yesterday was a summation of all the training that has been going on since May. Roly and I ran the Accenture Triathlon.
Muscles? Sore...although not as bad as I thought I'd be. My shoulders feel like I've been toting a 200 pound frame pack for a week through the rockies.
All in all, it went pretty well. Now that I've had a day to recover, I'm definitely going to do it again next year (and probably somme other events).
Part of the trick to a triathlon is accurately gauging how hard to do each event. You can't over exert yourself early on, else you won't have the energy to kick ass on the back half. The saying our coaches threw around all summer was "you can't win a triathlon but you can lose it in the swim". Bearing this in mind, I went ahead swam fairly moderately. Still ended up first in my wave to finish the swim. That went well. The area they had us swim was full of seaweed so that was, well, gross.
Transitioning to the bike was fairly easy. I knew I could either pound the bike REALLY hard, but this being my first time through a triathlon, I kept about a "level 2" pace for it so I'd have energy for the run (which is definitely my weakest area). I hovered between 20 and 23 mph pretty much the whole time. I ended up riding with a U of I grad student and we bullshitted about this that and the other for the most part. I probably could have been around 23-25 and shaved some time off my cycle but I was in long-ride mode.
The run pretty much sucked for me. I have to be the slowest motherfucker on the planet. My ankles were killing me, despite all the training (for this and the marathon in December). I've decided to make it my winter project to become a faster runner. Longer stride, better use of body movement etc etc. In short, I can't do this steamroller shit next year.
By the end of the run I was about dead. It took about all I had to drag my carcass to the finish line. Its pretty cool finishing an event like that. Everyone goes nuts. Pics can be seen over on http://www.drewzilla.org .
Altogether, I think I swam something like 20 miles this summer, have run about 200, and including ragbrai, have certainly biked over 1000. Almost half of that was done in various hotels in San Francisco or New York City. But statistics really do no justice to describing what it takes to do something like this. Especially for somebody like me. Last summer, my typical complaints were things like "man, I only have 100 bucks tonight to go out! I better get good and tanked here at home first!" and "3pm is when everyone is going to the beach? Man I'll have to set the alarm for noon!". This summer, my complaints were more on the order of "well, I'd like to go out to meet you tonight but I have a mile swim at 7am tomorrow morning" or "Well I'd like to put away 30 miles, but the fucking streets around my apartment look like the craters on the moon".
There were people who went well above the call to help Roly and I along and support us or cheer us on. I made new friends and new enemies. But all in all, when everything is said and done, I can say I did something that most people can't do...we trained on the road and at home with zero base and in 3 months ran and did rather well for our first triathlon and anyone that chickened out or said it wasn't possible or doubted us can just go fuck themselves. We did it and they didn't and that's what it all comes down to.