend and Amarillo weekend after that so I need to get over my pity party pretty pronto.  I've trained well since I got over the double pneumonia but I don't think my fitness is near where it was. I'm going have to race my way back into shape!

the rest of my crew did aweome. Both Bobby and Gretchen were second overall and 1st in their age group. Brooks was top 15 in 2nd in his age group. I need some of their star power to start rubbing off on me!

Inspiration, Injuries and Training

I recently met with a new trainer that is bar none one of the more accomplished triathletes in the area. She's awesome.  She asked me why I started doing triathlons. Good question.  I was originally 270 pounds and lost a bunch of weight on the Atkins diet and quitting drinking. Lost 40 pounds and then started doing cross fit workouts at EFS here in El Paso. Got down to about 215 but no matter how much I worked out or ate like a caveman, couldn't get down to 200 which was my goal. Graduated law school weighing 190 but I figured 200 was an obtainable goal. I had pretty much resigned myself to staying above that 215 pound threshold, convincing myself that was just what I was supposed to weigh now that I'm over 40.

I started running to train for the El Paso Marathon in March 2010.  I had trained for marathons before but always got hurt (self-trained, too much, too soon, etc., etc.) Started running with a local guy named Greg Brickey who was teaching the Galloway method which is basically jogging interspersed with walk breaks. Did really well with that method and didn't get hurt.  I wanted to stay with training that would prevent injury but also wanted to lose that last 15 pounds. Enter Triathlon Rob.

Signed up with Felix Hinojosa and the Human Performance Center. As intimidating as it sounds, HPC was basically a bunch of weekend warriors like myself training for different sports disciplines. Felix gave me a schedule that introduced me to swimming and biking. I had never biked or swam in any kind of coordinated fashion before.  In 60 days, the stubborn 15 pounds were gone.  At my first duathlon (bike and run), I surprised myself and hung with a lot of guys. Even came in 3rd in my age group. Granted, there were only 5 guys in my age group but I'll take a medal anyway I can get it.  I've never medalled since because (1) I'm not that fast (yet) and (2) the other triathlons that I signed up for I went to because they were in cool places like Albuquerque, Ruidoso, and scenic Dexter, New Mexico.  Unfortunately for me and my medal aspirations, lots of other way more experienced and talented triathletes showed up at those races - so no medals for triathlete Rob.  Also, I signed up for all those triathlons as an age-grouper instead of a Clydesdale due to nothing more than vanity. I didn't want to compete with the 200 pound plus guys, I wanted to compete with the little skinny fast guys. Learned my lesson and this year I'm competing as a Clydesdale.

That, in summation, is the history of my foray into the world of triathlon. I wish I had more zen-like aspirations to wow people when they ask me that question but apparently I'm just not that deep a person. I just wanted to lose those last 15.  I guess there must be some deeper goal I have in mind for still subjecting myself to 8 or 9 hours of working out per week now that I've lost those recalcitrant 15 but I guess I'll be able to post on that later once I've figured it out.