hmmmm - where to start? here we go.........
First of all training for the 1/2 Silverman was pretty much of a chore after finishing so well at Mission Bay Triathlon (a couple of youngsters about 1/2 my age passed me in the last mile on the run). Soooo - It was almost like - what the heck am i doing training for a race in November after starting the season in April with Ironman 70.3 California (where i completely bombed). so getting back to the training i didn't touch my brand spanking new Guru tree frog green super duper triathlon bike after Mission Bay - why - because i didn't have any fricken' time due to work load, middle school homework, and the famous Begg Haunted House party.
Okay - so i go to Las Vegas for a couple of days in the middle of October for work (seriously it was almost all work) and I must have picked up the cold bug from there because about 5 days later I came down with this nasty crappy cold that turned into a sinus infection.. I ran a bunch on the treadmill after paying $20 a day to join the fancy gym at Caeser's. so enough about Vegas and back to training
My so-called training consisted of the following:
Swim: I drove over to the 25 yard pool in Chula Vista filled with Blue Hairs (Seniors) in a very suspect neighborhood about 3 miles from my jobsite at Sharp Chula Vista Hospital - it's only $3 for 1 to 2 hours of hard ass swimming. plus 30 to 40 minutes every now and then at our 25 meter club pool
Bike: total turbo for 3 to 4 weeks - sweat city in my garage - that's it - no road cycling
Run: 4am - hard ass workouts from Dave Scott and quality 90 minutes on the weekends - the longest i ran was 14.5 miles for a 13.1 mile race, oh well what the heck
Now (almost back) to the race: ... after the Begg Haunted House party the week before and i got totally sick the next two days - no workout for 3 days then bombarded the workouts as much as possible while coughing up flem and crap for 4 days, finally felt somewhat the night before the race (left my Zoots on Southwest unfortunately)
Okay now to the race: actually the day before first but very quickly - what should have taken 2 hours to do with the race registration and transition bags and bike drop off and all that stuff ended up taking 4.5 hours because we weren't prepared and we didn't follow directions and on and on... total lack of focus
race day: woke up well but with total neck pain from the extremely puffy pillow at the condo - still hacking and coughing and sneezing so i took a DayQuill which apparently was not a good choice (more on that at the end) - load up our stuff and head on over to the race start which is this fancy resort on the way to Lake Mead -
what is different about the Silverman is that try and follow the Ironman race with the swim to bike bags, transition tents, bike to run bags, and such.... kind of neat but logistically a pain as i am used to everything being in one spot for the whole race
back to the race: it turns out that the race announcers are friends that i haven't seen in 15 years and they call my name over the PA and we meet up for a while - that was cool - so we get into the water finally at 8:10 and mill around for 20 minutes with 800 other loonies in a man made lake that's a bit murky and cold and weird... Oh by the way did i mention that Mark McCormack (Macca) is racing - yep the Hawaii Ironman winner decided to do the race at the last moment -
gun goes off and 800 tri geeks play a water polo match for the first 200 yards and then it spreads out a bit on the out and back course - so eventually i tuck in behind Macca and a relay swimmer but i can tell my heart rate is poppin' and i'm swimming close to anearobic for 1.2 miles - i finally back off towards the end of the swim as i'm pushing it way to hard - end up getting out i think in 4th or 5th and make my way to the transition tent then onto my Green Guru and then up this silly ass trail pushing the bike to the road - totally bizarre transition area but the race organizers did a fantastic job with what they had - if it had been raining it would have been a muddy mess
onto the bike: my new bike, the Green Guru Gusher, is frickin' Awesome! it propels forward like you wouldn't believe - so i'm heading out onto the rollers out by Lake Mead and a couple of crappy things occur - my straw isn't long enough on my front water bottle and it isn't wide enough to drink out of (i forgot the standard straw so i borrowed the one from my son's fancy cup thing that he got from the Rainforest Cafe in Vegas) and when i gear down into my 53x11 it continually pops and skips every other pedal stroke! Oh well deal with it and keep going - so i eventually find myself in 2nd place behind Macca for about 30 miles when a couple of other pros finally pass me before we start onto the bike trail for 15 miles of hell. i bonked on the bike at mile 45! completely and utterly out of fuel in the body so i switched to spinning on working on those wonderful fat reserves. so - off the bike i'm thinking this is it - i'm done..... but wait a minute i'm still in 4 or 5 place and can probably at least get top 5 in my age group even by walking the whole run....
run - jog - walk - run - jog - walk - etc from mile 2 - 7 , not much else to say - it was mostly uphill - through major intersections - tried to look good but man it wasn't there - but wait a minute i'm thinking as i go through the turnaround .... if it was uphill to get here then i can free fall on the downhill, so - that is exactly what it did for about 5 miles - Note: funny thing - as i was hammering downhill the police dude at the intersection says to me " ....you really like those downhills don't you...." because he is the one that saw me sucking wind and coughing up flemme on the uphill. okay - so i get to the last mile in a delirious and drunken manner - almost run into a parking structure - almost ran into a fence - made it across the finish line with a run time of 1:48 which is amazing as i averaged 9 min miles for the first 7 miles.
Actually i wasn't quite done - okay now i'm done - i finished 11th overall and 1st in my age group by over 10 minutes (i found this out after an hour in the med tent where i was taken in a wheelchair by my wife - quite strange as i don't recollect it at all).
Post race reality - i finally ran after a week off - It's been a great Triathlon year!
