I did the Pat Griskus Olympic Triathlon last weekend. It's the Northeastern Regional Championships, and it was TOUGH. Last week was a difficult week, and I didn't feel like I had my best stuff during the race, and it showed.
The swim was a little over a mile, which was fine, but I came out at 27 minutes, which is slow. I swam easy, but I didn't mean to swim quite that easy.
T-1 was about 2 minutes, no big deal. I wore my new tri shorts for this race and put on a biking jersey at T-1, which got a couple of comments in the vein of, "Hey, that's a cool idea." Yes it was. I ended up needing the pockets.
The bike course was TOUGH. Very, very hilly course. Flat for six miles, then climb for NINE, and then down a bit, and then back up for maybe another mile, mile and a half. 23 miles in damned near 90 minutes (1:22, 16.8 mph avg). Not fast at all. I usually average closer to 18 mph. I mean, it was a tough ride--easily the hardest I've ever done--but still, I'd like to be at least a little faster than that. Plus, I lost one of my water bottles on a bump at about Mile 5, leaving me with one bottle until bottle pick-up at Mile 15, and I was damned lucky that they had a bottle pick-up in this race because you usually don't see that in an Oly.
The run was okay--55:49, about 9 minutes/mile. Not a horrible 10k time for me at the end of a race, but it's certainly not fast or anything. I'd like to be able to run about 8:30/mile at the end of a race, but I need to put more miles on my legs. My pulled groin from earlier in the season really kept my run training from being what it should have been.
Total was 2:49:27. I was 224/402 Overall, 23/36 Age Group. Middle of the Pack.
I mean it's good that I did the race and ran it smart, kept my head, and finished strong. On the other hand, I've swum MUCH faster miles, I usually average over 18 mph on the bike, and I'd like to run closer to 50 minutes (8:30/mile). So don't know how much of that is due to a hard course and how much was due to the crap from last week, but this definitely wasn't the best race I've ever had.
Let me say this: I'm happy I did it, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
My next race is a Sprint in July. After that, there's the Litchfield Hills Olympic, which is at least on a course I've ridden. There's one tough climb at the end of the bike, but only the one. It should be a better race--I hope.
I mean it's good that I did the race and ran it smart, kept my head, and finished strong. On the other hand, I've swum MUCH faster miles, I usually average over 18 mph on the bike, and I'd like to run closer to 50 minutes (8:30/mile). So don't know how much of that is due to a hard course and how much was due to the crap from last week, but this definitely wasn't the best race I've ever had.
Let me say this: I'm happy I did it, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
My next race is a Sprint in July. After that, there's the Litchfield Hills Olympic, which is at least on a course I've ridden. There's one tough climb at the end of the bike, but only the one. It should be a better race--I hope.
2 comments:
It's great that you keep pushing for improvement, but don't get discouraged. You're doing great considering you've had to deal with your injuries.
I've often wished I had that kind of drive.
By the way, thanks for the advice on story telling. I'd like to make my own comics, and your info will surely help.
Comics are great. But they're weird, too. With any other medium, it's enough just to tell a good story. With comics, you have to tell a story that's interesting, but you have to make it visually interesting, and then you have to actually get the comics made. That's the hard part. As a writer, you might spend a few days scripting a comic story, but somebody has to sit down and spend about 8-hours per page drawing it. Getting through that whole process is its journey.
I mean, I like comics, but I find the production process to be incredibly frustrating for the most part, which is why I'm DMing a Dungeons and Dragons game now (online!) instead of writing comics. At least with D&D, my players read and care about my stuff. With comics, you can write what is literally a GREAT script, and NO ONE will ever see it for lack of an artist. Beyond that, writing for an online game is similar to writing comics because both are decidedly collaborative storytelling processes.
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