So, I did my very first triathlon a couple of weeks ago. I'm doing another one next week. And then another two weeks after that.
I'm hooked.
And since I'm hooked, and I met my goal for the summer of becoming a triathlete, I've decided to treat myself to a new toy. A new bike. A tri/time trial bike, specifically. And I'm going to build it up myself. (Because I'm a studly beast like that.)
I've assembled all the parts (except saddle and pedals), and the frame is currently up on my bike stand awaiting the work to get it assembled. I'm insanely excited!
I'm not spending a ton on this bike. I just don't take myself (or my riding) seriously enough to drop a boat load of cash on top of the line stuff. So, it's something of a budget build for sure, but that doesn't thrill me any less.
Frame, component list, and pics to come...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
I am a triathlete. That's right, I finished my first triathlon. Slooowly.
There were moments of hilarity. (No, really...at one point I started laughing so hard that I forgot how to swim. No, I don't remember what I thought was so funny at the time. I had to actually watch someone swim by me to figure out how to get my body parts coordinated and working together again.) And some pretty intense pain--my knee blew up near the turnaround point of the ride.
I now have five blisters, a heat rash, and two chafe marks. And a finisher's medal.
But I'll back up a little...
The day started early, with my alarm clock going off at 4:30 a.m. Why so early? Because it takes me a long time to wake up and get my body moving around. Also, I needed enough time to eat (4 oz. extra lean ground beef and two eggs, scrambled together and half a can of Diet Coke) and let my stomach get used to being awake--that's actually the hardest part of waking early for me.
Because this race is so huge (it's a PNW event in the same way that the Seattle To Portland is), racers and spectators were given strict instructions to not even attempt to park in the surrounding neighborhood. Instead, we were to go to Safeco Field to park (for $5) and ride school busses over to the race site. I woke up with a pounding headache and decided I would rather take my chances with the Seattle PD than ride a crowded school bus at stupid o'clock in the morning.
So, I peered at a Google map of the neighborhood and picked out a series of side streets that would get me within a couple of blocks of the transition area at Genesee Park. It worked. I found a spot two blocks away...at the top of a steep hill. (Not a big deal before the race, but a bitch to climb with transition bag and bike after the race.)
I got there, ran into a couple of friends from dinner the night before, and then started setting up my transition spot. Since it had been spitting raindrops a few times that morning, and I could hear thunder while trying to wake up, I had stuffed a garbage bag and a couple of huge Ziploc bags into my transition pack as a just-in-case measure. The sky still threatened rain, so I took out the garbage bag and tucked it around my clothes and shoes. By then, I could hear announcements over the loudspeakers signaling people to start moving toward the swim start to see the Elites start their swim (those ladies are crazy fast). So, I put on my Body Glide and started doing the wetsuit wiggle. After getting it up to my waist, I grabbed my swim cap and skull bling goggles, and made my way through transition and across the street toward the water. And that's when I ran into two of the ladies that were at the tri-weekend with me in the Gorge. (Incidentally, the first place finisher this year also lives in the Gorge and is a good friend of the coach that hosted us that weekend.)
After watching a few of my friends go off, and then floating around for what seemed like hours in the warm-up area to get used to the water, it was finally time for my race to start...
I'm still at a loss for what made me start laughing in that first leg of the swim. It's possible that I got kicked, or maybe tangled up with some water weeds, and just started laughing out of confusion. But I eventually got myself together and resumed my swim. I went slow, but kept a steady pace. And always kept moving forward. I was pleased that I didn't have to stop and grab a rest on a kayak or surfboard along the way. As far as I was concerned, that was a win for my swim.
Exiting the water and running/walking (barefoot) back to my spot in transition seemed to take years. (Maybe because of the patches of sharp gravel that I encountered along the way.) But, I got there, stripped off my wetsuit (without falling down) and gulped down some water while chewing a few SportBeans. Threw on my wicking tank, race skirt, skull socks, gloves and bike shoes, then grabbed my bike off the rack. (One thing about being a slow swimmer is that I had plenty of room in transition to do my thing because the people on either side of me had already left on their bikes.) I put on my helmet and started the long trip back to the front of the transition area to the bike start.
The bike was fun, but I could have done without the pain and the subsequent slow down. I was flying through the first half and passing people constantly, but slowed waaaaay down coming into the turnaround when my knee decided it had simply had enough of that. Ah, well. It had been behaving almost a little too well the last couple of weeks, I should have suspected something like this. Heh.
My second transition was faster, because it was just a matter of re-racking bike (ok, so that wasn't that easy), taking off helmet and gloves, changing shoes (all hail Easy Laces), grabbing sunglasses, and clipping on race belt as I started toward the run start. (I also took a few moments to drink some more water.)
After that, I just walked almost the entire run course. I played a little bit of the this-to-that game (e.g. I'll run from this driveway to that tree), because running made the blisters on my feet hurt less. So, walking made it possible to ignore the knee, but the blisters on my toes would burn and throb. Running made the feet feel no pain, but the knee screamed with every strike of my left foot on the pavement. It was just like choosing what kind of pain I felt like having at any given moment.
During the "run", I was dubbed Miss Pink by more than a few people (pink skirt, pink race belt, pink hair). And I got lots of variations on, "Wow, Miss Pink has ridiculous legs." I have to assume they were talking about my muscles and not the swollen knee...heh.
My actual transitions went really well (except for forgetting to put my sunglasses on before the bike, which I didn't notice until I came flying out of the tunnel on I-90 into the brightly sunlit morning), but my spot was really far away from all of the start/finish areas. Looking at the times, it seems like I really dawdled, but the reality is that I just had really long distances to cover to get to and from my spot.
As for my times...they weren't great. I wasn't last (in my age group, or overall), but I was far from even middle-of-the-pack.
This was a crowded race, with over 4300 participants and over 3700 finishers this year (out of 5500 registrants). And lots and lots of those are women doing their first tri. It's a super-supportive environment, with lots of smiling faces and whoops of encouragement from both racers and spectators. But, those crowds can be hard to maneuver. (And makes the transition area immense. For some perspective, check out this picture on flickr. That's not my picture, but it's actually the section I was in...it was in the very back corner of the transition area. I was in the second-to-last row, a little farther to the right than that pic shows. You can't even see the front of the transition from back there.)
The swim waves were sent off in reverse age group order (after the Elites and Survivor groups), which meant that the faster (younger) swimmers were easily overtaking the swimmers from the wave (or even two) before them. The bike course went north on Lake Washington Blvd a bit and then made a quick set of turns and a short, steep climb up to the I-90 express lanes (from there it was an out and back of rollers to some point out on Mercer Island). That (narrow) hill with its sharp turns was enough to freak more than a few women out, and many stopped cold (in the middle of the lane) to get off of their bikes...which was fine unless you were right behind one of them. (I was, and almost had to ditch it into a crowd of volunteers and hay bales.) Coming back down that hill was almost as harrowing, with riders holding onto their brakes for dear life and crawling down at a snail's pace. Those were the two stress points of the race for me. Most of the run course was pretty easy, as well as just plain pretty. It went south on Lake Washington Blvd, so a lot of it was shaded and flat. Flat until the last half-mile or so, at which point the race coordinators decided to put in a hill climb on Genesee--at least there was a drum band at the base of it to give us an uplifting beat. (Not that it made me any faster. It was just something to listen to besides my bitchy knee.)
After that uphill climb, there was a gentle downhill and then a turn onto a path into the park and the finish line. After entering the park, I started running (slowly) again and managed to run (slowly) across the finish where a very young (and very cute) teenage boy put a medal around my neck. I leaned briefly against a fence pole to pull off my ankle strap and retrieve the timing chip to turn into one of the armada of volunteers sitting there waiting to collect the chips. I felt someone touch my hand and I looked up to see one of the ladies I went to dinner with the night before all smiling (and non-sweaty, clearly having finished quite awhile before) and issuing congratulations.
Then I grabbed a bottle of ice cold water and made my way (slowly) through the crowds back to the transition area to start getting my stuff together. I sat on the ground and started packing my stuff back into my bag, taking a moment to drop a Nuun tablet (tri-berry...heh) into an extra water bottle that I'd brought with me. I drank that while I finished packing and then finished it off in the car on the way home. I'd had some slight calf cramps during the race, so I figured I should get some electrolytes into my body.
When it came down to it, this race was mostly a mental challenge of convincing myself to keep moving forward regardless of the pain in my knee.
Despite all of that, it was easily as much, or more, fun than I hoped it would be. I wanna do it again. (Maybe with a little less knee fussiness.)
There were moments of hilarity. (No, really...at one point I started laughing so hard that I forgot how to swim. No, I don't remember what I thought was so funny at the time. I had to actually watch someone swim by me to figure out how to get my body parts coordinated and working together again.) And some pretty intense pain--my knee blew up near the turnaround point of the ride.
I now have five blisters, a heat rash, and two chafe marks. And a finisher's medal.
But I'll back up a little...
The day started early, with my alarm clock going off at 4:30 a.m. Why so early? Because it takes me a long time to wake up and get my body moving around. Also, I needed enough time to eat (4 oz. extra lean ground beef and two eggs, scrambled together and half a can of Diet Coke) and let my stomach get used to being awake--that's actually the hardest part of waking early for me.
Because this race is so huge (it's a PNW event in the same way that the Seattle To Portland is), racers and spectators were given strict instructions to not even attempt to park in the surrounding neighborhood. Instead, we were to go to Safeco Field to park (for $5) and ride school busses over to the race site. I woke up with a pounding headache and decided I would rather take my chances with the Seattle PD than ride a crowded school bus at stupid o'clock in the morning.
So, I peered at a Google map of the neighborhood and picked out a series of side streets that would get me within a couple of blocks of the transition area at Genesee Park. It worked. I found a spot two blocks away...at the top of a steep hill. (Not a big deal before the race, but a bitch to climb with transition bag and bike after the race.)
I got there, ran into a couple of friends from dinner the night before, and then started setting up my transition spot. Since it had been spitting raindrops a few times that morning, and I could hear thunder while trying to wake up, I had stuffed a garbage bag and a couple of huge Ziploc bags into my transition pack as a just-in-case measure. The sky still threatened rain, so I took out the garbage bag and tucked it around my clothes and shoes. By then, I could hear announcements over the loudspeakers signaling people to start moving toward the swim start to see the Elites start their swim (those ladies are crazy fast). So, I put on my Body Glide and started doing the wetsuit wiggle. After getting it up to my waist, I grabbed my swim cap and skull bling goggles, and made my way through transition and across the street toward the water. And that's when I ran into two of the ladies that were at the tri-weekend with me in the Gorge. (Incidentally, the first place finisher this year also lives in the Gorge and is a good friend of the coach that hosted us that weekend.)
After watching a few of my friends go off, and then floating around for what seemed like hours in the warm-up area to get used to the water, it was finally time for my race to start...
I'm still at a loss for what made me start laughing in that first leg of the swim. It's possible that I got kicked, or maybe tangled up with some water weeds, and just started laughing out of confusion. But I eventually got myself together and resumed my swim. I went slow, but kept a steady pace. And always kept moving forward. I was pleased that I didn't have to stop and grab a rest on a kayak or surfboard along the way. As far as I was concerned, that was a win for my swim.
Exiting the water and running/walking (barefoot) back to my spot in transition seemed to take years. (Maybe because of the patches of sharp gravel that I encountered along the way.) But, I got there, stripped off my wetsuit (without falling down) and gulped down some water while chewing a few SportBeans. Threw on my wicking tank, race skirt, skull socks, gloves and bike shoes, then grabbed my bike off the rack. (One thing about being a slow swimmer is that I had plenty of room in transition to do my thing because the people on either side of me had already left on their bikes.) I put on my helmet and started the long trip back to the front of the transition area to the bike start.
The bike was fun, but I could have done without the pain and the subsequent slow down. I was flying through the first half and passing people constantly, but slowed waaaaay down coming into the turnaround when my knee decided it had simply had enough of that. Ah, well. It had been behaving almost a little too well the last couple of weeks, I should have suspected something like this. Heh.
My second transition was faster, because it was just a matter of re-racking bike (ok, so that wasn't that easy), taking off helmet and gloves, changing shoes (all hail Easy Laces), grabbing sunglasses, and clipping on race belt as I started toward the run start. (I also took a few moments to drink some more water.)
After that, I just walked almost the entire run course. I played a little bit of the this-to-that game (e.g. I'll run from this driveway to that tree), because running made the blisters on my feet hurt less. So, walking made it possible to ignore the knee, but the blisters on my toes would burn and throb. Running made the feet feel no pain, but the knee screamed with every strike of my left foot on the pavement. It was just like choosing what kind of pain I felt like having at any given moment.
During the "run", I was dubbed Miss Pink by more than a few people (pink skirt, pink race belt, pink hair). And I got lots of variations on, "Wow, Miss Pink has ridiculous legs." I have to assume they were talking about my muscles and not the swollen knee...heh.
My actual transitions went really well (except for forgetting to put my sunglasses on before the bike, which I didn't notice until I came flying out of the tunnel on I-90 into the brightly sunlit morning), but my spot was really far away from all of the start/finish areas. Looking at the times, it seems like I really dawdled, but the reality is that I just had really long distances to cover to get to and from my spot.
As for my times...they weren't great. I wasn't last (in my age group, or overall), but I was far from even middle-of-the-pack.
This was a crowded race, with over 4300 participants and over 3700 finishers this year (out of 5500 registrants). And lots and lots of those are women doing their first tri. It's a super-supportive environment, with lots of smiling faces and whoops of encouragement from both racers and spectators. But, those crowds can be hard to maneuver. (And makes the transition area immense. For some perspective, check out this picture on flickr. That's not my picture, but it's actually the section I was in...it was in the very back corner of the transition area. I was in the second-to-last row, a little farther to the right than that pic shows. You can't even see the front of the transition from back there.)
The swim waves were sent off in reverse age group order (after the Elites and Survivor groups), which meant that the faster (younger) swimmers were easily overtaking the swimmers from the wave (or even two) before them. The bike course went north on Lake Washington Blvd a bit and then made a quick set of turns and a short, steep climb up to the I-90 express lanes (from there it was an out and back of rollers to some point out on Mercer Island). That (narrow) hill with its sharp turns was enough to freak more than a few women out, and many stopped cold (in the middle of the lane) to get off of their bikes...which was fine unless you were right behind one of them. (I was, and almost had to ditch it into a crowd of volunteers and hay bales.) Coming back down that hill was almost as harrowing, with riders holding onto their brakes for dear life and crawling down at a snail's pace. Those were the two stress points of the race for me. Most of the run course was pretty easy, as well as just plain pretty. It went south on Lake Washington Blvd, so a lot of it was shaded and flat. Flat until the last half-mile or so, at which point the race coordinators decided to put in a hill climb on Genesee--at least there was a drum band at the base of it to give us an uplifting beat. (Not that it made me any faster. It was just something to listen to besides my bitchy knee.)
After that uphill climb, there was a gentle downhill and then a turn onto a path into the park and the finish line. After entering the park, I started running (slowly) again and managed to run (slowly) across the finish where a very young (and very cute) teenage boy put a medal around my neck. I leaned briefly against a fence pole to pull off my ankle strap and retrieve the timing chip to turn into one of the armada of volunteers sitting there waiting to collect the chips. I felt someone touch my hand and I looked up to see one of the ladies I went to dinner with the night before all smiling (and non-sweaty, clearly having finished quite awhile before) and issuing congratulations.
Then I grabbed a bottle of ice cold water and made my way (slowly) through the crowds back to the transition area to start getting my stuff together. I sat on the ground and started packing my stuff back into my bag, taking a moment to drop a Nuun tablet (tri-berry...heh) into an extra water bottle that I'd brought with me. I drank that while I finished packing and then finished it off in the car on the way home. I'd had some slight calf cramps during the race, so I figured I should get some electrolytes into my body.
When it came down to it, this race was mostly a mental challenge of convincing myself to keep moving forward regardless of the pain in my knee.
Despite all of that, it was easily as much, or more, fun than I hoped it would be. I wanna do it again. (Maybe with a little less knee fussiness.)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
So, I managed to get up this morning and head over to the track for half an hour of sprint intervals. That was rough and exhilarating and exhausting and fun, all at the same time. And I don't think I've ever been more grateful for the support strap on my knee. Driving home was great, too--all the racer boys were out in their dorky team kit, riding around in bunches. So I got to watch their legs and tight little bottoms as I passed them, then sit and watch them catch up as I waited at stop lights. All while enjoying the weather, taking pulls of cold water out of my water bottle and bouncing around to Green Day in my little convertible.
Home meant food. Cold pizza, specifically. Mmm... Also, I popped The Tudors into the DVD player and watched some Jonathan Rhys Meyers hotness.
Somewhere amongst the eating and the television, I lost my motivation to go out and get my ride in. I don't know what exactly happened, but I was just feeling glued to the sofa. I just really, really didn't want to change clothes and take my road bike, Lola, out. So, I decided not to take Lola out.
Instead, I put on my Keens, grabbed my helmet and hopped on Eva, the singlespeed. We made our way down to Gasworks and then out to Logboom and back via the Burke. It was an awesome time. No computer, no heart rate monitor. Just sunshine, and a breeze, and a lot of pedaling goodness for a total of about 30 miles.
I need to remember that when I don't really feel like riding, that could very well be the perfect time for reintroducing some singlespeed-y fun back into my life. It was just about perfect today, at least.
That was a lot of workin' out for the weekend. I kick ass. :-)
Home meant food. Cold pizza, specifically. Mmm... Also, I popped The Tudors into the DVD player and watched some Jonathan Rhys Meyers hotness.
Somewhere amongst the eating and the television, I lost my motivation to go out and get my ride in. I don't know what exactly happened, but I was just feeling glued to the sofa. I just really, really didn't want to change clothes and take my road bike, Lola, out. So, I decided not to take Lola out.
Instead, I put on my Keens, grabbed my helmet and hopped on Eva, the singlespeed. We made our way down to Gasworks and then out to Logboom and back via the Burke. It was an awesome time. No computer, no heart rate monitor. Just sunshine, and a breeze, and a lot of pedaling goodness for a total of about 30 miles.
I need to remember that when I don't really feel like riding, that could very well be the perfect time for reintroducing some singlespeed-y fun back into my life. It was just about perfect today, at least.
That was a lot of workin' out for the weekend. I kick ass. :-)
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