Sleeper
Sweat crawled down the side of my legs on the inside of my hot wetsuit while I stood among a crowd of human sea lions. My wave had to wait around nearly half an hour before it was our turn to plunge into the river and start what would probably be the pinnacle event of my collegiate sporting "career."
It seems like those intervals I dutifully knocked out much earlier this year in the cold February air were only a few short weeks ago. I felt like I had planned this all out so well, following a real training plan this time instead of the haphazard approach I've been prone to take in the. My months of self coaching, nutrition plans, calculated hard efforts with easy ones right when they needed to happen, the difficulty of balancing my final spring semester with as much training as possible, had all converged to this moment. Though I wasn't competing to score points for Auburn's team (for reasons still unknown to myself) I was nevertheless about to find out how I stacked up against the nations' best collegiate triathletes.
"You mind if I draft off of you for the swim?" my fellow open division competitor, Kyle, asked me as we shuffled toward the temporary dock that shot out into the river next to the "Bama Belle." "No problem, man. Let's try and start at the far end of the dock." I wanted as little interference with the other swimmers as possible...
Gramps' Camp, the venerable, beloved lake house my family has spent so many years enjoying offered a great place to train for an open water swim. I never really appreciated the camp for this aspect, never even gave it a thought until recently. Why would I ever need to swim across this lake? I can run if want exercise down here. Swimming doesn't do much for an endurance runner anyway. If only I had known. Now, a mere seven months after I had started swimming regularly, I was crankin' out miles of open water swimming sessions with relative ease.
...I swam hard those first few seconds to put as much distance between me and the other swimmers as possible. Swimming in crowded waters is never a preferable option. Not much time had passed before I had no idea where my teammates where around me. I quickly got into a good rhythm, a breath every 3 strokes, sighting every 9-12 stokes, and soon came around the first turning buoy. Some other orange-capped swimmers (orange to designate that they were in the open division) had to take a second, breast stroke a time or two, before properly navigating around the yellow buoy. I quickly went to the outside, passed, and pulled ahead, swimming perpendicular to the shore for a while before turning left again to head up river. I was beginning to feel like maybe I had started off too fast. Over the last 6 days I had been filling my trash cans with expended tissues from congestion caused by a terribly timed cold that I still hadn't gotten completely over. Would this be the end of me today? Time would tell...
I made a valuable purchase on Amazon earlier this semester. It's a water proof spiral-bound book simply called "Swim Workouts for Triathletes." As new as I am to swimming, I really didn't have a clue as to how to go about training for this sport. Fortunately this little book had a schedule of workouts that I followed pretty close over the weeks. The workouts were usually a good challenge. Every Monday and Wednesday evening of the semester I was in the pool completing lap after lap after lap, no matter what else my schedule called for that night, putting in around 3000 yards worth of swimming every time, sharing the efforts with invaluable teammates in Auburn's aquatic center.
...The red arch covered with "TYR" logos on the bank of the river was just ahead. Green and white-capped swimmers (from earlier waves) were all around me. I had caught up to quite a few of them along the way. Passing all these other guys helped keep those negative voices out of my head. My heart rate spiked when my body went vertical as I clawed my way out of the 70 degree river onto the red mat. I had nearly 300 meters to run in my wetsuit to get to T1. My bare feet bounced across the smooth black path; I was trying so hard to get up a good speed so maybe I could pass a few more people here but the shock of getting out of the water after 23 minutes and a second of swimming was making this a difficult task.
Finally I reached my bike, tore off the rest of my wetsuit and got out of there like I was being chased by some horrible river monster that had followed me down the path. I was more than happy to start riding...
My Smith Pivlock sunglasses were caked with sweat from my forehead. The sun, now on its Western descent, was drilling a hole into my skull on every repeat on that long hill into Loachapoka.When I got home, I immediately took in the right amount and type of calories my body needed: vanilla protein powder with almond milk. My absolute favorite recovery solution. I was demanding so much from my body this week, the quick tempo brick miles, the weights in the gym, the intervals, the intervals, and the intervals. Bed was such a welcome sight every night. I just hoped I hadn't forgotten to do any critical homework assignments that were due next morning. I probably wouldn't have time to work on them before class. My ROTC obligations made sure of that. Even if I did have hours before class started, the naps were a necessity that my schedule mercifully allowed on most days.
...Riders from the other waves were passing quickly behind me. I was on the first of two laps on a 12.5 mile route and picking people off one after the other, carefully avoiding drafting penalties along the way. I was only passed a handful of times by the front runners, now on the second lap. The ease at which I was passing all these other competitors was a huge mental boost; the legs had power today. I turned onto the on-ramp to the bridge and was struck with powerful gusts of wind. Plowing on, I still kept passing other bikers. We turned around at the end of the bridge and headed back, this time with the wind on our sides. I must've been riding at least 25 mph here. It felt good. The return leg of this lap was mostly downhill. I flew back to where I had come from to start the next lap, the stream of riders on my right almost never ceasing.
The second lap proved to be a little more difficult. The adrenaline was still flowing nicely but the speeds I had been keeping up were taxing the legs. Now on the bridge for a second time, I was leaping-frogging a guy with a CU logo-ed suit on. Chasing this guy down was fun. I don't really remember now if I ended up beating him or if he was even competing in the open division. No matter. This short lived east vs. west rivalry brought excitement to my pedal strokes and kept the pressure on...
The big race was a month out. I had scheduled a few key runs to go on over the next few weeks, each a little more demanding than the last. These days I just didn't have time or reason to run unless the effort was gonna be a hard one. Junk miles were not on the calendar. I got creative with my self inflicted torture. Redlining myself to tears just comes some much more easily and naturally in running than in the other two disciplines. I wasted my legs on the hills, the track, the trails and about everywhere in between several times a week. If nothing else goes well on race day, I would run that 10k to death.
...Volunteers waved big orange flags like some proverbial matador indicating where the dismount line is to potentially disoriented and confused cyclists. Quickly swinging myself up and out of the saddle, I ran along the edge of T2, wheeled back around to my spot in the transition area where my trainers awaited and tore out of there in less than a minute. The theme of the day continued up the one major hill that awaited all the runners a half mile into the course. I passed even more athletes as my favorite event got under way. The first 2.5 miles went by extremely quickly and in no time at all, it seemed, I had reached the 5k mark. It was about this time that my nasal cavities reminded my that I was still getting over a cold. I blew the most satisfying snot rocket of my life out my left nostril. The thing had enough force behind it to knock over a small dog.
I reached the turn around point on Jack Warner Parkway with a hair over 2 miles remaining. These miles seemed infinitely longer that the first two despite the course being super flat now. I witnessed several other competitors suffering on the side of the road, cramps no doubt sinking into their electrolyte-depleted muscles. I cruised passed. The six minute pace I had settled into was sustainable for now, but it was painful. My sockless feet were getting rubbed in all the wrong ways by my shoes. I knew I would have to pay for this later, but cosmetic damage was no reason to slow now.
With two hundred meters left, I flicked on the afterburners and gave it all that was left. Oblivious of my time, I was satisfied that I had left everything on the course. And today, everything turned out to be enough for the top 100 in the nation.
It seems like those intervals I dutifully knocked out much earlier this year in the cold February air were only a few short weeks ago. I felt like I had planned this all out so well, following a real training plan this time instead of the haphazard approach I've been prone to take in the. My months of self coaching, nutrition plans, calculated hard efforts with easy ones right when they needed to happen, the difficulty of balancing my final spring semester with as much training as possible, had all converged to this moment. Though I wasn't competing to score points for Auburn's team (for reasons still unknown to myself) I was nevertheless about to find out how I stacked up against the nations' best collegiate triathletes.
"You mind if I draft off of you for the swim?" my fellow open division competitor, Kyle, asked me as we shuffled toward the temporary dock that shot out into the river next to the "Bama Belle." "No problem, man. Let's try and start at the far end of the dock." I wanted as little interference with the other swimmers as possible...
Gramps' Camp, the venerable, beloved lake house my family has spent so many years enjoying offered a great place to train for an open water swim. I never really appreciated the camp for this aspect, never even gave it a thought until recently. Why would I ever need to swim across this lake? I can run if want exercise down here. Swimming doesn't do much for an endurance runner anyway. If only I had known. Now, a mere seven months after I had started swimming regularly, I was crankin' out miles of open water swimming sessions with relative ease.
...I swam hard those first few seconds to put as much distance between me and the other swimmers as possible. Swimming in crowded waters is never a preferable option. Not much time had passed before I had no idea where my teammates where around me. I quickly got into a good rhythm, a breath every 3 strokes, sighting every 9-12 stokes, and soon came around the first turning buoy. Some other orange-capped swimmers (orange to designate that they were in the open division) had to take a second, breast stroke a time or two, before properly navigating around the yellow buoy. I quickly went to the outside, passed, and pulled ahead, swimming perpendicular to the shore for a while before turning left again to head up river. I was beginning to feel like maybe I had started off too fast. Over the last 6 days I had been filling my trash cans with expended tissues from congestion caused by a terribly timed cold that I still hadn't gotten completely over. Would this be the end of me today? Time would tell...
I made a valuable purchase on Amazon earlier this semester. It's a water proof spiral-bound book simply called "Swim Workouts for Triathletes." As new as I am to swimming, I really didn't have a clue as to how to go about training for this sport. Fortunately this little book had a schedule of workouts that I followed pretty close over the weeks. The workouts were usually a good challenge. Every Monday and Wednesday evening of the semester I was in the pool completing lap after lap after lap, no matter what else my schedule called for that night, putting in around 3000 yards worth of swimming every time, sharing the efforts with invaluable teammates in Auburn's aquatic center.
...The red arch covered with "TYR" logos on the bank of the river was just ahead. Green and white-capped swimmers (from earlier waves) were all around me. I had caught up to quite a few of them along the way. Passing all these other guys helped keep those negative voices out of my head. My heart rate spiked when my body went vertical as I clawed my way out of the 70 degree river onto the red mat. I had nearly 300 meters to run in my wetsuit to get to T1. My bare feet bounced across the smooth black path; I was trying so hard to get up a good speed so maybe I could pass a few more people here but the shock of getting out of the water after 23 minutes and a second of swimming was making this a difficult task.
Finally I reached my bike, tore off the rest of my wetsuit and got out of there like I was being chased by some horrible river monster that had followed me down the path. I was more than happy to start riding...
My Smith Pivlock sunglasses were caked with sweat from my forehead. The sun, now on its Western descent, was drilling a hole into my skull on every repeat on that long hill into Loachapoka.When I got home, I immediately took in the right amount and type of calories my body needed: vanilla protein powder with almond milk. My absolute favorite recovery solution. I was demanding so much from my body this week, the quick tempo brick miles, the weights in the gym, the intervals, the intervals, and the intervals. Bed was such a welcome sight every night. I just hoped I hadn't forgotten to do any critical homework assignments that were due next morning. I probably wouldn't have time to work on them before class. My ROTC obligations made sure of that. Even if I did have hours before class started, the naps were a necessity that my schedule mercifully allowed on most days.
...Riders from the other waves were passing quickly behind me. I was on the first of two laps on a 12.5 mile route and picking people off one after the other, carefully avoiding drafting penalties along the way. I was only passed a handful of times by the front runners, now on the second lap. The ease at which I was passing all these other competitors was a huge mental boost; the legs had power today. I turned onto the on-ramp to the bridge and was struck with powerful gusts of wind. Plowing on, I still kept passing other bikers. We turned around at the end of the bridge and headed back, this time with the wind on our sides. I must've been riding at least 25 mph here. It felt good. The return leg of this lap was mostly downhill. I flew back to where I had come from to start the next lap, the stream of riders on my right almost never ceasing.
The second lap proved to be a little more difficult. The adrenaline was still flowing nicely but the speeds I had been keeping up were taxing the legs. Now on the bridge for a second time, I was leaping-frogging a guy with a CU logo-ed suit on. Chasing this guy down was fun. I don't really remember now if I ended up beating him or if he was even competing in the open division. No matter. This short lived east vs. west rivalry brought excitement to my pedal strokes and kept the pressure on...
The big race was a month out. I had scheduled a few key runs to go on over the next few weeks, each a little more demanding than the last. These days I just didn't have time or reason to run unless the effort was gonna be a hard one. Junk miles were not on the calendar. I got creative with my self inflicted torture. Redlining myself to tears just comes some much more easily and naturally in running than in the other two disciplines. I wasted my legs on the hills, the track, the trails and about everywhere in between several times a week. If nothing else goes well on race day, I would run that 10k to death.
...Volunteers waved big orange flags like some proverbial matador indicating where the dismount line is to potentially disoriented and confused cyclists. Quickly swinging myself up and out of the saddle, I ran along the edge of T2, wheeled back around to my spot in the transition area where my trainers awaited and tore out of there in less than a minute. The theme of the day continued up the one major hill that awaited all the runners a half mile into the course. I passed even more athletes as my favorite event got under way. The first 2.5 miles went by extremely quickly and in no time at all, it seemed, I had reached the 5k mark. It was about this time that my nasal cavities reminded my that I was still getting over a cold. I blew the most satisfying snot rocket of my life out my left nostril. The thing had enough force behind it to knock over a small dog.
I reached the turn around point on Jack Warner Parkway with a hair over 2 miles remaining. These miles seemed infinitely longer that the first two despite the course being super flat now. I witnessed several other competitors suffering on the side of the road, cramps no doubt sinking into their electrolyte-depleted muscles. I cruised passed. The six minute pace I had settled into was sustainable for now, but it was painful. My sockless feet were getting rubbed in all the wrong ways by my shoes. I knew I would have to pay for this later, but cosmetic damage was no reason to slow now.
With two hundred meters left, I flicked on the afterburners and gave it all that was left. Oblivious of my time, I was satisfied that I had left everything on the course. And today, everything turned out to be enough for the top 100 in the nation.
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