I wasn't expecting yesterday to be a great race, but it certainly was a great day.
I've been having some Achilles pain since February, at various levels of
bad. As it turns out, (1) wishing that it would get better, (2) laying
on the couch watching Law&Order SVU and (3) ignoring it because it
only hurt when I wasn't running are not approved medical guidelines. I
finally started working to actually resolve the problem after getting
through Shamrock, but I haven't been running in the real world for
weeks, so I was more than a little apprehensive about how the race would
finish for me.
I was happy about starting in the third wave. I'm strongest in swimming,
so this let me get out of the water before a lot of people and meant I
got to see loads of strong Z cyclists zipping past me -- everyone
passing on the left of course :) It must be hard for fast cyclists,
because they don't get "Go Z!" cheers throughout their whole bike ride
because there aren't as many people to pass them.
I was happy about my bike performance because some of the muscles I've
been working on in PT kicked in which meant that I'm getting power out
of more of the full-pedal-circles that we all aspire to. I know that
those muscles were helping because I can still feel them today!
I was not happy to get off the bike, because that meant starting the
run, and my legs were mad about that. By walking all uphills and jogging
downhills and flats conservatively, I got through it. Strangely, I was
only a bit slower than at Rumpass last year when I remember actually
trying to run in Z4 for large parts of it. I'll be using my upcoming
time on the elliptical to practice my turnover and step length.
My performance made the day ok; all the support and cheering made the
race great. The corral of Z's cheering me into T1, the top of the hill
crowd coming out on the bike, the bottom of the hill cheers coming into
T2 (it was still motivational even if the cheerers are there morbidly
watching for dismount crashes), the top of the hill run cheerers, the
middle-of-nowhere on the run course cheering, and the high-5 corral
coming into the finish area. All that yelling and belling makes up most
of my mental images from yesterday, and since I (at least mentally)
smile when I see you all, it means that I remember smiling for most of
the race.
I'm excited for what this says for the year.
* I'm actually working on my technique again in swimming after years of
mostly coasting by. Already this has given me a wetsuit-like performance
sans wetsuit.
* As part of the physical therapy for my angry achilles and over-worked
calves, I'm trying to strengthen some other leg muscles, and that's
already helping in the bike.
* With some new heart rate zones (after like 16 months of slavish
devotion to my original test results), I demonstrated at Shamrock that I
can hold a better running-only pace than last year, and I believe that
once my angry achilles will let me run in the real world again, I will
improve my triathlon-running-pace.
Now it's back to building endurance for the Minimussel/Musselman
aqua-velo weekend and to building healthy legs for the Waterman Half in
October.
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