A disappointing and painful day - the Odyssey Half Iron Triathlon, September 16th

On Friday September 15th I departed from Georgetown down to Fredericksburg, VA to participate in the Odyssey Half Iron Triathlon in Lake Anna State Park - a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile ride, and 13.1 mile run. I got down to Fredericksburg at 8 p.m. in time for packet pick up and to get a room at the Ramada. Got everything organized for in the morning and then got some pasta at Ruby Tuesdays before getting to sleep early. There was unfortunately no alarm clock in the room so I set the alarm on my cell phone and turned up the volume - a bad bad idea. I got a phone call every 30 minutes all night long. Also, it was crazy storming with loud thunder and lightning all evening and I kept thinking "not again, not again".

I got up at 4:45 in the m0rning and was out of the hotel by 5:15. It turned out to be a 40 minute drive over to Lake Anna State Park during which time the rain finally stopped for the day. Got my bike put together, went through the bike check, and got my transition area set up without problem. Out of the 200+ participants, it turns out that I was one out of less than 10 or so people not wearing a full-body wetsuit for the swim. Whoops. I was pretty ridiculously nervous before I went off in the first swim wave, really not sure if I was going to be able to swim 1.2 miles and how my legs were going to hold up on the run after biking so far. At 7:00 a.m. the gun went off and the first wave took off from the beach into the lake. I stuck to the back of the pack getting in the lake as I knew I wasn't going to be fast. It turns out that I am a pretty slow swimmer despite all the training I had done in the pool. It took me 45 minutes 8 seconds to swim, good for 14th place out of 14 individuals in the male age 25-29 category. Something is so different about swimming in a lake than swimming in a pool. My breathing was off, I was aimed in the wrong direction every time I looked up to see where I was going, and I really didn't like bumping into and getting bumped into by other swimmers.

The race for me really began as soon as I got my feet on dry land. I popped on my cleats and helmet and hopped on my bike in good time and set out on the 56 mile ride. I am becoming a good biker and was really cruising on the ride passing quite a few people. Unfortunately, I just got a little too caught up in the race and trying to make up time on my bike. I didn't quite make a turn around mile 30 on the course and wound up in the gravel shoulder just off the road. I am not sure exactly what happened but wound up wiping out into the gravel at 20 or 21 m.p.h. I mutilated the handlebars on my bike. I grade 2 dislocated my left shoulder. And suffered pretty disgusting road rash on my left forearm, side, and shoulder. I walked off the pain for a few minutes and then hopped back on my bike and tried to keep riding for a few miles. See the picture of me with my stupid grin, mutilated handlebars, and bloody left arm. As the adrenaline started to wear off after the crash, I started to realize how hurt my shoulder was and came to the realization that I was not going to be able to run. I was incredibly disappointed and spent a long time sitting, reflecting, crying when I got back to the transition area. It was pretty painful scrubbing off all the gravel with hydrogen peroxide. My buddy Mark Roche always says, "Pain is temporary, quitting is forever." Well I say, "Relief from pain is temporary until you run out of vicodin." I am not sure what lesson I learned out of all of this but I do know that I am crossing the finish line of a half iron tri in the very near future!