Harpole's Heartland Lodge & Resort Blog

This past Saturday (August 2nd, 2008) was the one year anniversary for my first Triathlon!  The Lakeland Bi/Tri Classic in Canton, Illinois was my first tri in 2007. This was a sprint distance triathlon (500yrd swim, 12mile bike, 3 mile run) along with a duathlon and kids triathlon.

My friends Ed, Jill, Bailey and my mother joined me on the trip. Its always nice to have friends and family along with you during a race. We left Friday afternoon and took a scenic drive up to Canton Illinois.  Upon arriving in Canton we checked into our hotel, then drove over to the location of the triathlon. I wanted to make sure nothing had changed from last year. After driving the race course with my vehicle we decided to go back and pick up my registration packet at the Elk’s Lodge. We arrived a little before the scheduled pick up time so we decided to take mom shopping then have dinner. The tradition is always to have a carb loading pasta dinner the night before a race. We found a local Italian restaurant and enjoyed a great dinner. After dinner we went over to the Elk’s lodge to pick up my race packet.

Upon receiving my information packet I asked the people at the registration table how the turnout looked. They said it was a little down from last year because the timing device was off last year and few racers were upset.  They said that the registered times were a little faster than actual times. This was disappointing to me. One of the nice things about triathlons is that you race against yourself. My main goal was to improve my time from last year. They did say that they hired a new company to take care of the timing this year. (They did an excellent job too!)

After picking up my race packet we drove around Canton for a while then stopped by a local ice cream shop. Everyone enjoyed ice cream and I even splurged with a small chocolate shake. After ice cream we went back to the hotel and watched a little tv. I organized my stuff, worked on my new Garmin Forerunner 405 watch. (This watch uses GPS to tell you how fast you are running, how far you have gone, heart rate, etc) Pretty Cool! I planned on using this during the run portion of the race.

I went to bed early, looking forward to tomorrow’s race.  5:00am came early but I never sleep well before a race anyway so I was ready to load up and drive over to the race location.  I arrived at the race around 6:00am and found a good spot in the transition area. Two good friends of mine from the Quincy Multi Sports Club were already there waiting on me. The weather could not have been any nicer. They were predicting highs in the 90′s but revised it to the mid 80′s.

The biathlon portion of the race started at 8:00am then the triathlon started in three waves. (Advanced, Middle, and beginner). Last year I started in the back of the beginner group, but this year I decided to start in the front of the middle group. The swim portion is an open water swim. This means that the swim is in a lake not a pool. Our wave started at 8:12. The gun went off and the race began. Being in the middle was probably not the best idea.  Sometimes open water swims can be a little rough with all the arms and legs flying. I ended up trying to find open space for the first half of the swim. Then I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the swim but by this time the swim portion was almost over.

I exited the lake and ran up to the transition area.  I felt good and was looking forward to the bike portion of the race. The transition went smooth and I was on my way for the bike portion of the race. My new bike, that was given to me by a good friend at Trek, is a an incredible bike.! It’s Trek’s best triathlon bike with a custom pait job. (Equinox XXL 9.9 SSL) I was able to make up a lot of time during this part of the race. I was only passed once (at the very end) and ended up passing several other racers. My average speed was over 20mph on a hilly course. I was pleased with that.

Unfortunately the run portion of my race did not go as well. I am still trying to figure out what happened. As racers call it i “Bonked” out which means I was out of gas.  I had a cramp in my side and I struggle to keep my pace up.  This distance was not the issue. I am racing in two Olympic distance triathlons this summer (1 mile swim, 25 bike, and 6 mile run) and am conditioned pretty well for that distance. But in last year’s race I had a cramp in my calf so I drank extra fluids this year. Maybe this was the issue. Or possibly I over trained before the race. I added a long bike ride day on Sunday’s to my training schedule. Before this was my day off. Good or bad one of the fun things about triathlons is trying to figure everything out so you are at your best on race day.  My run time ended up being slower than last year’s time.

For the entire race, I ended beating my time from last year even though last year’s recorded time was faster than what I actually raced it in.  I was not happy with my run but I was happy with the over all race. I made notes in my race journal and next year I will make some adjustments so my run portion of the race is stronger.

One of the best things about race day is the after race meal!! Anything goes! Dairy Queen was the resturant of choice. So I loaded up with a Chili Cheese Dog and a Hamburger!! Of course I had to have Blizzard for desert!

We drove home afterwards and all of us agreed it was a great day spent with friends and family!

Gary