Most of my races have been with Trisport Promotions who run the largest race series in the world right here in Ontario.
Over the years, I have usually done three races a season and have slowly moved up to the long course races. If you know me, you know that I don't fit the usual athlete mold. Triathlons are for everyone but longer races do require a bit of preparation.
The 2002 race season is currently in limbo. In late January I was diagnosed with a C6-7 Radiculopathy. In layman's terms it's an impingement of the nerve root coming out from between the 6th and 7th neck vertebrae. This has caused various levels of pain, numbness, and muscle weakness in my left arm. Physiotherapy (neck traction and ultrasound) has helped and I no longer have constant buzzing in the left hand but there's clearly more to it. One June 1st I went for an MRI and the images will be available to my doctors by the 10th so I'm hoping the treatment can be more focused.
I've experienced certain prescription drugs for the first time including:
I found it fascinating to read the pharmaceutical monographs at www.rxlist.com
So it's now June and I'm still not able to ride a bike. In one way it's fortunate that I did IMC last year so I had a lot of conditioning to get through this. The downward slide in conditioning started nice and high. However, it's also extremely frustrating to be grounded after flying so high last year! I may be unable to race in the half-IMs this summer and may be relegated to one of the late-August sprints at best.
September and the local triathlon season is over. The first year in 10
that I haven't done any triathlons.
You can't ever do the Ironman just right. It's too big; there are too many
places to fail. So you keep getting better and you keep failing, and you
correct this and fail at that,and all the while your potential keeps
stretching way out there. And the funny thing is, right about the time you
start to think that you never will do it right, you begin to realize you've
already done it perfectly: you finished, once. The possibilities from that
point on are endless.
- Mike Plant's "Iron Will"
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither
enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows
neither victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt
The following are links to follow if you are interested:
Links
see also the Tri Links from Trisport's web page.
Books
My 2000 Season Race Schedule
2001 Race Schedule
Yay! I got a lottery slot for IMC so everything will be focused
towards getting me there and finishing strong enough to walk to the
med tent for the IV bag with my name on it. I'd still like to do Peterborough
and Collingwood again but K-Town is probably too close to IMC.
Note: The new swim-bike transition route is awesome. I had an
excellent race even though the legs hurt a bit by the end of the bike. My run
was unbelievable. Sub 6min/km pace and feeling fresh at the end.
Note: Rain/drizzle in the morning through most of the bike.
The race went well until about 4.5mi into the run. I was averaging 8min/mi to
that point which is probably too fast for me. Knee and heat related problems
hit me hard.
Note: No worries! I paced out the Collingwood race in a
cruise mode holding back to not kill myself. My rest pulse the next morning
was 44.
Note: Swim was quite a bit slower than last year. Puzzling.
The water was fairly calm and yet much slower than last year and the Muskoka
2km. And not just for me so I'm blaming a long swim course. I had a very good
bike split (33.4kph) but my fluid intake was too high and too strong early on
the run. Stomach problems between 4 and 7km until I stopped drinking to let my
GI system settle. By then it was too late to make up much lost ground. A very
hot day in KTown. I used the sponges a lot to stay cool.
Note(01/08/19): One week to go. I'm strangely calm today. I
think it's due to the bike ride yesterday. The taper has been some of the
toughest and most emotional days I've had all year. My body wants to go out
and workout but my mind won't allow it. The ensuing battle left me feeling
jittery and wanting to scream. Constantly. The inspirational postings on the
IMC Comments Page pushed
me over the edge. I'm finally starting to see a little bit how IMC has affected
me, will affect me. One week to go.
For fun I have drawn up a probability distribution for how long I think it will take me to finish. HERE
Some quotes to get me through the day.
Decoding the results, I was 1122nd out of 1985 people and 238th out of 342 in the Men 30-34 age group.
Swim: 1:17:43 (2:03 per 100m) (1322 of 1985, 267 of 342)
T1: 5:50
Bike: 6:07:41 (18.3mph) (892/1985, 218/342)
T2: 8:27
Run: 5:31:21 (12:39 per mile) (1281/1985, 243/342)
run splits: 2:37:05(first 12.5mi) 2:54:16(first 13.7mi)
Total time: 13:11:00
Other links I've found
Quotes
Shopping Links
Content swiped from the Triathlon Intro FAQ by Gail DeCamp, Ruth
Kazez, and Jim Casey posted to rec.sport.triathlon. See
www.dejanews.com for other great posts
on rec.sport.triathlon by these triathletes and others.
RCS: $Id: index.html,v 1.27 2003/05/14 02:49:57 ruhtra Exp ruhtra $
