Some Waldman's Blog – Finding Balance in the Flood of Information

Milford Stay Dry Tri 2010 October 6, 2010

I realized that someone came across last year’s blog entry on this race, so I am kind of rushing this entry out. Plus, they just posted the official results on the website today, so I validated my results.

What a fun time! The weather was much better this year. Of course, waiting for the canoe start in 45 degree weather was a little cold, but as soon as we got going, it was great. Having done it last year, I was well prepared clothing-wise. I took off my fleece zip-up prior to our heat starting and with two shirts and a fleece vest, I was comfy.

At the start of our heat #6, we pulled right into 2 second place – a vast difference from last year when I couldn’t steer the boat straight until the last mile or so. Eric had us in a perfect line and I just rowed as hard as I could. At the first questionable curve in the river, the lead team was indecisive and got turned around. We took advantage and took the lead for the entire canoe, with that team and another breathing down our necks the entire 3.5 miles. We even past two teams and closed a big gap on three others from heat #5. It is amazing that we almost made up the five minute lead on five different teams.

Once we landed, we opted to trek the .25 mi to the canoe drop off. It was certainly not worth the 15 minute penalty to drop it on the beach. It is harder than it looks, though with that 75 lbs canoe bouncing on your head and neck. Once into the transition area, I untied my jacket from my waist and debated on switching gloves, since they were now soaked once we turned the canoe onto our heads and all the water dumped down the sides. Next, I decided to get my nylon pants off before the bike. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to loosen the ankles and I struggled to get them over my shoes. I finally sat down and got them off, but by that time, my partner had a one minute lead on me. You can see on the Garmin graph, it was the only time my heart rate dropped below 140 bpm for the whole two hours.

Once on the bike, things went well. Last year, it was lightly raining, so traction was questionable. But with rain the prior day, it was actually better than it being completely hard and dry. In the beginning, there was not a whole lot of other people, but I seemed to catch a few people and other faster people from my heat got up to me. I did not have any falls, but certainly slipped off the pedals a few times and have bruises on the front and back of my ankles to prove it.

Back into the transition area, I had to get my helmet, gloves, Camelback and fleece vest off. That went pretty fast and I was in my run. I started out super (read: too) fast, and gradually eased back into a more comfortable pace. I picked up some water/energy drink before the turn and almost immediately picked up a cramp/side-stitch. I keep plugging away and in the end was amazed at my time, just over 26 minutes. I barely broke 26:00 in a 5K alone over the summer. That was really a great time for me.

The Final Result was 6 minutes faster on the canoe and 2 minutes faster on each the bike and run as compared to last year. We placed 9th out of 18 in the Male 80 and Under teams. And I placed 34th out of 86 entrants doing the full event (not relay). There is certainly room for improvement, but I was very happy with our time.

Here is the link to the Garmin Connect Event