Some of you may be wondering if this blog is more of a weather report than about training for an Ironman. I wish the later was more true but the first continues to have significant influence so it would be tough to omit. Last weekend was no exception. Saturday was my first Olympic tri of the year. It is a mile open-water swim, 26 mile bike and 10k run in Muncie Indiana at the same site I will do my second half Ironman in July. When I was writing my blog last week, the forecast was not great but manageable. It was for a low in the mid 50's and sunny with highs in the mid 60's. The warmer weather of late had also begun to rise the reservoir water temps day by day. Early on Friday it all began to change. The forecast went to lows around 50 and sunny. Unfortunately late week rains and lower temps had halted the water temperature rise. Late Friday evening just before bed I was building contingencies into my race gear. I was adding layers and items to help deal with what may develop.
I awoke Saturday at 5AM. Call me a little crazy or obsessed but my morning alarm is my clock radio that plays the National Weather Service forecast loop. My defense is that so much of my activity is so strongly weather dependent I need to know what is at hand so that I may dress and plan my workouts accordingly. That morning I took a double take. The temperature was 43 with winds NW at 10-15 and the forecast was for highs of only 50 and mostly cloudy. The last real kicker was the report of light rain. You have to be kidding me! I think I even shivered at this point.
I headed to Muncie with some hope and optimism that it might improve. Upon arrival, the weather was still partly to mostly crappy with a forecast of much the same. The mood of the participants was one of dismay and betrayal. As I stood in line to check in the announcement came that the water temperature was currently 61.7 degrees. In air temperature standards that does not sound bad but for water its is brutal. For a reference take a shower and leave it on full cold and stand in it for a half hour. Needless to say the day was not off to a good start. Along with the cool temps the misty rain continued. It was just enough moisture to make it a pain. Bike is wet. Clothes are wet. Everything is muddy and cruddy. As I prepped for the race I could not keep the cold from creeping in. By the time we got to the start which they delayed a half hour in some hope of a slight warm up, all of us were already shivering. I would be swimming in a wetsuit but when I had bought my suit I had gone with the sleeveless version as an option to keep your shoulders more free and in Indiana the water temps don't really demand full sleeves. Dang it. The race started and when I hit the water I had expected the cold but just not that cold. Wow, this was gonna be a long swim. It was. This was in part due to the fact of the strong winds were making it challenge to hold good lines and on my way back to the shore I was sighting off of observer kayaks. This was a mistake as they were blown well off the course due to the winds. Therefore, I got in at least a couple extra yards for good measure. As I exited the water I saw two fellow competitors I should have been a couple minutes ahead of based off of previous swims against them. This was not adding to my day. This course provides a pretty long run to the first transition. Its about a quarter mile all up a slight hill. I knew I was cold as I really never warmed up at all in the swim. In fact I think I went through numbness and on to cold again. Therefore I went for added layers to bike in. I added a long sleeve jersey, socks, calf sleeves and gloves. This paid huge dividends. The ride was not pleasant and I was cold the whole ride but I am not sure I could have made it without those items. One issue I faced was that with the gloves, I could not eat or take salt pills on my ride. Despite my need to do so I had no hunger or thirst. I may have drank 10 ozs of my planned 80. The bike went fairly well though and I ended with a 22.2 average. Coming off of the bike I new it would be a challenge. I had held back a bit during the ride to try and assure my legs would cooperate with my running. As I finished the bike I was perplexed on what I should wear to run in. After the race I learned several participants actually rode and ran in their wetsuits. These were actually some top finishers too. I decided to gut it out and just go with my tri kit (bike shorts and sleeveless tight jersey) and my running gloves. Not sure why I chose the gloves other than as built in handkerchiefs. In retrospective it had to be a bit of a goofy look. The run was challenging the first 2 miles as I could not feel my feet except for the very center of them at the pressure point of my bike pedals. The run actually went fairly well with an 8:17 average on a rather rolling course. Despite, what was a miserable feeling race it produced good results. I was 16 minutes ahead of my time from last years race. I had improved in all areas except my transition one where I was slowed drastically to dress for winter conditions. The only warm spot was a 3rd pace(podium) finish in my age group. The bad part was everyone was long gone by the time they got to awards. As I drove home I could not get warm. The chilled feeling persisted through the next day. It was so bad that I just skipped Sunday's planned ride and run. I just could not go back out in the blowing cold air with the way I felt. Monday, I was back at the pool and on a run with a warmer disposition and it felt good. It has to warm up at some point. My fear is that this lost training time in warmer temperatures will not get me conditioned well for the inevitable heat of the Louisville Ironman. Time is still there to do so but I would prefer to begin this sooner than later. For now, I concentrate on my frist half Ironman in just over 2 weeks.
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