Finished my first Tri

Sorry for the long post but here is how my first tri went.

Did the Pinchot OLY today.  It was quite an experience.  I wasn't fast but I've never claimed to be so I had predicted that I would complete it in around 3.5 hours.  I finished somewhere around 3:35.  That was the last thing I remembered seeing before finishing. 

Swim:  I made a huge mistake on the swim.  I often take allergy medicine to help deal with feeling run down.  I was out of what I usually take so my wife gave me something else.  She said, "it's the same thing."  Well, it was not.  The stuff had a lot of ephedrine in it so my heart rate was pounding.  I've never experienced anything like this in the water.  With ephedrine in my system, the excitement of the start and the cold water I took off at the same pace as the rest of the pack.  Before I got to the first buoy my heart was pounding and I was needing to breath every stroke.  I realized what was going on so I purposely tried to force myself to settle down by going back to some of my basic slow and efficient strokes which I worked on when I just started learning freestyle.  It took a bit but that worked.  The 2nd half of the swim was much better than the 1st quarter.  I was feeling good and with a wetsuit, I was feeling a little faster.  My goggles fogged up so sighting was a bear and to make things worse, when I rounded the last marker the sun was rising behind where we were headed.  I was blind as a bat so I kept my head down and just worked on getting somewhere fast.  I don't have my exact times yet but my wife and kids were there and said they thought it was around 31 min.  I was happy with that considering my early troubles.  The creature emerged from the water feeling pretty good but jittery from the medicine.



I didn't worry about transition speed.  I just wanted to get the hang of things and not get DQ'd for doing something stupid.  It seemed like the wetsuit came off quickly and I didn't have much for trouble.  I didn't have my bike shoes clipped in.  I put them on and walked the bike to the exit.  Slow but I didn't fall so I'm ok with that for now.  Like the swim, my heart was still racing and I feel like I pushed harder than I had trained.  I'm anxious to see my time on the bike.  I noticed that weight is a killer on the hills.  I powered up the two hills but each time, I saw the lighter folks zip by me.  My goal is to lose 23 more pounds so I think I'll be able to do much better when I get there.  I feel like I did well in the long flat stretch.  There were a few people who passed me going up the hills and I was able to catch them on the downhills and straights.



I came into transition and again, I wasn't worried about time too much.  I heard a couple ladies behind me say they needed to eat something for energy so I tossed them a couple of Cliff Bars.  I grabbed one for myself, slipped on my running shoes and staggered out of the transition.  I took the bar with no paper because the rules said that no gels or food was allowed outside of transition due to litter.  I figured I was fine since I left the paper in my bag.  I had bigger issues.  I tried to eat that thing and simply couldn't swallow it.  I realized that I required water to get it down so I tossed the bar into the woods and spit it out.  Another lesson learned... that's why you guys use gels I guess.

The run started off very slow and shaky.  My legs had never been pushed that hard on the bike so they were feeling the effects.  I'm not a good runner anyway so I started talking to myself inside my head.  "stick to the game plan... you need to worry about finishing strong.  Relax and enjoy this, etc."  It took me about a mile but I finally started relaxing and getting my legs under me a little better.  I made it through the run by just keeping my typical pace.  It's slow but I'm guessing it was around 10 min/mile and under the circumstances, I have to say that I'm proud to have trained well enough to at least make it through without ever needing to stop.  I'm blown away that I could actually do it. 

Background:  Two years ago, I could barely walk.  I had a horrible problem with my right hip.  I was hit by a drunk driver back in the 90's and it snapped my femur so a steel rod was inserted through the center of the bone.  Somehow, the end of the rod broke off.  I had seen 3 ortho surgeons and none seemed confident about how they would fix things.  One honestly just shook his head and suggested aspirin because he didn't know what to do.  I finally found one surgeon who also pointed out that I had a "non-union of the greater trochanter" and that was what was causing me the horrible pain.  He had an idea on how to perform the surgery and do a bone graph but he was clear that it would be risky and I could have hip problems for the rest of my life.  I told him I would do the surgery but to give me time to lose weight first.  My logic was that if I had to go through a recovery, less weight would make things easier.  He thought it was a good idea.   Well, I have never gone back to have that surgery.  I don't know what my hip looks like now but after a year of doing very low intensity recumbent biking, I moved into this more aggressive training and finally today's tri.  I know it didn't look impressive but to me, it was a great comeback. 

Here is the Xray of my hip so you know what I'm talking about.  I plan on going back to see my ortho in order to do a follow-up Xray but something has healed on it's own.  I know I SHOULD have probably gone to get it checked first but I honestly thought that I would be just told that I should do the tri.