krisalis

Better late than never….

This was a new event for me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Katie and I were both participating – this was Katie’s first non-Danskin tri(!). The race was slated to start at 7am, and transition area opened at 6am. So with Marble Falls being about an hour’s drive away, we figured we needed to be on the road by 5.15am….which meant alarm clocks were set for 4.45am. YAWN!

We ate breakfast in the car on the way to Marble Falls (shredded wheat, mmm), and arrived at the race site right around 6am. We parked the car near Chili’s, as instructed, and pumped up our tires in the carpark, faffed about with water bottles and sunscreen and got all our gear together to walk over to transition check in.

Since neither of us was really sure where the transition entrance and exits were, I just tried to select a racking position that would be easy to find and had 2 open spots so Katie and I could rack together. Turned out our racking positions were nicely placed for the swim-to-bike transition, and pretty decent for the bike-to-run transition too. I laid all my gear out, did some extra sunscreening and then got Katie to do my body marking. We chatted with some of the T3 group, used the loo, got our timing chips and headed down to check out the water temperature and visibility. There were a lot of people in the water, warming up. I got in, just to get a feel for the swim course. The water was warm and the visibility was very poor.

The whistle blew for everyone to get out of the water so the race could begin. Everything moved pretty fast from that point on. The first wave of men jumped into the water, and headed off shortly after. Then it was our turn. Our wave start was big – probably the biggest wave start I’ve been in, and it was in deep open water. Everyone was crammed too close together, kicking and splashing each other as we all tried to tread water. Even though I’m a decent swimmer, and I knew I’d end up having to swim over most of the women infront of me, I moved to the back of the pack. I just needed more space.

Finally the gun went off, and the women in my wave started splashing foward together. I just stayed put for at least 10-15seconds, waiting for the insanity to abate before heading off into the fray and trying to pick my way around the crowds. The first 5 minutes of the swim were pretty brutal – there were bodies everywhere, kicking and splashing. Finally, I found some space and eased into a steady rythm, sighting off the white bouy that signalled the turn around point.

I started catching up with the men from the previous wave as I came round the first buoy, and was never really in clear water from that point on – there always seemed to be bodies in front of me and around me. Nevertheless, the swim was feeling pretty good, and I felt like I was making decent progress.

I exited the water just under 18mins for the 1000m course, first in my age group. Whoo!

And so on to the bike.

The bike course was hilly. It started hilly, and each time I reached the top of a hill, another seemed to rear it’s head a little further down the road. So that made things tough. I just kept on plugging away, trying to even out my breathing on the down hills and straightaways, sipping on my e-load and chomping on the occasional clif blok. People started overtaking me bit by bit out on the bike course, which I had sort of been expecting. Lots of the men that I had passed in the swim zoomed by, and a few women too. I passed a couple of people, but not many, and I felt like everyone else on the bike course had a fancy tri bike – there were very few people who did not have aerobars. I do not have aerobars. The whole course, it people were trickling past me. Ugh. At least the course was pretty.

23 miles later, I wheezed into transiton with a time of 1hr 14min for the bike leg. Average speed 18.6mph. A decent performance that put me 8th overall in my age group for the bike portion. Not as bad as I had feared!

The run.

My legs were dead tired after the hilly bike, and it was getting hot, hot, hot out on the run course. Jogging off the brick feeling in my quads took ages, but by the time I hit the first water stop, I was feeling more human. I was plodding along quite happily through the second mile marker, and then things started to get tough. I was tired. It was hot. I wanted to stop. I kept on going to the third mile marker, and then my will fizzled out. I walked a bit, jogged a bit, walked a bit, jogged a bit, torn between just calling it a day and walking the rest of the course, and toughing it out. Katie met me around a mile from the finish, and shouted at me to keep running. She jogged beside me, talking to me for the rest of the course. I kept running, but it was slow. Finally, the finish line was just round the corner…and up a short, steep incline….gah! My body said NO WAY, and I walked the final 20m or so, even though there were loads of people at the finish line shouting at me to run.

And then I was done.

I was breathing really hard after I crossed the finish line, and I was starting to feel a bit panicky about my shortness of breath and how hot I felt. I was bent over, puffing away, wanting more air, more air. Katie ran to get me some water, and meanwhile a random woman who had finished ahead of me walked up and started talking to me. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it was kind and soothing and she poured cold water down the back of my neck and on my head and over my face and down my chest, all the while talking gently. The cold water was exactly what I needed, and I calmed down quickly. As soon as I calmed down, my breathing eased up. And as soon as my breathing eased up, I started to feel better. Magic. I barely thanked the woman before she disappeared into the crowd.

Run time was not so good. I walked a few times though, so not that surprising that my pace was off-target. Total run time: 50min42sec, pace 11.31min mile. 24th in my age group. Oh, well.

I ended up coming 16th overall in my age group, with a total race time of 2:25:13.8.

Lessons learned: - Marble Falls is a real triathlon – not an airy fairy deal with a soft sprint option, and the course and level of participants reflects that. - Don’t start the swim from the back if it can be helped. In retrospect, I think I should have tried to stay wide to avoid the fray, but remained toward the front of the field. - It’s time for aerobars. - More cold water on the head during a hot run. I thought I had learned this one already, but apparently there’s still room for improvement here. I overheated on the run, and it wasn’t pretty.

All in all, a great event.

Toyota Corolla or similar?Thanks, Hertz
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

I miss the World Cup.

I miss The Tour.

I miss having Lost, Season 1 at my fingertips on DVD.

I miss having chocolate milk in my fridge (sorry Katie, but chocolate soy milk is not the same).

I miss having an un-scraped, un-dented car, and I’m going to miss the $$ that will be required to fix it. Pah.

Billie and Corey have posted pictures from their recent holiday in Scotland.

I think this one is probably my favourite….although the ones of the shaggy Highland Coos are a close second!

I bought a new Dove body wash a few days ago, and used it for the first time this morning. Suddenlty, as I scrubbed the grimy film of gritty sunscreen from legs, I was transported back to the summer of 1988.

It took a while to place the smell, but not the time of my life that it related to. As soon as the scent hit my nose, I was instantly immersed in memories of the (Coca-Cola Roller Coaster!), my 2 week adventure with Billie staying with Vicki and Valerie at their house in Eaglesham, swimming at Divonne pool, frosted pink lipstick and matching nail polish, fake ray bans and an unhealthy obsession with that Glenn Mediros song ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You‘.

After a couple of minutes lost in thought, I finally pin-pointed the smell – an Impulse body spray that I used back then and completely since long forgotten about (I didn’t even know Impulse was still around!).

The nose knows.

Do you ever sit and think about what the former, younger you would have thought if they could have stepped forward in time and peeked at a brief moment, a short snapshot of your current life?

I think about this often, usually when I’m doing something that the old me would have thought was very routine at different points in my life – taking a taxi to Holland Village in Singapore, for example, or having a pint in a pub with friends in Edinburgh, or walking to the shops in Chamonix. Sometimes I also think about this when I’m doing something totally out of the ordinary – like sitting in an airport lounge in Taiwan, or going for a run in Seattle.

I think that if the old me could have stepped forward in time and seen a snapshot of the current me going about the seemingly normal, daily items, I would have concluded that my life was going to continue along much the same path as it was already on. So if the Edinburgh me saw the 2005-on-holiday me walking through Marchmont, I think I may have concluded that I was going to settle and stay. It would make sense. Or if the living-in-Singapore-me saw a frozen frame of a 2006-on-a-business-trip me happily browsing through Bishan8 mall with my work friends after lunch, Coffee Bean latte in hand, I think I would have concluded that I had never left Singapore for the US, that I had somehow decided to stay on.

With the totally out of the ordinary items, I wonder about what I would have concluded – would the old me have ever considered that living in Taiwan or Seattly was a possibility? And if so, what does the current me think about that?

I was thinking about this ‘snapshot’ theory again last week, after I met my old school friend Tiina for dinner in San Jose. Tiina and I hadn’t seen each other in thirteen years, and we had barely communicated at all for the past ten, yet within ten minutes of sitting down together, we were happily chattering away about life, the universe and everything as though we had barely spent a month apart. I was incredibly touched that Tiina had remembered my recent birthday and gave me a greeting card and a little present. After all that time! I figured the high-school-me would have thought that Tiina and I had stayed in touch all this time, and my heart would have been happy that we had stayed close friends.

I’m glad I can’t actually take snapshots of the future and glimpse at what is to come. I think I would draw a lot of incorrect conclusions.

For those of you who like this kind of thing, I’m writing about my triathlon training over here.

I’m just getting started, and I’m intending for the blogspot space to be just a training journal so I can keep track of my progress (or lack thereof). I was going to post this info as a sideblog, but meh, there wasn’t enough space for all my blabber. So now my training exploits have a little slice of the interweb all to themselves.

Triathlete wannabe in training. Fueled by bananas, e-load and the endorphin high that comes with finishing a tough event. Frequently found slathered in sunscreen and dripping with sweat.

Since I last put in an appearance here I have….

• turned 31
• bought some really great shoes
• cycled 40 miles
• run about 5 miles
• swum around 6.5 km (not in one go)
• been drinking prosecco at every opportunity (ok, twice)
• eaten a lot of sushi. Actually, more simply, I’ve eaten a lot of pretty much everything. Training makes me hungry!
• had dinner with a high school friend I hadn’t seen in 13 years
• gone to San Francisco for the day (to attend an industry event – not quite as fun as being on holiday)
• had dinner with Jeff in SF
• hung out in San Jose
• not gotten enough sleep….

and on that note, it’s time for some zzzzzzzzz’s.

Mark & I got each other the same card Originally uploaded by krisalis.
Great minds think alike, fools seldom differ.

I love you Husband-man. Happy 3rd Anniversary.

Testing the sidebar mini-weblog. Planning to put workout updates here.