We had a lot of stuff to do Friday night since we were going to be gone a good chunk of the weekend for the triathlon. Yea we still worked in some pizza and tivo time but we also had to do a bunch of stuff around the house that kept us busy until 9:30 or so. Ali was already feeling nerves for the race even though it wasn’t until Sunday. I didn’t really feel nervous at all.
Saturday morning the prep work continued. The plan was to take the party van. I figured I could put our two bikes on the bike rack on the back of the van and we could put Michelle’s bike on the bed in back. We were all going to car pool. The party van comes in handy in these situations.
So I put the bike rack on the van and loaded our bikes on it to make sure it was firmly attached, it felt good and secure. Shortly before we were supposed to leave I went back out to the bike rack and figured I would pull on the straps just to make sure they were good and tight.
So I grab the right strap and give it a tug. All of a sudden the rack with both bikes on it came crashing down. The nylon strap snapped, evidently it had dry rotted after 5 or 6 years. Wow. Instantly I imagined how much of a disaster it would have potentially been if that strap broke while we were doing 80 mph on Alligator Alley. It would have destroyed the bikes and possibly caused an accident. Sheesh. Luckily the bikes survived the short fall off the back of the van, my leg sort of broke their fall.
I told Ali what happened. At first my thought was we would just stop and grab another bike rack on the way. Ali suggested that we put the bed up in the back and put the bikes behind the rear seat. Initially I didn’t think the would fit however after removing the front tires we were able to get both bikes in and close the door. We figured we would put Michelle’s bike in the space between the 2nd and 3rd row of seats.
So we said goodbye to the dogs and headed out. I snagged a large coffee on the way to help keep me alert for the long drive. I managed to jam Michelle’s bike in the van after some effort. We all piled in and were off.
The drive over was fine although the GPS once again sent us on a detour. This happened to me before on a drive to Miami. For some reason it’s data must be inaccurate in the area where you are supposed to get on 95 off the turnpike. It had me on the way to Homestead. Luckily I realized the problem immediately and was able to get back on track.
We decided to check in at the race before our hotel. Parking was at a premium. We wound up parking illegally along with a bunch of other illegally parked vehicles hoping there was safety in numbers.
The registration process was kind of a pain in the ass. Ali had signed us up online and paid for everything at that point. I flashed the woman my drivers license, she says “Shawn Duffey?” yep. Then she tells me I have to fill out some waiver down the line.
The waiver/form had to do with USAT triathlete membership which Ali again took care of online. I handed her the form. She asked to see the little packet with my info on it. I pulled it out and looked at the name. I did a double take when I saw it read “Sean Duffy”. This guy was 34 years old. Wow what are the odds of running into your namesake albeit spelled differently, my name isn’t exactly John Smith.
So I had to go back to the main desk and hope they had a second Shawn Duffey in there, they did, whew. After that snafu I had three more stops, one to get the chip, one to get the shirt and one more to get the race packet. It seemed like there could have been a more efficient way to handle the check in process.
After registration we had to check in our bikes. They are VERY strict with the bike area. Some high end road bikes are worth 5-6K or more so they can’t be casual with security. Only actual race participants are allowed in the bike area.
Before entering we also got our race numbers written on our bodies. They do this as a back up in case you lose your race bib. They write your number on your upper arm and your leg. In addition they write your age on the back of your calf.
The race had a total of 1600 participants so that is a LOT of bikes. Ali, Michelle and I found our respective locations and parked our bikes there, each spot was labeled with a race number.
After check in we walked around the vendor area where we looked at some tri-gear and snagged some free Muscle Milk and POM. I was relieved when we got back to the van and saw there was no ticket on the windshield.
Ali booked a hotel that was literally a block or two from the park where the race was being held which was fantastic. We unloaded the van and headed up stairs. We let Ali and Michelle check us in since we only claimed two people were staying in the room instead of four. We wanted to avoid extra occupancy charges.
The room was quite nice. It was big with a great view of the bay and the park. Of course the first thing I really noticed was the bidet in the bathroom. I never stayed in a place that had one. I found it rather fascinating.
I turned on the water to the bidet and tried to imagine how you would actually utilize it. It seemed totally unpractical. It looked like it wouldn’t do much to help clean you up. Instead it seemed like it would just give you wet underwear.
We wanted to eat an early dinner so we headed downstairs around 6 to an Italian restaurant attached to the hotel. The food we had was good, the service was not. Our “waiter” also seemed to be the maitre’d as well. He was some very italian looking guy that was polite enough but not very good at service. Two of our food orders came out incorrectly and as the place got busier he was dreadfully slow at checking back with us. His 10% tip reflected the poor service.
We entertained ourselves at dinner by looking at people’s calves. We would look at the person, guess their age and then look at their calf to see how close we were. Some people looked way older than what their leg said. It was kind of weird having the age of most people out there on display.
After dinner the girls wanted to check out the pool which was out on a patio around the 9th floor of this sky high building. Instead of hitting the pool first we headed to the huge 4 tub jacuzzi area. The 102 degree water was quite toasty. It didn’t take long until it became a little too warm. We walked over to the pool area.
Christy wanted to jump in to cool off. Ali, Michelle and I really didn’t feel the need to jump into the cooler pool water but I eventually did after prodding from the other three. After our brief dip we headed back to the room.
Our sleeping arrangements had not yet been finalized. I was trying to convince the three girls to sleep together in the king size bed and that I would sleep on the sofa bed. However other than a brief photo session I was unable to pull it off.
Ali and I wound up sleeping on the king with Christy and Michelle on the sofa bed. We were all tired and thought it would be wise to try to get a good night’s sleep since we planned to leave the hotel around 6:15 am. I closed my eyes about quarter after 9.
My plans for a solid night’s sleep were scuttled by a full bladder. I had been drinking a lot of fluids to be hydrated for the event. I woke up about 2:45 am having to pee badly. At first I hoped I could just fall back asleep but I soon realized that wouldn’t happen.
The light switch for the bathroom was hardwired to the light over the sink outside the bathroom so if I flipped the light it would spill out into the room. I didn’t want to wake anyone up so I grabbed my Iphone and used it as a makeshift night light. I held it in the dark bathroom to help me aim. I tried to pee quietly but there wasn’t much I could do. The flushing of the toilet was rather loud too unfortunately.
Even after relieving myself I had a hard time falling back asleep. The mattress on the bed was sort of bowled out so I felt like I was laying at an angle. I started hearing all kinds of noise outside. I found it hard to believe I could hear the thumping bass of some moron down on the street 9 floors up. I am not sure how long I laid there before falling back asleep, at least an hour I am sure.
Christy was up prior to the 5:45 am alarm I had set taking a shower. We all rolled out of bed groggy but excited that it was race day. We rolled out of the hotel and walked down to the race area.
Participants only had up until 7am to do their final prep in the transition area and then they were kicked out. Basically the goal is to lay out and organize all of your race gear in a way that you can get in and out as quickly as possible.
All of my training was about the physical events, not the transition and it showed. I had a pile of crap laid down by my bike with very little thought of just how long it may take me to put it all on.
I was surprised that we got a message from Randall that he was on site. I knew he said he was going to come down and watch but I didn’t expect him to be there so early. We found him as we were walking towards the swim start to check it out.
The water felt warm enough but the shoreline was extremely rocky. None of us looked forward to trying to traverse this terrain. We felt better when we later found out the swim start was in water so you didn’t have to try to run across the rocks.
We had two and a half hours until our race started so we headed back up to the room briefly. We hoped we could see the start of the Olympic distance triathlon which started earlier. We couldn’t really see much from our vantage point.
We headed back down to the park. We hadn’t eaten any real food for breakfast so that was a primary goal. We were hoping to find a place that just sold bagels or something along those lines. They had race food but it was for post race, not-pre. We had to settle for some packs of biscotti that were being sold from a mobile coffee van. In addition to that I had a couple muscle milks and water, yum.
We spent some of our free time watching the Olympic distance athletes come in. Their swim distance was much longer than ours, .9 miles versus .25. They actually got dropped off by a ferry to an island and then have to swim back to shore.
I was amazed how quickly some of them were able to transition to the bike portion of the race. They already had their bike shoes clipped to the pedals so they would just run in, grab their helmet and sunglasses and run back out.
Eventually we approached the start of our race. They start the race in waves based on age. They broke it down into 29 and under, 30-39 and 40 and above. Ali and Michelle were actually in the first wave, I was scheduled to start 6 minutes after them in the third wave. I was back with my group so I didn’t see Ali and Michelle actually start but I saw it later on the video Randall shot.
It wasn’t long until I was in the water myself. The start of the swim was hectic. You have bodies everywhere. You have to struggle to find a space to swim where you can go without kicking or being kicked by someone else, it’s pretty frustrating.
For the most part I was able to navigate through the traffic ok. A couple times I got involved in backups. I would find myself behind someone that was either going slow or completely stopped so I had to stop or slow down and then the person behind me runs into me and so on and so forth. I also didn’t do a good job of navigating the buoys.
I wound up going underneath the first left turn, there was a log jam of humanity there. On the second turn I was wide so I think I probably added some distance and time to the swim. Swimming in the open water was definitely more challenging than my pool training.
Even though I have swam as much as 1000 meters in the pool that was 25 yards at a time. At the end of each lap you are grabbing the wall momentarily and pushing back in the opposite direction. Well with an open water swim there are no breaks, nothing to grab onto or push off of, it’s one continuous effort.
On the positive side, the water was calm and after that initial left turn you were swimming with the current. I tried to keep my stroke steady without going nuts, I wanted to make sure I didn’t blow out in the first event. Even with my efforts I emerged from the water a little more tired than I would have liked. After navigating the steep bank out of the water I jogged the rest of the way into the transition area for T1.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I was unwise with transition choices. While others were basically grabbing their bike and running out I was stuck there trying to pull up bike shorts over a wet bathing suit, yanking on a shirt, putting on my race bib belt, fumbling to get my Oakleys out of their case, putting on socks, bike shoes and finally my helmet. It seemed like I was in there forever.
Finally I grabbed my bike and headed out on to the bike course. My legs still felt mushy from the swim. Just before I got to the area where you could mount the bike I had a shooting pain in my (good) left knee. I was like WTF????? I ignored it, got on my bike and started pedaling, hoping it would subside. Luckily it did.
The first part of the bike course was slow going for me. First off I still felt like I was recovering from the swim. Second the first part of the course was on rough city streets with lots of turns. I didn’t try to set the world on fire by any means.
Eventually we got out onto better roadways where I could concentrate more on pace. On the way out you were riding against mostly a headwind. I was working hard to keep my speed at 16.5 to 17.5. Then, the hills hit.
I gave zero thought to what the course was like ahead of time. I didn’t know anything about it really. Well of course south Florida is flat but we do have a lot of bridges. Well the bridges around Miami Beach are long, steep and HIGH.
I dropped gears and powered through them the best I could. I was passed the most on the bike portion of the event but not on the hills. On hills I was the one doing the passing for whatever reason. The funny thing was I would pass people on the hills only to have them pass me again on the downhill/flat side. I went back and forth with a pack of about 10 riders the entire race.
In total we went over probably 5 inclines, none of which were easy. To give you an idea of how steep some of the bridges were, I was clocking in at 32 mph on the downside of one of them without pedaling one stroke.
As I was riding along I noticed how hot I was feeling, even with the air blowing on me constantly. I could only imagine how brutal it was going to feel once the run began.
So I completed the 13 mile bike leg and headed back into the transition. Once again I was slow, even slower than my first transition. Part of it was being just plain old pooped. After throwing on my sneakers I slammed down a granola bar and washed it down with some sport drink. My chip time said that I spent almost a full 4 minutes for the T2 transition which is horrible.
Finally I got out onto the running course and started moving. My legs did not feel good. It felt like I was running in cement. As slow as I thought I was going, others were going slower as I passed a bunch right away. This became a theme of my run. Unlike the bike where I was passed often, in the run I was the one doing the passing.
They had some water very early in the run, it seemed kind of odd to have it right away. I was thankful for it regardless as I sipped some and dumped the rest on my head. I was really tired.
I soon made a left turn and looked in disgust at what was ahead of me, ANOTHER huge, long bridge. I was still at the point where my legs were trudging a long. Now instead of being able to work out that feeling I had to deal with climbing this f’ing bridge, twice.
There was zero shade on this portion of the course, it was just bright sunshine, high humidity, heat bouncing off the road in your face and an incline. All I had to do was take a glance ahead to know what was in store for me. There were tons of people walking, I bet at least half of the group going uphill was walking.
It was then that the mental battle begun. The weak part of you says “look, all of those other people are walking. You are so tired, just walk for a bit” Then the drill sergeant in my head barks back ” I don’t care how slow you are running up that hill. You WILL run. You will not stop for anything” In the end the sergeant won out.
I did not stop for one moment, I ran up those mother f’ing hills and ran through the water stops. If nothing else I wanted to be able to say I didn’t stop. Your mind plays games as you are putting yourself through physical exertion like this. I tried to do things to take my mind off how I was feeling.
As I would pass a guy I would notice the age on his leg. “See you later 34 year old. Ah got 10 years on you Mr 32 and you are walking” It was really amazing just how many people were walking on those hills, they were that tough. I saw people wearing half Ironman jerseys that were walking for cripes sake.
Like I said, I did tons of passing during the run. In total I have no doubt that at least 100 people dropped behind me during the 5K and most all of them on those hills. Even though I had my GPS running I didn’t look at it a single time during the run. I just wanted to not stop, that was it.
Finally I got to the two mile mark which was at around the crest of going back over the bridge. I knew this was the last of the hills. I knew I could now finish without stopping. That last 1.12 miles sure seemed long to me. There was a woman that started her kick when she thought we were close and faded before we even got to home stretch when I passed her. Once I hit the final 100 yards I gave what little I had left in the tank and accelerated. I actually passed one more person in the last 10-20 yards.
I had no idea what my real time was. I was unable to track it accurately with my gps. It wasn’t until this morning when I saw my official time of 1:37:43. When I crossed the line I was totally spent. After a very quick congrats to Ali and Michelle I mumbled something about having to go find some shade and lay down. I felt totally gassed. I wandered away without really letting anyone know where I was going.
I found a small shady spot under a tree and sat down under it. I just sat there trying to recuperate as I looked back upon the race. I was surprised that I didn’t pass Ali and Michelle. I thought during the course of the race I would be able to make up that 6 or 7 minute lead.
Eventually Randall found me under the tree. He said the girls were in the food line. I shuffled over there and asked Ali to bring me over some stuff and then shuffled back to my shady spot. Once they brought me over some food I started to feel a bit better.
Ali told me that by her watch her time was around 1:42, far better than the 2 hour goal she set for herself. When we saw the official results we found out just how well she did, she finished 8th out of 30 in her age group which is fantastic! Michelle did fantastic as well, finishing 12th in her age group. I only beat her by about a minute in total time.
Eventually I felt recovered enough to walk back to the room. While the girls took showers, Randall decided to accompany me up to the pool area where I cleaned up with a dip in the pool.
We got the van all packed up, thanked Randall for coming out and supporting/filming us and headed out. On the way home it was our mission to find a Dunkin Donuts. I definitely needed the caffeine boost for the drive back. We also snagged some Subway sandwiches for our lunch.
The drive back felt very long to me. I just wanted to get home. Most of the conversation was all race related, everyone sharing their experiences from the event. After dropping off Michelle and Christy we headed back home.
I had hoped that my mom would have stuck around long enough that we could at least say HI and tell her about the race. However we pulled up to an empty driveway around 3:30. By the time everything was unloaded it was time to flip on the Eagles game.
Wow, they stomped the Jaguars. The people that were proclaiming Mike Vick as the next coming of Jesus are looking pretty good right now. He had another great game. I’m happy to see him doing well and the team winning as a result. It still doesn’t change my opinion that in the big picture this is not a good thing. Hopefully he proves me wrong.
Actually the thing I appreciated the most yesterday was the defense didn’t play like a bunch of p@ssies when they got up big. Unlike the week before when they went into coward-mode, this week the Bird stayed aggressive, continuing to put pressure on the Jaguars all the way to the end.
Maybe Andy Reid and Howdy Doody actually did learn something from the Detroit game. Personally I will NEVER get angry if the Birds lose while being aggressive. Losing by being passive is 1000 times worse.
Actually the only thing that annoyed me yesterday was DeSean Jackson. Hey, he is on my fantasy team so I was thrilled he put up some big numbers. What pissed me off was that third down play where he had an EASY first down if he took a few steps FORWARD. Instead he did what he does so often, run backwards and sideways, taking what would have been a sure first down and blowing it.
He has done this run backwards thing from day one. As far as I can recall, nearly every single time he does it, it is a fail. I can’t believe the coaches haven’t broken him of this bad habit by now. Maybe in college he was fast enough to make those guys miss when he ran backwards, it doesn’t work in the NFL. Go forward DeSean and stop being cute. He also was lazy on an out pattern where he didn’t get both feet down.
Next up is the Skins and Donovan in Philly. That game is going to make all sorts of headlines regardless of the outcome.
After the game I ripped the video Randall shot to YouTube . Zoe our ex-neighbors dog was dropped off for nearly a full week of dog sitting. She is a very much in your face type of dog. Last night I had no energy for it.
So my first triathlon is under my belt. Ali asked if I felt like I had the “bug” now. I don’t think I do. I really enjoyed training for it the most. As I said before, when I put myself in race situations like that I don’t really enjoy the mental anguish it involves. But like anything else, the things you take the most pride in are also typically the most difficult. I am sure I’ll be doing some more triathlons, in spite of myself.
When I break down the results I obviously really hurt my overall time with slow transitions. I spent almost 7 minutes in transition. In comparison Michelle spent about 3. It is definitely something I will pay more attention to in the future.
Today I don’t feel too bad at all, just an overall whole body tiredness. Most importantly that pain in my left knee hasn’t resurfaced. I have been walking the high wire when it comes to my knees and impact events.
