A Little Sprint

Friday I enjoyed a nice rest day. It was so nice I'm taking another one today. Kelley's sister Meri and our neice Kaileigh came into town for a visit. Kaileigh is staying with us for the whole week, they live about 2 hours away sort of close to Charlotte. We like to keep Kaileigh for a couple of week during the summer. She likes it here, and we like having another set of hands to help out with the kids. I'm trying to encourage her (by example) to be more active. She's going to turn 13 years old on the 25th, so she's a lot of fun to have around.

Meri went on home saturday early afternoon. Sunday was her birthday, and her husband had something planned. Still, it freed me up to do some fun things saturday.

I started with a haircut. Working from home I have nobody to impress, so I wait about twice as long as most guys to get a haircut, usually about 8 or 9 weeks. Then I hit up a couple of the local tri stores looking for a suit. I am not one of the lucky whores who got a free SUGOi tri suit just so they could review it on their blogs. But after reading their reviews I had decided to go out and get one, and my parents wanted to pay for it for my birthday. So the first store didn't have the SUGOi, but I tried on some other suits, a 2XU and an Orca. Both were not bad, but had some fit issues and color issues.

The second store was Carolina Triathlon, who offers discounts for Spinners members. I had to put the blinders on to get past the bikes, and found the exact model of SUGOi I was looking for! They had one in my size, and it was the right color. and it ended up being $30 cheaper than I could find it online. Awesome!

So after finding the right suit, I went into the gym for a short long run. I ended up doing 5 miles in just over 46 minutes, I didn't want to push it really fast because I knew what I wanted to do Sunday. And I had to get wife approval for the suit before I could use it. She would tell me if I should never wear something like that in public, but she approved!

Now we all know you can't have an expensive piece of new tri gear without giving it a fair trial. And I think that's the only time I have ever spent $120 on a single piece of clothing. So Sunday morning I went over to the parents house for a little sprint. Originally, I was supposed to be in Raleigh for the Triangle Sprint triathlon on sunday, but it sold out before I could get registered, and I didn't feel like travelling to Raleigh this weekend anyway.

So I donned the tri suit and got everything setup to do a sprint distance in their neighborhood. I even got the Garmin setup for auto-multisport mode so I could play around with that some. Really, I only wanted to see if the new tri suit would show any chafing problems or restriction of movement. And I wanted to see if I could finally get my transition times down under 90 seconds without having to change clothes.

Gear is ready, TA's are setup. Let's do this thing.

Swim: 750 meter, 10:56:50
I did 40 laps in the backyard pool, which I think is about 750 meters. Might be a little less, that distance in open water usually takes a few minutes longer. But the suit was great. It has 2 pockets in the back that are mesh, and I wasn't sure if they would trap water and slow down the swim or not, but it was actually quite comfortable.

T1: 1:56
Caught my breath a little bit, threw on the bike shoes and helmet, ran to where my bike was stationed in the driveway and I was out. Sometimes, I will take a gel and water in T1, but my typical race T1 times are around 6 minutes. So I was pretty pleased with this.

Bike: 13.1 miles, 54:09
I made 4+ loops around their neighborhood. There are only about 5 streets, and it connects up with another hood. And there are some pretty serious hills in there. I hadn't been on the bike in a few weeks, it's been so hot I've stayed indoors. So after hitting those hills, the heat started to kick in. I pushed it for a lap, then took it easy for a lap, then really pushed it, then took it easy, then strolled around until I knew I was going to get past 13 miles. The hills were steep enough to really shred my legs, and the heat/hydration was a force to be reckoned with. I cleared 2 water bottles, most of the time I would only plan on drinking one. And I felt really strong getting tons of strange looks from the walkers and people coming back from church. I guess they weren't expecting to see a guy flying on a road bike wearing a tri suit.

T2: 3:00
Off with the bike shoes and helmet, on with the running shoes. I did take a gel and some water, threw on the camelbak and took off running. Nothing wrong with that. I do need to get a race belt to hold the number before my next race 8/16.

Run: 3.12 miles, 32:40
Took off running is a joke. I had a really tough time getting into a rhythm on the run leg. Again, the suit felt great, I was able to keep my abs compressed and felt good about the way I looked running around the neighborhood in that heat. Still got some stares from the neighbors. I had to walk more often than I really wanted to, but again, I just couldn't get my breathing and legs into the same pattern. And their hood was all hills. Some were steeper than others, I tried to avoid those. It was still a tough course, and I knew I had pushed it a little too hard on the bike to really be taking those hills too fast. Plus it was over 90 degrees out there with very little shade. I thought about cutting the run short, but headed out for another lap instead.

Results: 1:42:43 total
The SUGOi Fuel Tri Suit was awesome. No chafing. No restricted movements. It was cool, breathed well, and while my skin dried up quickly after the swim, the right parts of the suit held water that kept me cooled off on the bike. Or I sweat through it instantly, I'm not sure which. but I felt great and the suit was wet every time I touched it.

The less than great parts were that I had no place to wipe the sweat from my head. Normally I use shirt sleeves for that, so I ended up getting a lot of salty sweat into my eyes during the run. Gotta come up with a remedy for that. What do you use?

The Garmin in auto-multisport mode was really cool. I didn't wear it during the swim, I have no idea if you are supposed to or not. It's a Garmin Forerunner 205, do you wear a watch while swimming? I have no idea if it would short out or not, and didn't want to take the chance. I just started the timer and jumped in the pool. Then whenever I hit the lap button, it moved into T1, then again into bike mode, then t2, then run mode. The only bad thing was that the main display only showed "BIKE" or "RUN" and the total distance covered. So I knew when I crossed 13 miles on the bike, and had to add 3.1 miles to that number so I would know when I needed to stop running. Normally on the bike I like to see my current speed, and on the run my current min/mile pace. Instead all i got was total time and total distance covered. Might have to work on that for the future.

So it was a fun weekend! Congrats to Stacy who ran her first triathlon this weekend, and Sarah who ran a great race in Chatanooga. Big ups if you were racing too! Pics of the suit (and the interesting new tan lines it left) still to come.