I’ve wanted to do the Heritage Park triathlon for a few years but haven’t. This is a short sprint tri with a duathlon run simultaneously. It is an early one usually the 3rd Sunday in May. Many Corporate Challenge companies use this as a tryout to see who can participate in the KCCC tri a few weeks later.
This year I decided to do it since I wouldn’t be competing in KCCC. I've been running 15-18 miles a week, very little biking, and no swimming.
I got up at 5:00am in order to make the 40-mile drive down to Heritage Park for a 7:30am start time. It is near Stillwell, KS on the south side of the metro. Us northlanders often refer to this as “near the Oklahoma boarder.” The sun was just starting to rise when I arrived. There were still lots of good spots in the transition area, thankfully, because I moved my bike 3 times. While waiting in line for chips and marking my buddy, Duke, from work said the lake water was 52 degrees. The spring weather had been cold with very few days above 70 and lots of rain, but this still surprised me. I don’t think I’ve ever swam in water that cold, would I be able to breathe?
The air temperature was in the lower 50’s and it was very foggy. The duathletes were happy as this was perfect racing weather for running and biking. Around 7am I put on my wetsuit and set up my transition area. I left a sweatshirt out just in case I was freezing after the swim.
Usually I get in to swim a bit of a warm-up before the race, but this day I did not. The few (and I mean very few) that did said it wasn’t uncomfortably cold. By habit, I requested the first heat with the fast swimmers, otherwise I’d have to start 30 min later and I’d spend most of leg swimming around people. When I got to the start I felt a little intimidated with all the young hard-body serious triathlete boys. I was one of a handful of women and probably the only 40-something woman and without any muscle definition.
The 500M swim started in water and was a counter-clockwise triangle with 2-turns. I chose to stay on the dock and when the gun sounded I jumped in and moved as fast as I could to generate heat. I fell in behind another swimmer to drag and got into a good rhythm. My head started to spin after a few minutes. It probably had something to do with only training once in the past 8 months, but I was too cold to care. I just wanted out of the water. Shortly after the 2nd turn I heard the gun start the next heat. This meant 5-minutes had lapsed and I was making good time. I popped my head up to look for the finish and decided to pass my drag and finish strong. When I exited the water my watch said 8:42 but my recorded time was 8:51 since the chip reader was closer to transition. Looking back, I noticed I was mid-pack (22nd of 42) of the first heat, not bad for an old lady.
T1 went smooth and I got out of my wetsuit with some grace. I put on my bike shoes, ran my bike out of transition, hopped on, clipped in and took off. The course was new to me as I hadn’t even looked at a map. The first mile and a half was a long deceitful hill and I was not feeling good about my only training being the 4-mile jaunts with Buster. Once we turned back into the park the rolling hills were mostly downhill. I soon saw the lake and transition area and realized we were doing loops. In total the bike leg was 3 laps and my average speed was over 16 mph. An acceptable rate for this early in the season.
The run leg was next, my weakest link. I walked out of transition drinking some water and started to jog about 20- yds later. It was a flat and managed a steady pace. Before I knew it I hit the 1-mile marker and my watch said 9:19, a very fast first mile for me. I figured it was wrong because I felt slow and steady. The 2nd mile was hilly and I walked up a few of the hills and my watched registered 11:03 for, a total of 20:22. For the first time ever in my life, my legs were moving on their own and not wanting to stop. Round and round like bicycle wheels, and luckily, my cardio was able to handle it. I wasn't wearing my monitor but it heart rates seemed okay. As we came around the lake on the 3rd and final mile my body was getting tired but I listened to the legs. I finished the run at 30:34, a pace of 10:11 which was my fastest run pace ever for a triathlon. I can really tell that I had been training for the run.
My final time was 1:27.38 which is good enough for me. I took 28th out of 43 women and for swimming I was 32nd out of 198 triathletes. Not too shabby for an old woman. I grabbed a few bagels, a banana, and a yogurt and went and got in the line for free massages!
My next race is 8/1/09, unless I decide that my toe is well enough for one in July!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Toe trauma, no drama
My first visit the emergency room in 30 years happened the night of June 6th. After a busy morning and afternoon, I decided to go to the Italiana Fest at Zona Rosa to see some of my friends from work. We stopped at QuickTrip for a cold drink and then drove around ZR looking for a parking place. Riley said I should just park at Dick’s but I wanted a spot in a shaded garage. I found one in the garage that attaches to the only indoor common area in ZR.
We parked and walked to the doors, where I proceeded by grabbing the big glass door too fast and having it roll over my left foot. My first thought was “@#!$^* that really hurt bad!” We continued inside and I looked down and things didn’t look right. I told Riley we needed to go to the restroom where I could clean up my foot. I only made it a few steps when I heard people gawking about the bloody trail I was leaving, and then someone pointed me to the Guest Services desk where they had first aid. The lady behind the desk handed me some tissues, bandaids, gauze, and ointment and I’m sure my face looked dumbfounded. I was starting to feel light-headed so I grabbed them and sat down at a table about 10 feet away.
I wrapped the tissues around my mangled toe so the passer-byers wouldn’t see it. The guest services lady told me if there wasn’t enough paper towels in the bathroom I could hunt down a cleaning lady and she would have some. I was sweating profusely and was pretty sure that I couldn’t stand up without fainting.
Riley was a trooper and was doing everything she could think of to help me. She suggested that I call a nurse so I called my friend Heidi who I'd been chatting with earlier in the day. She is a (non-practicing) nurse and her husband, Jason, is an ER doctor. I told her that I hurt my toe and I thought the toenail had come completely off but I was too afraid to look. Jason said ER would only dress it and give me pain medication, so if I could do that myself there was no need to go. Since I couldn’t even look at it, let alone touch it, I thought a visit to a medical professional sounded like a good idea.
Next, the “first responder” for ZR showed up to help me thru my ordeal. He glanced at my foot, told me to elevate it, wrote up an accident report, suggested I go to Urgent Care but not drive myself, and was on his way. Thanks dude.
As Riley worked with the guest service lady to find an open urgent care center I called a few friends to see if they could come give me a ride. After 3 calls with no luck and discovering that all urgent care centers close at 6pm or earlier on Saturdays, I decided to drive myself two miles down the road to St. Lukes Hospital.
I mustered my strength, stood up and limped to my car, arguing with Riley most of the way that I could indeed drive okay. We made it to the hospital fine and spent only 5 minutes in the waiting room. It was 6:40pm. I notified my softball team that I wouldn’t be playing the next day because I was in the ER.
I was taken to a private room with a bed and cable TV. I laid down and put a blanket over me and Riley and I both sighed a sigh of relief. As we watched NEMO, the nurse, doctor and billings clerk came and left several times. Unable to let anyone touch my wound, the doctor decided to numbing it would be best. Yes, those two shots almost hurt more than the wound itself, but 10 seconds later I felt I could jump up and go run a 5K.
One of my softball team members texted me back and called me a pansy and said they always play with their ailments, so with the beauty of camera phones she was able to see why she needed to find a sub.
Between the doctor and the nurse they cleaned me up nicely and equipped me with the knowledge and materials to take care of my wound for the next 5 days. Riley and I left the hospital about 2 hours after we arrived and went straight to a 24-hr pharmacy to fill my prescriptions for vicodin, motrin, and cephalexin (pain and anti-infection pills).
It has been 10-days since the trauma and it is no longer an open wound. The first 2 days were painful. Days 3-7 got better and only hurt bad when touched. Now it is just uncomfortable as my nail-bed learns to exist without protection. I've continued my exercise on the stationary bike and elliptical in flip-flops. On day 8 I ran barefoot on my treadmill, my feet were sore after.
My doctor says it will take 1-3 months to see the nail start to grow, and another 6-9 months for it to come in fully. There is a possibilty that the nail matrix was damaged and it could take even longer for it to produce new nail plate cells. My goal is to participate in the Smithville Woman's Triathlon on August 1st.
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