This story is actually hilarious...well to me it is cause its not something I would typically do. I've been training with Fleet Feet for about 3 weeks now and 4 weeks before that on my own. My goal was always to do the Westside Y Tri as my first race. Well everybody else thought differently, My first day of FF training on a bike ride, the girl I was riding with, lets call her Rachel, cause I forgot her name oops. Well as we were riding/(me using her draft zone to make my ride easier) we were talking about races and such and she just straight up said that I should sign up, I told her she was crazy haha. So I pushed that aside till this past Saturday when a guy/great Christian guy in my FF program suggested I do the same, again I made up the excuse I have to go tear down the sound system at fellowship, he said he understood my commitment. Secretly though I had been dying to do the Westside Y Tri and was so excited for it to come, but it was still 6 weeks away. Well on Sunday of this past week, the day before the race I might add I went to listen to Shanin (my tri coach) do a transition clinic. I met a girl there that was a TriVols member and when I told her I hadn't planned on doing the foothills tri, she just kinda looked at me and continued to persuade me. She did have some good points like: I had said I was super excited for the Westside Tri and the day before I had done a 40 mile bike ride. So after her persuasion (geez women) I signed up!!!
That afternoon I spend time getting all my things ready to take to the race. Going to bed was horrible, I think I just laid in bed for 1.5 hours just thinking about the the next days race, to top it off I had dreams about the race like forgetting my chip and such. Morning came quick though, and I woke up to a dark rainy view outside my window. Luckily this didn't make me the least bit upset. I ate a simple breakfast, packed up and drove to the site. I got there really early which was good. I saw a lot of familiar faces which helped me so much to relax. I had been nervous all the time before but once I was there I felt great. I warmed up in all 3 sports and set up my transition area, I learned the most here. I did a lot of people watching, I learned stuff like what to pack in, which is a 5 gallon bucket (its a seat and a water tight container - GENIUS)
The race started with the swim as usual. I paced myself at about 6:30 in the starting line and ended up finished up at 6:24. In my rankings I was 50th out of 255 which I thought was legit. I felt great with that, I do need to work on some bilateral and rhythmic breathing, it felt kinda off, but didn't prove to be too much of a problem. I also want to practice flip turns under lane ropes...tricky but shouldn't be too hard. After getting out of the water I ran into the trainition area, keep in mind it was a wet morning, I don't remember if it was raining then or not, I kinda just didn't notice anything. My T1(Transition 1) was slower than I wanted I tried to put my running shirt on but with the rain and being wet from the pool I just ditched that idea, so I won't do that in the future unless I have a tri suit. Other than that delay it wasn't to bad. I'm glad I got mountain shoes for my clipless pedals cause they're easy to run in.
The bike started out great, the day before I had driven the course to see what kind of hills there were and from when I drove it I saw some bad hills, but when I got to riding them, they weren't bad at all. About half way thought I started getting a tight pain in my lower back, not sure what muscle that is, but it hurt, I was just tight and cramping. I rode through the pain and just wanted to get my 10 miles in. I got passed a lot, and I know it was cause I was so distracted by that pain. After the race I talked to Shanin about it and he told me about my riding position and thats why it happend, so I will be working on that too. I ended up placing 134th, so thats where I really need to focus some time to.
My T2 was easy, having Yantz really helped. I had done some bike rides followed by a run to practice getting my muscles to go from biking to running. So I knew what to expect, but the side cramp/tightness hadn't gone away. My first 1/2 of the run was miserable, I had to walk twice, but when walking the girl TriVols girls that talked me into the race, Alli, passed me and yelled out some encouraging words. I then got back into my run and once I hit the halfway point it was all great from there. The past few weeks I have really gotten a great running rhythm down, and I felt my body just kick into that as I turned the bend. As I made my way back I saw Shanin as he had already finished and was out running again with people in his class...(this man is a beast)...I also saw Joel and Sarah just seeing these new friends was great. I finished strong in the pouring down rain and its has just been such a rewarding thing. In my run I finished at 21:20 with a avg pace of 8:20 which was 110th place. I must have been booking it on my last part especially if I walked twice.
The end of the race was great, I hung out and talked to some of my new friends, and even so my co-leader Mary from DC. It didn't hit me until I got in the car to drive home what I actually did...I have been blown away all day, and all I can do is praise God for the strength and discipline to do something like this. It took a lot of energy, just from a nutrition perspective, I don't think I've ever been so hungry in one day. I had two breakfasts, some chocolate goo, a huge lunch, afternoon desserts snack, big dinner, and now I'm hungry again, I think this is all kinda funny. So how did I do over all, well my goal was 1st to finish the race, Check, my second goal was to not finish last in my age group, check HAHA I got 6th out of 7. Overall I got 111th out of 255, not bad for your first tri I thought. Hope you all enjoyed reading about my first race, I hope to keep up sharing about my Tri experience.
Monday, May 31, 2010
How did you decide to do this? - Long Introduction Sry
After my first triathlon race my Mom and I were talking about how far I'd come this past year and just all that I had accomplished. In looking back I have done so much this year like: helped lead a small group, wrangle horses, operate a ropes course, run my first 5k, run my 1st 10k (DirtyChai Relay) and run my first triathlon. If you told me a year ago I would have accomplished all that I would have told you to "Shut the front door!" Christ has blessed me with such great opportunities to prove myself to others and to myself. I wish I had the time and energy to describe all the learning experiences I had, but I don't want you to get bored too fast...so you can ask me.
So how did I just into such a, difficult sport you might ask? It started in January after I picked up some casual running, through the help of my awesome small group, which was called DirtyChai(DC), we decided to run the Knoxville Marathon Relay, so we signed up and I haven't stopped since. If you're thinking about running your first race the first thing to do is sign up no matter if you're ready or not, thats what motivated me so much to train. I trained with a Hal Higdon 10k plan for 8 weeks. The week before the race I did a 5k just to get the feel of my first race which was great, my favorite part was the start when I was running down Volunteer Blvd and we were being led by a Police Car, just seeing this mass group made me excited. I did great too I got a PR(umm Duh, Andy it was your first race), - thats not the point, I beat my goal by 1:20 and finished 24th with a time of 24:40. The next week our DirtyChai Team - Myself, Melissa, Sam and Christie, ran in the Knoxville Covenant Health Marathon...lets just say week did great even with it raining cats and dogs on Sam, we did it in 4 hours and 3 mins and placed 16th in our division. We had some fun times during that race...I remember looking over at Mal and Sam as Christies was running up and just threw up the most nervous look as they took a picture of me haha. I was truly nervous, I don't know why I just was, I think it was the Noelton Drive hill that I was most scared of, but I conquered it easily. My favorite part though was just running through the finish line all four of us together and hearing Dirty Chai announced in Neyland Stadium, and to make it even better Mallory and Kelly were there to great us with some legit signs, I was impressed how dedicated they were to stand in the rain and watch us come through the finish.
So...Triathlons....well hmm after the relay, I was proud of what we did, but something wasn't right. I realized I was truly missing the whole...God aspect of the sport, and yes that is a huge part of it. I just felt like I did all of this, it was me that trained, it was me that dealt with the pain and the overtraining...me me me. I was always like what's next for ME to do, what can I prove to people that I could do. I wanted to show people that, despite my size, I can do something people say "wow you did that." This attitude did not settle well for the sport nor my spiritual life. After reading a blog by Ryan Hall about how he runs for Christ and to Glorify Him. I was really just hit hard, it was one of those spiritual moments where you get slapped in the face with a cricket bat. So from then on running and tri's have been all being able to do it cause Christ has given me the strength. So I decided my next challenge would be triathlons, since running is not my strong point I thought this would be a great sport cause I used to swim and I do the occasional mountain bike...so it made perfect since. And thats all she wrote about how I got into these sports. I started training with my friend Kim with no program, but once I moved home for the summer I joined the Fleet Feet Team to train for the summer in hopes to get ready to race with Tri Vols in the Fall.
So how did I just into such a, difficult sport you might ask? It started in January after I picked up some casual running, through the help of my awesome small group, which was called DirtyChai(DC), we decided to run the Knoxville Marathon Relay, so we signed up and I haven't stopped since. If you're thinking about running your first race the first thing to do is sign up no matter if you're ready or not, thats what motivated me so much to train. I trained with a Hal Higdon 10k plan for 8 weeks. The week before the race I did a 5k just to get the feel of my first race which was great, my favorite part was the start when I was running down Volunteer Blvd and we were being led by a Police Car, just seeing this mass group made me excited. I did great too I got a PR(umm Duh, Andy it was your first race), - thats not the point, I beat my goal by 1:20 and finished 24th with a time of 24:40. The next week our DirtyChai Team - Myself, Melissa, Sam and Christie, ran in the Knoxville Covenant Health Marathon...lets just say week did great even with it raining cats and dogs on Sam, we did it in 4 hours and 3 mins and placed 16th in our division. We had some fun times during that race...I remember looking over at Mal and Sam as Christies was running up and just threw up the most nervous look as they took a picture of me haha. I was truly nervous, I don't know why I just was, I think it was the Noelton Drive hill that I was most scared of, but I conquered it easily. My favorite part though was just running through the finish line all four of us together and hearing Dirty Chai announced in Neyland Stadium, and to make it even better Mallory and Kelly were there to great us with some legit signs, I was impressed how dedicated they were to stand in the rain and watch us come through the finish.
So...Triathlons....well hmm after the relay, I was proud of what we did, but something wasn't right. I realized I was truly missing the whole...God aspect of the sport, and yes that is a huge part of it. I just felt like I did all of this, it was me that trained, it was me that dealt with the pain and the overtraining...me me me. I was always like what's next for ME to do, what can I prove to people that I could do. I wanted to show people that, despite my size, I can do something people say "wow you did that." This attitude did not settle well for the sport nor my spiritual life. After reading a blog by Ryan Hall about how he runs for Christ and to Glorify Him. I was really just hit hard, it was one of those spiritual moments where you get slapped in the face with a cricket bat. So from then on running and tri's have been all being able to do it cause Christ has given me the strength. So I decided my next challenge would be triathlons, since running is not my strong point I thought this would be a great sport cause I used to swim and I do the occasional mountain bike...so it made perfect since. And thats all she wrote about how I got into these sports. I started training with my friend Kim with no program, but once I moved home for the summer I joined the Fleet Feet Team to train for the summer in hopes to get ready to race with Tri Vols in the Fall.
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