Not as long in coming

Oddly, days after I updated you on my swim season and marital status, I did my first triathlon of the season, the Razor City Splash and Dash. Nervously, I watched the weather forecast throughout the week for lovely Gillette, Wyoming, about four-and-a-half hours north and east of here. A guy on the Facebook triathlon group said it snowed for last year's race, and it did snow in the days preceding. By the time I showed up at the Campbell County Aquatic Center it was in the 30s and sunny, and the only snow was in the shadows of the trees.

At any rate, I ended up wearing more clothes for this race than I ever have. We swam in the nice, warm aquatic center, where I covered two Wyoming girls' state swim meets a few years back. It was cool to swim in this pool where I'd seen one of the most exciting sporting events of my 12 years in newspapers. For some reason, the pool was like bath water, not at all conducive to swimming competitively, only recreationally. Yuck.

The pool is Olympic-sized, 50 meters by 25 yards. Though the high school short-course (25-yard) season ended a while back, the pool still was configured for 21 25-yard lanes; the summer club season uses "long course," or the 50-meter configuration. If they'd taken the bulkhead out (a narrow plank, about 18 inches wide and 4 feet deep, separates the eight main competition lanes from the rest of the pool), they'd have had another one. So there was plenty of room for all 70 of us. I swam circles in a lane with two other guys, and they were kind enough to let me go first after watching me turn a couple of warmup laps. I must look intimidating.

The race started after about a 20-minute meeting, during which I heard the following: "There's no snow, so we lucked out on that." Now, the swim was 900 yards, which is as close to a half-mile (880 yards) as you can get in a 25-yard pool. Each competitor was responsible for counting his own laps, all 36 of them, or 18 (down and back equals one) if you prefer, which I do, because it's a lower number. Didn't stop me from miscounting. I do it in my workouts, too, and I end up looking at the clock to try and figure out where I am in a long swim. Saturday was no exception, as I hit the wall at an unacceptably fast time for what I thought was 18 laps. I said out loud, "That can't be right," and did another 50 yards. The time was far more realistic.

In the prerace meeting, the race director recommended putting some clothes on before running outside into the 30-degree chill, wet and semi-naked. So I put on tights and an UnderArmour mock turtleneck while frantically drying myself. To put it in perspective, I spent 3.5 percent of my total time of the race in the first transition, trying to put dry clothes on a damp body, before running outside.

At my bike I added socks, gloves, a skullcap, my helmet, shades, and shoes to the ensemble. I mounted up and headed out for my first ride on my new bike. The 15-mile course was an out-and-back into the countryside north of Gillette, not as far as Montana but I felt like I could see it from there; the Montana-Wyoming border is 51 miles north of Gillette. Now, I knew a bunch of people passed me in transition, but I figured I could get them back when it came down to actually competing. The goal was to not let anyone pass me on the ride, though that didn't get to the turnaround, as one guy passed me. Still, the ride went well save for a balky derailleur that will be dealt with before the next race. It was a rare course that took us downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back, as Gillette sits on a plateau. That's fine with me, as I can spin up hills and still have something left for the run.

Which I did, to a point. I ditched the bike and my tights in transition, as the tights would have cooked me on the run. I set my sights on the lead chick and the guy who passed me on the bike, but I got passed one more time on the run. Those three people were in front of me, in view, the entire 5-kilometer run, but I couldn't muster the jump necessary to catch them. So I pushed as best I could, didn't get passed again beyond the first mile, and even had a small kick at the end.

Lo and behold, I won my age group and finished fifth overall. My time was six minutes behind the overall winner, and the three people I mentioned were within a minute of me, so I could have gotten second overall if I had a little more speed. Alas, that's why I do sprints, to enter a different kind of pain and see what kind of speed I have. Furthermore, my placing was the result of a weak field. Had to be. No way I'm at the top of my age group, even in a small state like Wyoming, and I expect to get stomped at the Cheyenne Sprint later this summer.

In the meantime, it's on to the Boise Half-Ironman (I refuse to call it a 70.3 as the World Triathlon Corporation wishes). I'll swim twice a week and skate on the residual fitness from the season, while hitting the bike and run as hard as I can. I neglected them for too long during swimming (a 22:42 5K is good enough to win my age group, ugh), and I'll have to address those issues before heading up to Idaho.

Long time coming

When last you left your protagonist, he was bitching about a coach yelling at him, and bitching about the weather. Not surprisingly, things haven't changed much in more than two months.

Let's see, since the Loveland Sweetheart Invitational, I took a trip to Portland to see a special lady-friend, who remains very special to me. While there I rode my bike with her three times, got in three really strong runs, and three decent swims (the swims were solo, as getting this chick in the water is like pulling teeth). And we had some fun in the city. So I like the woman, I like the city, and I'm starting to see why there's such turnover in this department. Hmm...

I did learn that I could get faster in the water. Six weeks after the Loveland Sweetheart Invitational, I competed in the Colorado state masters meet, my first time competing in a state meet of any kind. That's because I didn't have to qualify; all I had to do was fill out a form and write a check (my kind of championship). So you see my times below from the Loveland meet. Now compare them with the COMSA state results, bearing in mind that I was shaved and tapered. I was not thrilled to have to skip the 1,650-yard freestyle for a work assignment, but I was thrilled to finish the 400-yard individual medley for the first time. Everything after that was easy, though I got smoked in the age-group standings. A loving, dear friend pointed out the difference between swimming in a triathlon with people who dabble in swimming, and swimming in a masters meet with swimmers who dabble in triathlon. Point taken.

The next task was to address my neglected cycling and running, which has happened all too infrequently since the first of the year. And not much has changed in the four weeks since the state meet. I had another couple weeks of swim practices, but told the coaches I'd be in and out because of my newfound desire to run and bike — at least when the weather allowed it. Seriously, my training plan is at the mercy of the dodgy spring weather here on the high plains, meaning if it's not snowing or unmercifully windy I'm out running or cycling. Bad way to do it, but training here is what it is. And I'm still out of shape.

Last weekend I went to St. George, Utah, to watch the inaugural Ironman St. George. Normally, it's mid-80s and windy there this time of year but race day was cold (mid-60s) and calm. My kind of day! Meagen competed and finished with no problems, despite her prophecies of doom and gloom and truncated training process. Long story short, the course is an absolute bear, which guarantees the Ironman masses will stay away and the marketers who run the WTC won't renew past the initial five years. Nonetheless, I was proud of her and her Phoenix crew for getting it done. Tough day all around.

The day after I attended my second awards luncheon/dinner (the first was Ironman Canada, when I happened to be in town and had nothing to do). First thing I noticed was the number of age-group winners/Kona qualifiers from northern parts of the world — Salt Lake City, Denver, DeForest, Wisconsin; Colchester, Vermont. Either a lot of people have friends in the south for training weekends, or a lot of people are exponentially mentally tougher than I. I'm opting for the latter. I told Meagen that means I have no excuse for not training through the brutal Wyoming winters, and she reminded me of it a few more times before we parted ways.

During the 12-hour drive home (took the scenic route through the Colorado Rockies), I wondered if I really have what it takes to achieve that ludicrous goal of qualifying. I ask this question now as the morning's snow melts and my bike sits on the trainer, waiting for me when I get home. And I'll continue to ask it throughout the year as I come up with more and more excuses not to train.