Bartlett Lake Open Water Swim (list 4000m, actual 5000m+)

4000 meter open water swim at Bartlett Lake, 3rd in men's masters category, 1:42:27.  That seemed slow for the distance, and an email from the organizers acknowledged the course was long.  Another swimmer with GPS said the actual distance was over 5K, closer to 5500.  But she may not have managed straight lines in the open water.  (UPDATE: The organizers emailed that because the water level changed since the course was mapped out, the starting buoy was misplaced, adding "about 250" meters to each of the 4 laps.  So 5K, which makes sense based on my time.)

Regardless, good enough for a virtual podium! This wasn't an age group competition, but rather all swimmers 45+.  So I was racing against 40-somethings, whom I'm not going to beat in this lifetime.  Masters 3/9, men 8/16, overall 18/30.  Full results here. Picture of the start here.  Water temp was 68 degrees, so this was a wetsuit swim.

I did like last year's "state championships" where the previous organizers of the Open Water Swim series did both age group and wetsuit/non-wetsuit categories, and pretty much everybody who swam won something.  And there were only 9 men in the distance masters.  But I will take it, yes, I will.

This is actually a picture of the start of the previous race at Lake Pleasant, but I think I can see me stumbling into the water fourth from the right, in the bright pink cap:

Lake Pleasant Open Water Swim 3000m

Lake Pleasant on April 2, 1:01:35.  Water was cold, but not too cold; wetsuit legal.  The weather was good, but not great; windy with some chop, but my time was perfectly acceptable.  Finished 8/11 men's masters, 11/18 all men (with 4 DNF, 11/22).  Would have been first in my age group if the swim had age group awards.  In the photo on the left, I'm told I"m the swimmer in front.  On the right, that's me struggling out of the water after the finish, less than gracefully.  Nice day, good swim, pretty happy with my time, and finished 20 seconds ahead of the considerably younger guy in the Speedo.

Desert Classic Duathlon 2016

While I didn't do as well at DCD2016 as last year -- Murray Macpherson decided to race, so that meant I would definitely finish behind him (by 37 minutes!) and CJ Ketterer and whomever showed up to claim second, and thus no podium this year -- and my overall time was 2 minutes slower, it felt like a much harder and better race.  I was pretty similar to last year through Run 1 and both transitions, and while my Bike was 3 minutes slower, Run 2 was a full minute faster.  I managed to keep running for the full second run, and only was passed once and managed to pass some people ahead of me, which never happens.  (Usually in triathlons, I get out of the water then spend the rest of the morning watching people pass me on the bike and the run.)  I was in fifth place in my division (out of 7) through T2, but then managed to make up 4 minutes in Run 2 on the fourth place guy and finish fourth by almost 2 minutes.  Beautiful weather, challenging and appealing course, nice company, and a very satisfactory day.

Overall 2:41:40,  46/63 men, 4/7 age group; full results (road) here.

Run1 35:39

T1: 1:46

Bike 1:25:35

T2: 1:52

Run2 36:49

No photos yet, check back later.

Ironman Florida Report

Yes, this is a long report, but it’s a long race.

I had a great day, I never stopped smiling, and I am an Ironman.  I learned that you don’t offer your time; you’re an Ironman; that's enough.  Yes, it's kind of a cult, but now I'm part of it.

Things could have been much, much worse.  My foot issues started to clear up in October, and I could run, but it was too late to do much run training.  I also managed to get sick Tuesday night before the race, making my first chore in Panama City Beach Thursday morning going to an urgent care clinic to get checked out and see if there was anything they could do.  I didn’t sleep well all week, not just the night before, and I think I had a slight fever the entire time.  The weather wasn’t perfect – but then the next two days, the weather was terrible, so we still lucked out.

But never mind the problems, or potential problems.  It was great, and I had a ball.  When you cross the finish line after 14-and-a-half hours, the announcer calls your name, and says, “You are an Ironman,” and for a couple minutes, you’re a rock star.

I had a very good swim, especially considering the surf, waves 1-2 feet and maybe more by the end.  The picture may make the waves look worse due to foreshortening by the camera, but we had to duck under the waves until we swam past the breakers to the main course.  The race was wetsuit optional; water temperature exceeded the level where you could wear a wetsuit and have an official time.  Everybody else with TriScottsdale wore a wetsuit, but I was fine without (and in fact next time, won’t wear a tri top, even a pre-worn top and Glide didn’t stop all the chafing in salt water.)

The bike course was flat, and I had to stop a few times for supplies (the Gatorade the volunteers were handing out just didn’t taste good to me, and I thought I had a mechanical but it was just a leaf stuck to my tire, making a very loud noise due to the tight clearance with the frame), but I was very pleased with my time and enjoyed the first 100 miles, singing to myself for much of the time; the last 12 miles, however, the wind shifted into our face and the songs went away.  For the run, I tried to jog at the start, but got concerned that I wouldn’t have enough left for the finish – and a stiff walking pace kept me up with people my speed who were running, then walking, so I walked all but 2, maybe 3, miles and still finished ahead of my projections.  I took my sweet time in transition, including a wonderful 5 minutes in a port-a-john, so there’s clearly room for improvement – if I ever do one again.  For now, I’m happy with a great day.

 

Here are the numbers:

Overall 14:32:19

Swim 1:29:12

T1 15:55

Bike 6:24:02

T2 13:35

Run 6:09:37

That put me overall 1174/1636 non-wetsuit; men 902/1180 non-wetsuit; 26/41 division (M60-64) non-wetsuit; overall 1566th, men 1223rd, and division 31/50 both wetsuit and non-wetsuit.  About a third of the competitors wore wetsuits, and a slightly higher percentage of non-wetsuit competitors finished: wetsuit started 782, finished 687; non-wetsuit started 1636, finished 1513.

And, of course, there are pictures; and full results.  And if you go to the finish line video, and cue it up to 4:00:01, you can see me cross the line.  Not that I haven’t watched it a couple of times myself.

None of the other TS people said they were interested in doing another IM.  I won’t for a while, but I could see signing up again in 5 years, when I graduate to M65-69.  It’s good to be the youngest guy in an older guy division.

I said that when I turned 60, I would shave my beard and do an Ironman.  And now I have.

AZ Open Water Masters State Championships

The event (4000 and 2000 meter open water swim at Lake Pleasant) was called the state championships, but it was a pretty low-key and not-very-crowded event.  Scheduling it the day before a major half Ironman in Tempe probably kept turnout down.  But if only 2 people show up to swim in your category, finish and you podium!  (I finished 11 minutes behind the winner, so even that felt good; it's not like there was anything I should have done differently).  My TriScottsdale group used this as a IM FL training opportunity, riding our bicycles 40+ miles to the swim, then swimming the 4000m distance (most in wetsuits, but I went without in 77-degree water).  I'm pretty pleased with my 1:28 time for a distance slightly longer (by 0.1 mi) than the IM distance with the 40 mi on the bike beforehand, and IM FL should be wetsuit-legal.  Getting pretty psyched.

Lifetime Tempe Triathlon

So: 90 percent of life is just showing up (at the finish line, anyway).  There were only 5 entries in my age group, but I finished third, and got "a podium" and a medal the size of a salad plate.  3:17:15 isn't a very good time, and I've done basically this course in 30 minutes less, but not when it was that warm or when I was more worried about recovery from an injury than my time.  So good!

This was a test race, to see if my foot would hold up on an Olympic run, and it did.  I took transitions very slowly, no running out of the swim or with my bike, and started walking before I felt comfortable enough to run.  OK swim (34 min; I think that includes walking from the water exit to transition, the swim felt faster than that); good bike (1:22 overall, with a slight negative split, 17.9 mph on the first loop and 18.1 on the second), and a 10K run-walk in 1:13, which is better than I thought it was (with the heat, it felt longer), and with a slight negative split as well.  All in all, a very satisfactory day, and a necessary-but-not-sufficient test for IM Florida in not quite 6 weeks.