(Photo courtesy of Dare2Tri staff)
As I have mentioned several times in the past, what was supposed to have been a “one and done” Triathlon in August 2015 grew into years of racing because of Dare2Tri. Without that meeting at the Shamrock Shuffle and Keri’s generous offer to attend their camp, I might not have had the opportunities to train and race throughout the country over the last 9 years!
In that first camp, I showed up with very little; this year, I showed up with a lot of gear and bruises sustained from falling onto train tracks. At this time, that’s all I can or will say about that part.
Like last year, Andrew was my guide. He knew about the injuries going into camp, which helped him to help me throughout it.
Day 1 started with a triple brick (simulated swim in -> T1 -> 3 mi bike -> T2 -> 3/4 mile run x3). After Andrew had everything put together with the bike, I got on to try the fit. When I played around with the starting clipped in left foot first, it felt OK. However, with my normal starts (right foot in), I couldn’t get up onto the seat because of the ribs. Andrew made some adjustments, and we focused on different mounts and starts/stops until I was comfortable with the adaptations. Once that was done, we did 2 shortened bricks before packing up.
During the afternoon, we were in the lake instead of inside in one of the pools as usual. I liked that change, and it was nice to have the extra space. During the swim, I had to stop several times to catch my breath — the ribs were an issue at times.
Day 2 started in the lake again. Prior to getting in, Andrew helped to partially rebuild the swim tether, as we had been bumping into each other a lot the prior day. The swim on day 2 went a lot better, and I believe I only had to stop twice due to my ribs.
Prior to doing a course preview, we had to have our goggles and tethers reviewed by officials (Leigh Turner checked ours).
The second half of Day 2 included bike skills led by Aaron, breathwork, and an ice bath. We came back from the bike skills a little early because my ribs started really hurting.
The evening ended with the traditional fire pit and s’mores. Shortly after things broke up, the non-traditional tornado alarms started going off. While the storms passed, it was still an eventful 40+ minutes. In that time, I found out about YouTube tornado live-streaming, which I had never heard of. Very interesting to hear it, and very informative.
On race morning, we arrived by 5 AM and started race setup. By 6:15 AM, we were all ready to race and headed down towards the water. Because there was an in-water start with holding times after you went over the mats, I believe that the swim times were off.
We started after all of the Championship waves as a group of twenty (ATD1). Without meaning or intending to, I went out way too fast. When I surfaced the first time because of my ribs, Andrew told me that I was swimming 2:00/100s. That was about 30 seconds faster than intended — and I paid for it throughout the rest of the swim. Between the ribs hurting and not being able to get / keep enough breath, my swim from 200 to 750 meters was the equivalent of a “run / walk” in the water.
T1 went a lot more slowly than normal. As I had mentioned earlier, not being able to get full strength from my upper right side caused issues. So it took longer to get the wetsuit off and the bike gear on (by about 2 minutes).
We got out on the bike and had a successful 14.3 mile ride. We did have to stop and dismount because of how narrow the u-turn was. We only lost about ten seconds from it though. On the way back, I tried to tuck in, but could only get about 75 percent of the way to Andrew’s back because of the ribs.
T2 was a little more in line (although about 45 seconds longer) as normal than T1 had been.
We headed out onto the run, which became more of a walk/run because of both the calf and rib injuries. But Andrew helped me to find a way to power through the run through his continual encouragement. While I did speed up a little going into the chute, I couldn’t get the normal kick I have in the last 60 – 75 yards.
While it wasn’t the race I had planned, it was still a successful one. Because of Andrew’s help with the adaptations for the bike and encouragement throughout, I was able to finish. And I did podium (ATD1 VI Male – 2nd)!
Again, thank you to Andrew for all of his help throughout the weekend. And thank you to Dare2Tri for all of their support — not just at this camp, but since 2015!
