Friday, June 24, 2011

Prepping for the First Olympic Triathlon

Preparing for the First Olympic Triathlon: 
The Stamford KIC IT on June 26th, 2011

I don’t believe stepping up to an Olympic distance Triathlon is going to be incremental. The longest event I've done before now is a Sprint Tri with 1/2 mile swim, 10 mile bike and a 3.1 mile run. This would more than double that with a 0.9 mile swim, 24.8 miles on the bike, and 6.2 miles running.

But at least I had the good sense, or the good luck, to pick an event that takes place in Stamford, Connecticut, 10 minutes from home. That removed the travel/hotel part of the logistics. And I was able to prepare in ways that I wouldn't have been able to if the course had been three hours away.

Picked up the race packet Friday afternoon. Race number 392. I like it. Lot's of numeric integrity there. Two times nine is eighteen, which divided by three is six, making the sequence 2, 3, 6, 9. Okay, so I’m stretching things a little, but I still like the number. And I want to like the number. There’s something that binds me to the race there. Good juju.

I had gotten a go-fast haircut from my regular guy, Chuck, earlier in the day. Bike fit tune-up and drive-train once over with my bike-fitter Nate at Cycle Center of Stamford. Then a massage at the end of the day. That pre race-day combination worked well for me at Escape the Cape, and I was sticking with it.

I had been nervous for weeks anticipating doing this distance for the first time, and had prepared in every way I could - which is my own personal drug regimen for doing things I'm nervous about: Prepare, prepare, prepare until I feel like I've almost done it already.

I had run the run part of the course with the guys at my new favorite Tri shop, “Pacific Swim Bike Run” in Stamford. I had biked the killer climbing part of the course three times. I had attended an evening “Race Strategies” chalk-talk by Jared Gell, a USAT Coach at “Pacific Swim Bike Run”. I had gotten a new bike and broken it in (obviously, not just for this race, but it did occur to me that with the killer climbing sections in this race, a better bike weighing a few less pounds would make things a lot easier). I had adopted a new T1 exit routine that involved leaving the riding shoes in the pedals and practiced it for hours.

The bike course is the thing I was the most concerned about. There is a long seven mile section of the course that is a series of rolling uphill climbs with a couple of 12-14% grade hills in there. It would be easy to try to steam up some of those hills and simply blow-up. Just keeping track of where you are in that series of hills was trying (“is this the part where you think you’re right at the top of the hill, so you stand and power up for 100 yards, then you come around the corner and see you’ve still got another quarter-mile uphill???”).

Since it was close by, I’ve gone out and ridden the course three times in the last few weeks, and I finally feel like I have a good sense of it. I’ve gotten some advice from my brother Craig, my cycling buddy Ken and, of course, my trainer Michael. I know the smaller, lighter guys will go climbing right by me and I’ve finally settled for the strategy of holding back about 10% just about everywhere, and on the climbs, keep my heart rate right around threshold, except for the really steep parts, where I was going to have to work hard just to stay upright. I just had to be okay with grinding up certain sections of the course at 7-10mph.

This is also the first race I’ll be doing with my new bike, an all carbon frame Specialized Tarmac S3 road bike with Ultegra 6700 drive train and Profile aero bars. I've put about 100 miles on it from training, and it is an amazing machine. Silky smooth on the road and looking just as fast with neon green highlights on a carbon/black frame. I switched to Speedplay pedals on Nate’s advice. I’m good like that. I just do what Nate tells me to. So far it’s worked out pretty well.

Nate also got me into a new pair of Specialized Expert Tri-specific cycling shoes. One giant Velcro strap closure making them fast and easy to put on and take off.

My new T1 exit routine, glommed virtually intact from this folksy little Youtube video, is working really well. Practice makes perfect – I’ve studied and practiced this new routine for hours:

With the cranks at three and nine o'clock, I leave my riding shoes clipped into the pedals, with rubber-bands rigged to the frame to hold them level. From a trot, I hop onto the bike, land my feet on top of the shoes and start pedaling. The rubber bands break as soon as I start pedaling. After getting some momentum, I reach down, grab the heel loop at the back of the shoe, and slip my foot in. In one more smooth motion I grab the single, large Velcro closure and strap it tight. All without driving off the road! And yes, that’s right, no socks.

Shouldn't that be enough?  Race Report next...
 


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