A hazy film of thin clouds hung over the eastern horizon. The sun occasionally peeked through, a thin white disk floating a few degrees above a gray sea. I stood ankle-deep in the Atlantic Ocean, the bathwater-warm surf lapping around my ankles, surrounded by 150 or so triathletes, most of them a lot younger- and faster-looking than me.
A thought flickered across my consciousness: "What the heck am I doing here?"
I quickly shoved that thought aside. I'd put in several months of training, so now all I had left to do was swim a quarter-mile, bike 10 miles and run three. Then I could say I'd finished the 6th Annual Ormond Beach YMCA Tri-Y Triathlon.
I did a lot of triathlons during my late 20s and early 30s, but that was 20 years and a serious knee injury ago. This time around, I got some coaching--Debbie Tillman brought me up to speed on triathlon training while Ruth Thompson helped me improve my swimming technique.
An account of the training program appears in Sunday's Your Health magazine, which went to press before the event--the race was originally planned for Memorial Day weekend but was rescheduled for Father's Day because of flooding on the bike course.
"Tapering" is perhaps the best part of triathlon training--for a week or 10 days before a race, workouts are shorter and focus on intensity, not endurance. Thompson assigned me two pool workouts for the week before the race.
"With distance swimming, you just concentrate on speed the last week," she explained. "Do 100 (meters) to warm up, eight 50s, a 400, and another 100 to cool down."
"You will not gain any fitness this week, so don't do too much," Tillman added. "This is where you let the body rest and take in all the training that has built up. So cut down on volume, but keep some of the intensity--five or six bursts of speed in the middle of the workout is all you need."
She also counseled me on prerace nutrition. Two hours before the race I should eat some easily digestible carbohydrates and a small amount of protein. I should make it a point to drink lots of water the day before the race and on race-day morning. She suggested I try an energy-booster like GU gels, then use one just before the race and another while on the bike.
Finally, Tillman suggested I set up a transition area like I would on race day, laying out a towel with my bike shoes and helmet, running shoes and anything else I'd need, and practicing the transitions.
Thus prepared, I dutifully donned my bright yellow swim cap, secured my goggles and took my place in the surf. On cue from the official starter, I thrashed through the waves until it was deep enough to start swimming toward the first buoy.
It was the perfect day for a summer triathlon, with a calm ocean. Near-record heat might have slowed the field a little bit, but it didn't prevent 44-year-old John Dodd of Ormond Beach from winning the USA Triathlon-sanctioned event.
Dodd finished in just under 55 minutes--54:56, to be exact--completing the quarter-mile swim in 9:14, the 10-mile bike in 24:18 and the 3-mile run in 20:01, with 1:24 spent in transitions. Paul Rice (51, Daytona Beach, 55:17) and Todd Graff (45, Ormond Beach, 55:20) finished second and third respectively.
The female overall champion, Mallory Dunn (25, Daytona Beach) finished in 56:41, with swim/bike/run split times of 9:02, 26:34 and 18:56, with 2:11 in transitions. Colleen Nicoulin (35, Port Orange, 1:01:26) and Lauren Leffler (24, Ormond Beach, 1:01:26) finished second and third.
I was a bit slower, but that's okay. After about 16 minutes in the ocean, I ran up the Granada Boulevard ramp and across A1A to the transition area where my bike and other necessities waited.
The Tri-Y bike course was beautiful. I rode north through one of the city's nicest riverfront neighborhoods before cutting across the barrier island to head back down Oceanshore Boulevard, with its unobstructed view of the dunes and the ocean beyond. However, I was too preoccupied with keeping a competitor in my sights to enjoy it.
I had practiced the bike/run "brick," so my legs only felt a little bit like they were made out of concrete when I started the run, and they loosened up fairly quickly. I had already drunk the contents of my water bottle while on the bike (and probably a quart of the Atlantic Ocean during the swim), but the day was heating up. I took the water offered at the aid stations situated approximately every mile along the course and tried to ignore the aching in my bad knee.
There's a funny thing that has always happened to me during the last stretch of a race--no matter how tired I'm feeling, during that last 100 yards or so my pace quickens involuntarily, as if I'm being drawn by some mysterious power toward the goal.
After almost 1-3/4 hours, the finish line came into view. True to form, a tingle ran up my spine, the effects of an endorphin-and-adrenalin cocktail. I felt the "kick," my legs taking over, my head just going along for the ride.
"Oh, yeah," I thought. "That's what the heck I'm doing here."
For more on preparing for the Ormond Beach YMCA Tri-Y Triathlon, see "Training for a Triathlon" in Your Health magazine, distributed in subscription copies of the June 28 Daytona Beach News-Journal.
