Hoarders = cleaner, Tiring Tri, Mudded
With the triathlon looming for Sunday there was absolutely no way I wanted to have to do chores after the race. That meant it all needed to get knocked out Saturday. Even though the grass was borderline shaggy I decided it could wait until after work some night this week. Ali helped me outside and then inside. We had things pretty much under control by lunch time, and then we watched a Hoarders episode…
This particular episode was very disturbing. It went far beyond hoarding and deep into the depths of insanity. This old woman’s house was just filled with trash, so much trash that it had several dead cats buried inside of it unbeknownst to her. I can’t tell you how many times Ali and I were gasping in disbelief.
Well a funny thing happened after we watched that episode. We started organizing. After Ali got done doing a much more thorough than normal vacuuming job she said she was actually going to clean out the bottom drawer of the lateral filing cabinet. I have asked her to do this several times over the years as it was filled to the brim with pamphlets, magazines and paperwork that Ali thought she needed at one time or another but has not touched in at least a half decade. By the time she was done she had filled the paper recycle box twice.
I began my own personal de-hoarding tasks, first cleaning up the hobby/fitness room AGAIN. I keep cleaning it up and someone keeps managing to clutter it up. After that I moved into the garage which was getting out of control.
With the hopeful purchase of a Camaro in at least the not so distant future I wanted to start getting things in order. I shifted items around on the shelves in the garage so items that will be used less regularly are on the left set of shelves where the Camaro will be parked and the stuff I need access to weekly is on the right.
I also dug into my messy workbench area. I got stuff cleaned up but there is more sorting/throwing out and organizing I can do. I just ran out of patience. I threw out a bunch of old stuff I just had no need for. It seemed like whenever I installed something that had spare hardware I kept the extra stuff for a rainy day. Well at this point I have enough spare stuff for a couple years of rainy days so I was ok throwing stuff out.
Saturday night we tried to get to bed nice and early so we had at least a decent amount of rest. At first I thought I was going to have to get there even earlier than normal to help set up the finish line but luckily some other people that live closer were able to help so we got to “sleep in” until 4:15 am.
I had the repaired timing clock in the car as it was going to be used at the finish line. I was not very happy when we got on site a little after 5:30 am to find we had to park close to 3/4 of a mile away from the finish line on the beach. I had to lug the clock by foot that entire distance and no, it is not light.
I helped with various finish line set up duties until maybe quarter of 7. That left me 45 minutes to get ready for the race. I set up all my gear I needed for the transitions and then hung out. I had a rather uncomfortable rumbling in my gut before the race even though I took care of business before we left home. Short of a 3 alarm emergency, there was no way I was going to do anything about it while there were swarms of triathletes descending upon the restroom facilities. I talked myself down from the edge, rationalizing it is just a nervous stomach that will subside once the race starts.
Race time was approaching so Ali and I walked up to the start line. This tri is different than most because it does things in reverse order, you run, bike and then swim. This year they made another change, breaking the start into waves based on age. It was by gender 40 and above, 39 and below and teams, a total of 5 waves. I was in wave 1.
Ali I did a little jog up a side street to get a bit loose. She was still very nervous about the event. She had been pretty negative about the whole thing leading up to the race which is unfortunate. If you keep telling yourself you are going to do terrible in something, how often do you find yourself doing well in contrast?
Anyway we both wished each other luck. The race organizers borrowed one of our megaphones to start the race. Too bad the old guy that was using it didn’t do it very well. It was hard to hear him for two reasons. He had his mouth too far away from the mic and he had the horn pointed at a 45 degree upward so the birds in the tree heard what was going on quite clearly but nobody else did.
The race started and I was off. I immediately tried to weed my way through the 25% and higher body fat competitors so I could get some clear running room. My pace felt decent but I didn’t bother to look at my watch at all.
As usual I had certain visual targets during the run that I wanted to pass but there was one that stood out, red underpants man. This older guy was sporting his 1979 style red Speedo style bottoms. They barely covered his ass cheeks and were sheer enough that you had absolutely no question where his ass crack started and stopped.
Unfortunately for me this guy was a decent runner so I didn’t manage to pass him until 2 miles or so into the race. When I finally did I made sure to speed up even more to eliminate the possibility of that visual being further burned into my mind.
They let the younger (faster) group go after us. During the run the elites blasted past us like we were standing still, it’s just nuts how fast some of these guys are.
Like I said, I didn’t look at my watch at all during the run portion of the race but I felt like I was running hard the entire time. I was quite pleased when approached the first finish line and saw a time of 24:39, my best ever 5K time by 5 or 6 seconds. I didn’t expect that, a nice way to start the race. Unfortunately things declined from there.
I jogged over to my bike and started my transition where I immediately was greeted with frustration. The first thing I did was grab my helmet. The chin strap on my cheap Bell helmet can be a troublesome to get snapped in. I fumbled around with it for a good 10-15 seconds till I got it connected. After putting on my bike shoes I grabbed a Goo, deciding it would be faster to try to suck it down on the bike.
I jogged with the bike to the mount line and clumsily got on. It took me awhile until I could get both feet clipped in. I would say at least the first half mile of my ride was very slow as I was trying to do the Goo and get a drink afterwards. It was only after that I got down on my tri bars and started concentrating on going faster.
I had dismissed the ride as being relatively easy ahead of time since it was mostly flat and only 15k long instead of the more normal 20k. Well I paid for that assumption.
Doing a PR on the run had left my legs feeling pretty spent. A persistent headwind for the majority of the out part of the up and back added to that effort. I stayed down on my tri bars pretty much exclusively.
I was passed A LOT on the bike portion of the ride. Some glances at my watch indicated I was normally in the 18 mph plus range but even so I was getting my doors blown in by better riders. Some of the bikers going by almost sounded like cars as they approached, especially those with the high tech solid rear wheels, they were noisy as hell.
With less wind on the way back my pace accelerated some but even so my overall pace was only in the 17’s which was a disappointment. If you want to see me making a turn during the bike go to around the 1:20 mark of the video found here.
So all that was left was the swim. Going into the event I was happy about the swim being last for a couple reasons. The transition from bike to swim should be quick, all I had to do was strip off what I was wearing, grab my goggles and go. I was also happy that having the swim last would avoid the huge cluster f that happens when the swim comes first. I hate all the bumping, kicking and running into that occurs in that format. Doing it last should mean the participants are streaming into the water instead off starting in one big glob of humanity.
Well I still managed to f up what should have been an easy transition. After ripping off my clothes I started to run out of the area. I realized I still had my sunglasses on my face and had to turn around and throw them on my stuff before I started running out again. Then I forgot I didn’t have my swim goggles and had to run back AGAIN. I was pissed off.
The transition to the swim is long. You are running across a parking lot and street barefoot (some elected to keep their sneakers on) I tried to run gingerly while making sure to avoid anything on the road that looked marginally treacherous like glass and rocks. Finally I reached the beach area and started the swim.
After running into the water till I was about waist deep I started to swim. About a minute into the swim as I am coming up to breath I see people next to me walking. Evidently there was a sandbar off shore. I thought it was kind of lame to be walking during what was supposed to be a swimming event so I kept swimming through the area.
As we approached the first of two right hand turns I started to hit a TON of bodies. The water was quite murky so I couldn’t really see what was around me when I was underwater. I sure did feel other people. I had various appendages of mine hitting other competitors and various hands and feet hitting me as well. I HATE this aspect of a triathlon swim.
For large portions of the swim I was doing it entirely dead legged, abandoning my side kick altogether to avoid striking other swimmers. During the portion of the swim that was parallel to shore I was desperately just trying to find areas of water where I wouldn’t be colliding with people. I quickly wound up swimming off course, having to correct several times when I realized I was swimming at least 25 degrees off the angle I should have been.
As we approached the second buoy I had to merge back into the log jam of bodies. During that merge I somehow wound up next to a girl that was doing breast stroke. I was dazed for a second as during one of her leg kicks her foot snagged inside the waist of my suit and momentarily pulled it down. After a quick reach back to pull up I continued muddling along.
Getting around that second buoy was miserable, there were so many people converged there you had no option other then to basically wade around it.
Finally I was in the home stretch. The sun was right in the swimmers eyes as we approached the shore. My goggles were already somewhat foggy, with the sun I literally couldn’t see shit so I just tried to stay around the other swimmers.
Again we hit the sand bar coming in, this time it felt higher as I was hitting my hands on the sandy bottom. I saw others on their feet so I decided to do the same, only to once again hit deep water that required more swimming. When I was on my feet I made the mistake of pulling my goggles down in an attempt to see. I didn’t want to waste time fumbling with them again so I just left them around my neck and swam the rest of the way without them. Every stroke was greeted with total blindness in the water.
Finally I emerged from the water and did my best to run up the incline to the finish line with an official time of 1:11:34. To be honest I was a bit disappointed in the time based on my good run. I figured I would be able to get under 1:10.
After drinking some much needed water I returned to the water to cheer on Ali and Christie. Christie had a great race, coming in about 1:21 and change. Ali finished about 10 minutes after that. Ali wasn’t thrilled with her time but was happy she finished the event.
After the race we enjoyed the very nice complimentary breakfast accompanied by live music. I checked out the results. Unfortunately they were only the cumulative times. I was more interested in how my splits broke out. I did see I was 37th in my age group which is nothing to write home about.
Late in the day the full results were posted. It seemed like my lack luster time on the bike and longer than they should be transitions really hurt me. There was a huge block of finishers around my time, just saving a minute would have made a huge jump in my standings. I was surprised that my official swim time was 9:36. It felt much slower than that with all the congestion.
Since running/triathlons is just another part of my fitness regimen, I don’t get all that bent out of shape if I don’t do great. It just helps motivate me to do better next time. I have done exactly that so far. Each of my 4 triathlons have had better numbers than the one prior.
When we got home we were both glad our chore list was basically clear. After taking showers and eating lunch we laid down and took a must needed nap. I slept for a pretty solid two hours, Ali was back there another hour or so.
Ali made another great meal for supper, another quiche like meal with chopped up onions, broccoli and tomatoes from our garden. It was quite tasty.
This morning I officially signed up for the Tough Mudder in Tampa which occurs in early December. Tough Mudder is a GRUELING 12 mile event that is dotted with 21 physical challenges along the way. Randall has committed to doing it with me. My sister Meg recently completed a tough mudder in PA. Take some time and read about what it involves. It should ridiculously exhausting but exciting at the same time.