triathlon

Payton MacDonald Race Report

Dok and Soc Sprint Triathlon, May 31, 2009
.33 mile swim, 10 mile bike, 3.1 mile run

Swim time: 9:28
Swim pace: 1:38
Place: 77
T1 Time: 6:00
T1 place: 267
Bike Time: 35:26
Bike mph: 16.9
Bike place: 131
T2 time: 2:18
T2 place: 263
Run time: 30:38
Run pace: 9:53
Run place: 208
Total time: 1:23:50

PRELUDE
This was my first race after my first serious season of training. After joining Team NRGY (Jason Santarcangelo, director and founder) and hiring the amazing Keith Cook as a trainer in Fall 2008 and working very hard for six months I was primed for my first race. Mind you, I had sacrificed a lot to get there, often getting up at 4:30 in the morning to get in swims, forgoing practice or composing time, and especially giving up family time. I decided to register for Belleplain, which was a sprint down in South Jersey. I got a babysitter lined up for my baby girl Madeline, and reserved a luxurious bed and breakfast for my wife Jessica and I. It was going to be the perfect weekend.

So we’re all set to go and as luck would have it about five days before the race I get a minor cut on my right foot which quickly got infected and very painful. On Thursday, just three days before the race, I was hobbling around Manhattan going to various meetings and lunch dates, in excruciating pain. There I was, in the best condition of my life, literally holding on the walls in the subway tunnels and grimacing with each step. After a full day of that I went straight to an urgent care center. The doctor was unfriendly and kept jabbing at the wound, even though she knew I was seeing stars. She prescribed antibiotics and gave me a referral for a podiatrist.

I was able to get into the podiatrist the next day. He said I had an abscess. He drained and cleaned it and looked around but didn’t see anything in there. It immediately felt much better. I asked him if I could do the race on Sunday. He said he’d prefer if I didn’t, but if I wasn’t in any pain on Saturday night to go ahead. “I know how athletes can be.”

At that point I decided to cancel the race. That was a hard decision, but I didn’t think it was wise to possibly make my foot worse and then be out the whole season. So I made the necessary phone calls and resigned myself to a few days of sitting around while my foot healed.
But the problem is that my next race wasn’t for another three weeks. After six months of training having to wait another three weeks to race was very frustrating. I was ready to go! After 20 years of performing complicated music at a high level, I know that feeling and I know how damaging to one’s motivation and passion it can be to have that taken away. I was really in a stew about it, but still wasn’t sure if I should race. By 10 p.m. Saturday night I was laying in bed, complaining about it, and Jessica told me I had “triathlon on the brain” and I should go ahead and just do the race. I wasn’t packed or anything, but figured she was right. Belleplain was too far to drive on that little sleep, so I got lucky and found the Dok and Soc triathlon just a half hour south of our house.

PRE-RACE
I woke up at 4:00 a.m., ate a bowl of cereal with soy milk, some cottage cheese, and water. I was out of the door by 4:45 and down to the race site by 5:30. (I had to get there early because I was a late registration.). After registering I got set up in a great transition spot and then went back to my car. At 6:00 I ate half of a Clif bar and a banana and then slept in my car until 7:00. After waking I ate some ginger snaps and then went for a quick five-minute jog and did some stretching.
We had a brief meeting at 7:30 and the race started at 8:00.

SWIM
In my previous two triathlons the swim was very hard for me and I averaged about 2:50 per 100 yards. But this one was much better. The entry and exit to the lake was terrible as there were many sharp pebbles and stones. Everyone was hobbling in the water. (The irony of this wasn’t lost on me given the condition of my foot.) But the water was comfortable and my new wetsuit is truly amazing. For once I don’t have to fight to keep my hips up. I was able to maintain good form the entire time, breathing bilaterally, three breaths on the right, three on the left. Jessica was watching from the shore and she said I zig zagged a bit, but I still made good time, finishing in 9:28 with a pace of 1:38 per 100 yards. That’s a HUGE improvement over last year. I owe all of my success to my trainer Keith Cook for setting up great workouts, but especially to Jason Santarcangelo and Lenore Imhof, who taught me how to freestyle swim. Six months ago I literally couldn’t freestyle more than 25 yards and now I can do 1000 without too much difficulty. Thank you Jason and Lenore!
I felt strong and confident in the water and I never panicked. My swim used to be the weakest part of my race, but today it was probably the strongest. I do need to work on my sighting, though.

TRANSITION 1
Disaster. I got out of my wetsuit pretty well but I wasted at least two minutes fiddling with my jersey. I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to get it on when my body was wet. Next time I will wear it under my wetsuit like everyone else. I also didn’t lay out my gear very well and I really paid for it. My time in the first transition was 6:00, one of the worst of the day.

BIKE
This was a tough course, with a lot of hills. I kept my effort very high through this, averaging about 12 mph up the hills and about 25+ down the hills (max speed 34 mph), and my heart rate was always in zone 4 or 5, mostly in the low 160s. (My max HR is 178, at least as of five months ago when I had a VO2 Max test.) I passed at least 20 or 25 people and was never passed myself. There was one section at the end where a bunch of us got off course, though. The course was poorly marked and this was frustrating as I lost at least two or three minutes. But still it was a good split. I felt strong and confident and all my hard work on the trainer and bike really paid off.

The bike is my favorite part of the race, and really the spiritual center for me. It’s on the bike that I usually have some time to reflect on what’s happening and what’s brought me to the race. There are moments when I’m cranking up a hill, my heart rate jacked, sweat pouring off of me, that I really see into the potential that each of us has. Like the best performances I’ve experienced with Alarm Will Sound, or as a soloist, it’s at these moments that I feel the most powerful, and yet strangely the most humble, the most connected and yet the most isolated. I’m able to see how we can make choices each day, small ones, but that accrue into a whole approach to life, really a whole life itself, and the far-reaching consequences of these choices. Do I go for a run or drink a beer? Do I continually push myself or do I rest on my laurels? But these choices aren’t made in a vacuum. We make them as individuals, but realize them as a social group. I was racing myself today, and I was also racing others. I was alone, and yet part of group producing an incredible field of energy of desire, ambition, hard work, and passion.

TRANSITION 2
Better than T1, but I still need to work on getting into my running shoes faster.

RUN
This was the hardest part of the race for me. About a third of the way in I started to cramp in my sides and it never really went away. I had the mental and physical energy to go faster, but my body just wouldn’t do it. So I was really more jogging than running. My pace was better than last year, but still needs a lot of work. I wasn’t surprised, though, as I haven’t run that much in the last few months as I was dealing with a strained IT band on my right hip. I need to figure out my race nutrition. I didn’t enjoy the run as much as the other two splits. It felt more like work. Or suffering.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion it was a fabulous day. I set a PR and really made some strides with my swim. I had fun, and in many ways it was really a beautiful spiritual experience, like playing the best music. I definitely made the right decision to do the race, despite the condition of my foot (which feels fine right now). It was a calculated risk, but I think the importance of staying mentally and emotionally focused and motivated outweighed the very slight danger of making the injury worse. I thank Keith Cook, who has been a great trainer. He’s meticulous and thorough, and also energetic and supportive. I also thank Jason and Lenore and all the other wonderful folks on Team NRGY. And of course I must thank Jessica, who is truly a gift from the Gods. The most amazing woman on the planet.

Good things:
1.) huge swim improvement
2.) better bike handling
3.) better run pace
Things to work on:
1.) race nutrition to prevent cramping in run
2.) need to do more bricks
3.) transitions
4.) take a huge nap the day before since I know I usually don’t sleep well the night before a race (I’m too excited, just like for big performances)
5.) sighting in open water swims