I did not think that I would be able to call myself a triathlete in the fall of 2020, but here we are. I feel more like a triathlete than a runner these days. The transformation certainly was not easy but I found my way into a new sport and made a splash in my first race.
I have been struggling with injuries since the fall of 2019. I ran a 2:42 marathon after not running for ~ 10 days with a stress reaction in my left foot. My left achilles had been bothering me at the time too. I ran a gutsy race and know I could have done so much better if I hadn't been forced to stop training. I then took off a ton of time to let the foot completely heal. I started running again in late November of 2019. The foot was fine but the achilles was still bothering me. I did not expect that but it felt as though I could train through the pain. I was signed up for the Austin 3M Half Marathon in January so I decided to get back to a normal training volume and give it a go.
Austin 3M went exceptionally well. On limited training, I ran 1:15:03. I did not think I would run a 1:00 PR. I figured that I would be 1-2+ minutes slower. I took it easy after the race and then started looking towards the spring. I mapped out shorter distanced races and put a half marathon on the calendar for the fall. Training was going well enough in February and March. I started nailing workouts in the "best workout of my life" territory. I was as fit as ever. That's when COVID entered the scene. I went from being in the shape of my life to having no races on the calendar. My spirits were deflated. I tried to time trial a 3200m on the track and ran 10:24. I did a 10k the following week in 34:53. They weren't A+ performances but allowed me to try to find some structure in my training. I decided that I was going to time trial a half marathon the same day as my original spring goal race. The only problem was that workouts in April were not going as well as they had gone in February and March. I started to run slow. My achilles began to hurt more and more. I convinced myself that it was all mental -- my attitude was sour with the race cancellations and I wasn't as motivated as I had been previously. That could not have been further than the truth. I wanted to run fast. I wanted to PR even if it meant a solo effort. When the achilles pain heightened, I doubled down and tried to train harder. I eventually moved my half marathon time trial in May to a 10k on the roads. I ran 1 mile at an ok clip before rolling through mile 2 slower than half marathon pace. I cut the effort short and turned it into a workout day. Instead of realizing what was going on, I moved away from the longer distances and started to go to the track 3 days a week to train for the 800/mile. I put even more stress on the achilles, sprinting and running faster than I had in years. It got to a point where I could barely walk. The pain was bad and workouts kept getting slower and slower. I was injured and needed to switch something up.
My wife and I moved to the east coast and I stopped running for two weeks. The pain was still there when I tried to run after that time off. I saw an orthopedist who did not want me to get surgery. I met with a physical therapist who said to stop running altogether and strengthen the affected area to maintain the stress I put on it from running. This was early July. I decided to listen to the PT, who had also said that I could cross train by biking or swimming. I bought a bike on July 11th. I purchased a swim membership on July 24th.
I was pretty nervous to start riding on the roads. I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a kid. I bought a Triathlon bike, which made me even more nervous but I had the thought that I might want to do one in the future. My first ride was maybe 5 miles in 30:00. I kept with it and rode every single day from then through August. I built my long ride to 20 and 30 miles. From there I topped 40 and then made 50 & 60 mile rides routine. I was already covering the half iron distance. I was also doing intervals twice a week, hitting well over 20 mph during the hard portions. Swimming was hard from the onset. I was doing tempo work over 2:00/100 yards. Threshold work was done a little bit faster. I was riding 7 days a week and swimming 3. I felt like I was getting really fit on the bike and found an Olympic Triathlon in New Hampshire. I signed up and it brought my training to a whole new level. I watched every YouTube video Global Triathlon Network has ever produced. I Googled how to change gears, how to swim with better form, and how transitions worked. My swim paces creeped into the 1:40s/100 yards for tempo work and into the 1:20s for speed work and 1:30s for threshold work. I felt strong on the bike and passable on the swim. But what about running?
I really did follow the advice of my PT. I gradually started to run a couple of days a week on an Alter-G treadmill with my body weight lowered. I finally got back to some low mileage and light workouts in the last three weeks of training. I peaked at 19 training hours a week. I averaged more than 18 over the last 4 weeks of training. I finished my first century ride. I did some brick workouts where I tried to run fast after some steady riding. I knew the triathlon would not be easy but I felt well prepared and thought that I could do pretty well.
The Race: The morning of September 19th was cool in the New Hampshire mountains. It was in the low-40s when the race started. We were set to do a 1500m swim, a 36km bike, and a 5.1 mile run. The standard Olympic Distance is a 1500m swim, a 40km bike, and a 10k run. With the elevation, however, I am sure that we put in the effort to cover the missing distance. Masks had to be worn except when on the race course. The start was a time trial format, with the fastest swimmers getting into the water first, with competitors taking off every 5 seconds. It felt safe and it felt fun to be at a race again. I never thought my next race after Austin would be a triathlon but my attitude was the same on race day -- leave everything out there and see where you stack up.
Swim: I was seeded 40th for the swim start out of 500 or so competitors. It looks like there were 342 finishers in my race. I sprinted into the water when my name was called and started following the person in front of me. Everyone told me that open water swimming is a different beast than pool swimming. I swam just once in open water in training and that was the day before the race to get a feel for the water and for my wetsuit. I still don't know how to flip turn in the pool so maybe it was naive of me but I thought that I might be about the same or a little faster in open water with a wetsuit on and drafting off of the people around me. I think that I ended up being right. My 1500m tempos in the pool had gotten into the 1:40s. I think that I was in the 1:30s/40s for this swim based on the Garmin data I saw of the people I swam with. I did make a time costing mistake. One person passed me in the first 5:00 of the swim. They didn't seem to be moving too much faster than me so I decided to stick to them and see if I might get dragged out of the water a little faster. I stopped trying to sight, relaxed, and stayed right on them. After another 5:00 or so, I looked up and we had drifted towards the middle of the lake. The current was moving from left to right so we had also been fighting the current when we did not have to. We had to swim back across to get to the buoy before making a left turn to start swimming back to where we had gone off course. Now we were fighting the current, with the added distance and effort. I stayed with this person until the end and my split was 23:39. It ranked 86/342. The 31st fastest swimmer was listed at 21:10. Number 85 did it in 23:36. I wish my detour didn't happen. I expect that I would have been somewhere in the 40s or 50s. 22:30 was good enough for 58th. We also definitely did not swim 1500m. Most Garmin data I saw put the swim in the 1400 yard range. I got in some extra distance but 23:39 for 1400 yards comes out to 1:41/100 yards. This feels right. Had I not drifted off course I would have been in the 1:30s but I was likely in the 1:30s with the distance that I raced.
T1: I'm raw at triathlon. I never put clip pedals on my bike because I wanted to adjust to riding a bike again before clipping in. The hardest part was running from the point where you couldn't swim anymore but were still in the water. My legs felt like bricks, trying to run out of the water with my wetsuit on. I got into the transition zone and had already unzipped and taken my arms out. I got to my bike rack and tried to stomp out of my suit but had to drop to my knees and use my hands. I then put on socks and changed into my racing flats. My total time is listed as 2:24 (19/342). I lost time here to the eventual winners who were in the 1:00-1:15 range.
Bike: It was cold at the start of the bike and I tried to warm up into the ride. One person moved past me and looked to be hammering and I thought to myself -- I'll let them go, they'll come back to me. But cycling isn't like running. I probably should have chased them since I was feeling good. I sat behind someone who was going slower than I wanted and I passed around 5k or so. The first 8k has some net downhill and I really missed an opportunity to put some time in the bank. You can't really bank time in running but I think you can on the bike. The course included 1500+ feet of elevation gain. It was a single loop so I wasn't going to see that nice downhill stretch again. I got passed by the rider I had passed and another rider on a downhill around the 8k mark. I realized that I wasn't in a low enough gear. I was pedaling a little too easy. Around 10k the two riders were going too slow for my liking so I passed again. I did not understand why they passed only to go slow but it made sense with how I was riding the downhills. I passed on a huge uphill where they couldn't come close to keeping up when I was out of the saddle. I caught up to another rider and we more or less worked together the rest of the way, passing a few more riders. I did the same thing a couple of times where I would pass on the uphills and he would pass on the downhills. It allowed us to share the work a bit even though there was no drafting. It was nice to have someone to chase. I cannot have been riding technically right because I would think that the stronger uphill rider should be able to get well clear of someone not keeping up on the climbs. Whatever the case, the course did its damage and my bike split was only a little faster than 20 mph. I was hoping for something in the 21-23 range. My split was 27th out of 342. It was hard to tell how I was doing overall because I started in 40th. I hadn't gotten passed much on either leg so I figured I might be in the 30-40 range or so heading into the run.
T2: With my shoes already on, I dropped my bike off and ran out of transition. The race gave me 1:05:53 for the bike and 1:18 for T2. I got 1:06:20ish on my watch for the bike so I think :30-40 should come off of T2. I gained probably on most of the field but still was around 3:00 total time versus 2:00-2:30 for a lot of the elite field.
Run: I had a lot of fun on the run. I fueled really well on the bike. I took a Maurten gel right at the start and in the middle of the bike. I sipped 320 drink mix during the ride and finished the entire bottle by the end. I know fueling has hindered me in the marathon so I am trying to consume more calories and drink more liquids in distance races. My legs felt good when I hit the run course and I took a caffeinated Maurten gel right at the start to carry me through. I spent the entire run leg catching people. I knew everyone I caught had started in front of me so I knew I would be moving up in the overall results. The run course featured more than 400 feet of climbing. I did two key brick sessions where I did 3-4 mile tempo runs with faster k repeats after to simulate effort on this course. Most of the climbing comes in the first 5k. I kept my effort even in the opening k's, knowing that I could do some damage once the course got more favorable. I went 3:39-3:43-3:45-4:06-3:45 for the first 5k. The course climbed 100+ feet on that 4:06. I was a little under 19:00 for 5k. The course markers put me ~ 20 seconds faster, as I was clicking off splits after their signage. I ended up with 5 miles & they measured it as 5.1. It was tree covered so they could be right but either way I finished off a really, really good run with some faster splits. The course finally started to work in our favor shortly after 5k. I split a 3:17 k & followed that up with a 3:30 & 3:32. My last 3k on my watch was in 10:19. My run was good enough for 2nd out of everyone. & I did that on just 3 weeks of training! I would have liked another 2k to try to move up a little bit more, although I'm sure everyone else was good with stopping where we did.
I crossed the line in 2:02:39. When I finally saw the results, I had finished in 14th place overall and 1st in my Age Group (25-29). 9 elites and 4 age groupers finished in front of me. I beat one elite athlete, albeit someone 50+ years old but they swam and biked faster than me. The winner did 1:48. I was 14:00 back of them. I think that, if I cleaned up some of the minor mistakes (swimming off course, transitions, clip pedals, etc.), that I could have finished a little higher up. My swim and bike need some work but there was a pretty big gap from the first 3 overall to everyone in front of me. 3rd place was 1:51. 4th place was 1:54-mid. I think that I already have the potential to have finished about there or at least a little higher with some of that aforementioned clean up. I cannot be too disappointed with this one. I write all of this to express optimism. I have only been swimming and biking for two months. I did not run at a normal training volume this entire build up. There is nothing but improvement in my future.
In the days that followed the race, I have already been trying to line up my next triathlon. There probably won't be anything until the spring or summer. This race qualified me for Age Group Nationals. I would like to try to qualify for the World Championships and represent Team USA at a low level in international competition. I would also like to build towards elite status and start to tackle the longer distances. I think my best triathlon distances will be the 70.3 and 140.6. I think that I can ascend to the elite level in this sport and do quite well. And I have absolutely nothing to lose. Things could have gone much much worse when I had my blood clot 4 years ago. I overcame that and am now venturing into a new sport. I made some noise in my triathlon debut and cannot wait to line up for another.
I am thinking that I will do a couple Sprint/Olympic races before Age Group Nationals next August. I might try to put a 70.3 before that or time on a month or two after. I want nothing more than to sign up for a 140.6 but I think I can wait a year or two and build my lifetime bike/swim volume. I also am not done in the running world and still feel like a lot of my PRs are soft for where my fitness has been at various points over the last several years. I looked at marathons and ultra marathons this fall but the right thing to do is recover, build up some running miles again, and maintain a swim/bike base. I'm probably going to run 4-5 times/week, swim 2-3 times/week, and bike 2-3 times/week, from now until the spring when I can *hopefully* target some races. There might be some short distance running races locally over the next few months. I'll hop in some of those if I think I'm fit or ready. That's the plan for now. I want to do it all but I want to be smart about how I approach whatever comes next. I'll build a base during the winter and get ready for my first real triathlon season next spring/summer. I might even be able to throw in a fast half marathon or marathon too. We'll just have to wait & see what things will look like.
Hope everyone out there is finding happiness during these trying times & finding ways to get after it with most races not happening. Keep at it. Things will get better.
