Tel Aviv Triathlon

I'm on the right. Thanks again to Tan for the picture.

I spent the entire last week trying to decide whether or not it would be a good idea to do this race. My knees have been bothering me for about a week and a half, I have no idea what's wrong with them and in the last two weeks, I did three rather pathetic swim workouts, I ran once and I did one long ride. That's way off my normal training schedule and I was especially concerned about the lack of running (and how running on my knees would feel). However, I'd already registered and paid, so I decided to go, telling myself that if anything hurt, I'd just stop after the swim or after the bike. Yeah, right. I can't even imagine quitting a race in the middle, so I don't know how I convinced myself that I would even consider it.

Things started going wrong last night. I had planned to have dinner on the table by 7 o'clock or so (early for us) so that I could be in bed by 9. For various reasons, that didn't happen. And by the time dinner was ready, I wasn't all that hungry. I ate some pasta and instead of drinking water, I drank diet cola. Big mistake.

I managed to get my stuff ready and be in bed by about 9:45, but I had a lot of trouble falling asleep. I think the cola had something to do with that, but so did the noise my family was making. I did finally fall asleep, only to wake up when DH came to bed. I have no idea how much sleep I got, but it wasn't much.

My alarm went off at 3:20. I was up at the meeting point at 4:00. I got my bike on the bike cart and got on the bus. I had planned to sleep on the bus, but the driver couldn't turn off the lights because one of the parents was handing out numbers and shirts and obviously had to be able to see in order to do so. Finally, about 40 minutes into the ride, the lights went off. Of course, the whole ride was only supposed to take about an hour and a quarter.

Next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of ambulances. We weren't moving. I looked out the window and saw cars stopped and drivers standing in the middle of the road trying to figure out what was going on. There had been a bad accident and we couldn't move until the road had been cleared. No big deal for me -- my starting time was at 8:00, but the kids were starting at 6:30.

We got to Tel Aviv at 6:00. The kids got their bikes off the cart first, because they were in a big rush to get down to the starting area. Then I got my bike and got set up in the transition area. Despite the fact that the sprint wasn't starting for another two hours, all of the "good" racks had been taken and we had to put our bikes on one of the last racks. No big deal.

All of us doing the sprint hung around for a while, cheering for the kids and for the elite athletes doing the olympic distance. At about 7:20 or so, we headed down to the beach. I took a short run on the beach and my knees felt fine. Then I went for a warmup swim. The water was great and pretty calm. My goggles didn't leak. Everything seemed to be going well, apart from the fact that it was starting to get rather warm.

Finally, at 8:00 on the dot, we started. There were over 300 people in the sprint and we all went out together. What a mess! There wasn't anywhere I could go to escape the masses, so I just ran into the water with everyone else. It wasn't too bad. I got kicked a bit and pushed and grabbed a bit and almost got swum over, but I was fine. In fact, I was amazed at how well I was keeping my cool and concentrating on swimming (and even trying to swim relatively fast). However, I also noticed that the water was a lot choppier than it had been while I was warming up, presumably because there were over 300 people moving it around! Going around the buoys was a bit tough -- I got stuck in a group of people that I couldn't get around. I just kept swimming. After the second buoy, I noticed that I was even passing people. But then some of the breast strokers ended up in front of me and to the sides of me and I was trapped. I did the best I could to get rid of them, but it took a while. And then someone swam right across my path. I think that's when I ended up swallowing a mouthful of salt water. Yuck. But soon the swim was over and I found myself running out of the water. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that the swim had taken me about 17:45 -- much longer than I thought. I suspect I also swam a bit more than 750 meters (and I guess that choppy water had something to do with it, too).

The run to the transition area was long. It had to have been at least 600 or 700 meters, if not longer. It was also slippery at some points. I just took it slowly and I was glad to note that my knees were fine. It's when I got to the transition area that things took a turn for the worse.

First it was my shoes. I had a towel layed out and had planned to wipe the sand off my feet before putting on my shoes. Remember that I had to ride and run in these shoes -- I was stuck with them for the rest of the race. Well, I forgot to wipe my first foot and only remembered after it was in the shoe. I wasn't about to take off the shoe to wipe the foot and risk not being able to slip it back on again, so I just left it on, sand and all, and wiped the other foot. Then I put on my number. When I did that, I saw that one side of it had come unfastened and the little plastic ball that holds my number on my race belt was missing. I couldn't race with my number hanging like that and I thought about just tying it on, but then I decided that I really wanted the plastic ball. I looked down and saw it on my towel. I picked it up, threaded the race belt through the number and then put the plastic ball back on. This took me at least 30 seconds, but I guess I should be glad that it didn't take me as long as it usually does! Then I put on my helmet. And I couldn't fasten it. At this point, I was laughing at my complete lack of coordination (and luck). Finally I got it fastened and I was out. My total swim plus transition time was 23:20.

No need to describe what happened next. I got on the bike, got one foot in the toe cage and couldn't get the other one in (this theme seems to repeat itself race after race no matter how often I practice this during training, though I have had a few lucky races). I played with it for a while and then gave up for a few seconds, deciding that I'd work up some speed and then try again. That worked.

The bike route was very crowded. There were 700-800 people on it (sprint and olympic distances) and it was only about 5 or 6 km long (we had to do two out-and-backs). It was very hard to avoid drafting and I saw a lot of it. I started out ok and at a decent pace, but some time after the first turn-around, I started falling apart. Pedaling was getting harder, I felt the wind in my face (in both directions!) and my left knee was starting to hurt. I was getting passed right and left. When people started passing me on mountain bikes, I got pissed off and started riding faster. I must have looked as bad as I felt, though, because for the first time ever in a race, men passing me started asking me if I was doing ok. This continued for the entire rest of the race.

My speedometer (which was working for a change) read 20 km, but I wasn't at the end yet. It turned out that the route was closer to 21.5 km. Finally I reached the end and got off my bike. Ouch. I could hardly walk on my knee, much less run on it. I thought about quitting the race. I had to rack my bike in any case, so I thought I'd rack it and then decide. As I was limping into the transition area, I heard someone scream my name. Quit? No, I don't think so...

So I racked my bike, took an extra couple of seconds to drink and then headed out. I was in pain, but I noticed that slowly but surely, I was working out the stiffness in my knee and it was hurting less and less. Note that I did not have any running-after-cycling aches or pains -- it was only my knee. Total bike time, including the transition: 48:59. Slow.

As I ran out, one of my private students screamed my name. And then the youth coach was cheering me on. And then my coach (as I ran by, I told him that my knee hurt).

At this point, it was about 9:15. In Israel, where there is no cloud cover in the summer (or almost none) and the temperature is always hot, 9:15 is not the time of day that you want to be out running, or at least not in June. And there was almost no shade on the run. Although my knee was starting to feel better, I was starting to feel really awful. My heart was racing and no matter how slowly I ran, I couldn't get my heart rate down. It was way up at 180 or so and just stayed there. I took water at the first water stop. That didn't help. At the second water stop, things started getting worse. The volunteers were each holding several cups of water, but they ran out just as I got there. There was plenty of water on the table, but I was nowhere near the table because I'd run left in order to grab a cup from one of the volunteers. So I had to stop in my tracks and wait for the volunteer (who wasn't in a big rush, though I couldn't really be all that upset with him -- it was very hot and they'd been working for a long time and there were lots and lots of runners going by) to get me some water. He finally did, but not before I said, "Faster, please!" At least I remembered to thank him. After this, I couldn't get my momentum back. I took a walk break. The only time I'd ever done that before in a race was three years ago in a 5k in the US when I wasn't in the kind of shape I'm in now.

There were several bridges that we had to run over during the run. I ran up a couple, I think, but at least once or twice, I couldn't face running up the bridge, so I slowed to a walk. And running down was worse -- I was really afraid of damaging my knee, so I went down really slowly. I just kept taking more and more walk breaks. Then this guy showed up and got me to start running again. We ran together for a while, but my heart was racing again and I had to walk. He stayed with me for quite a while, talking to me, encouraging me and even holding my hand, but I just couldn't keep running. More walk breaks. Finally he gave up and ran ahead (but I was thankful that he'd stayed with me for so long). The sun was hot and I was dying. Ugh.

At the beginning of the run, I'd heard someone cheering on "Hava", who I knew was one of my competitors. In fact, I'd had the identical experience (same person, even) in the Jordan Valley Triathlon. Because I'd had the experience last month, I knew I could run faster than Hava. But I wasn't sure what Hava looked like (because she's always behind me!). There were lots of men passing me, but no women. Until one whizzed past (she was only "whizzing" because I was walking). I thought, "Oh no! There goes Hava!" I tried to catch her, but I couldn't. Then another woman passed me. I decided that maybe this one was Hava (or someone else in my age group) and I was not going to let her pass me. I started running, caught her and passed her. We played this game until almost the end of the race. I'd walk, she'd pass me and I run to catch up and pass her again. At the end, she couldn't catch up with me, because as soon as I knew that the finish line was near, I decided I'd done enough walking. So as far as I know, only one woman actually passed me during the run, and as it turned out, it wasn't Hava.

I finally passed the finish line, feeling really ill. I was so glad to be finished. I was not happy with my time -- 1:47:23. My run time was rather shocking -- 35:03. Only later on did I read that apparently, it had been longer than 5k. That kind of makes sense -- I did walk a lot, but I still don't think I was slow enough to finish in over 35 minutes, especially since I finished the 5k run two weeks ago seven minutes faster than that! It would have been hard to make the run exactly 5k, because we ran up one side of the Yarkon River and back down the other. I doubt the bridge that we had to run over to get to the other side was positioned at exactly 2.5 km from the starting point.

Totally bummed out about my terrible race (but glad that it was over), I brought my bike to the bike cart to get it ready for the trip home. I told my coach about my terrible race and he said it was no big deal, considering all the trouble I'd had with my knees and my lack of training in the last two weeks.

A little while later, I went to see the results. Imagine my shock when I saw that I'd finished ahead of three other women in my age group and taken 3rd place! The most shocking part was that I was 3rd place in my age group for the run! I can't believe that three women ran even slower than I did!!! Actually, that's when it occurred to me that if I was hot and feeling awful, a lot of other people probably were, too. So my lesson for the day was this: No matter how bad it gets, don't give up. You're not the only one suffering! On a good day, I might have caught the second place winner. She finished about 7 minutes ahead of me, but it was a really really bad day for me. The first place winner was way out of my league -- I think she finished something like 25 minutes before I did! Oh, and Hava finished a minute or two behind me :-)

So at the awards ceremony, I got a trophy for my worst race ever. Come to think of it, my second worst race was probably the Galei Hadar Duathlon and I got second place there! Maybe there's something to these bad races after all!

I got home at 2:00 only to discover that I couldn't shower because a pipe had burst and there was water gushing into our backyard and our basement and we had to turn off the main pipe and call the insurance company (a very big deal on a Saturday in Israel -- fortunately, they provide emergency services and this was definitely an emergency). I went to the pool to take a shower (I must have looked kind of funny in my tri suit with numbers on my arms and legs!). And then I ate and started grading exams. Ugh.

I think there were several factors that contributed to my poor performance today. Obviously, the knee problems and lack of training were part of it (though I don't think that two weeks of reduced training is all that significant). In addition, my nutrition has been far from ideal for the last couple of weeks, mainly because I've been spending so much time checking exams that I haven't had much time to prepare normal meals. Also, I was definitely dehydrated. I visited the porta-potty at about 6:30 a.m. and I didn't go to the bathroom again (nor did I feel any great need to) until I got home at 2:00 (and I've had a headache since about noon). In fact, I think this was the most significant factor and it is something I will keep in mind for future races. I really need to increase my water intake, not only on race day, but on the days before, too, so that I don't start the day dehydrated. It's really tough to stay properly hydrated here in the summer, as it's so hot and dry.

I think there's something to be learned from every race, good and bad. Today was definitely a learning experience for me.