04.18.09 - East Cooper Coastal Tri

0.6 mile ocean swim, 16 mile bike, 4 mle run

Back in the fall, I learned via Facebook that a buddy of mine from high school, Steve Glover, has also picked up a triathlon & marathon habit. He mentioned that he lived on Isle of Palms near Charleston and within walking distance to the race start/transition area of the East Cooper Coastal Triathlon.

This race was the first tri he had ever done the previous year. I told him I would come down and join him. Only hesitation was the ocean. I am scared to death of the ocean. I am that guy that is extremely hesitant to go more than knee deep into the ocean, mainly because I am deathly afraid of ocean critters of all kinds. Very, very afraid. So to a degree, this race was much of a self-directed intervention as it was a triathlon.

Saturday morning we had a 5K in Greenville, SC. The 2nd annual Zebras Do Exist charity 5K that our FCA huddle was both participating in and helping out with. Lots of fun had by all. Allyson pulled off a podium in her age group. We wrapped, jumped on the road and headed down to IOP. We arrived early afternoon at my friend Steve’s, who lives one row off the beach. Very nice. He showed us around then had to head into work, which by the way is at a restaurant in Mt. Pleasant called The Red Drum. He invited us to stop in that evening for dinner, so of course we did. It was amazing and he, the owner and wait staff treated us like royalty. And even picked up the tab. Unbelievable. We headed back to the house and settled in for the night. 7:30 start the following morning.

Race day we got up, rounded up the gear and out the door. We rode to the race start/TA. Took us all of about three minutes to get there. Allyson was shortly behind with the SFV (super fan van.) We were running a little late, so the setup was a little rushed as well as the squeezing into the wetsuit. The walk to the beach was a little ominous (see notes above about the ocean.) Couldn’t have been a more beautiful morning though. Pretty much perfect conditions, except for, well, the ocean. Water temp on race day was in the high 60’s, or as I would call it – frickin’ freezing. I didn’t get in and warm up. I decided to stay as warm as I could for as long as I could. Probably not the best decision in hindsight. All of the men started together on the beach. The horn sounded and we were all off into the ocean.

Simply put, the first half of this swim was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Triathlon or otherwise. The initial shock of the water temp was worse than I expected. Getting out to the first buoy required a lot more energy than I expected. I turned right and started swimming down the coastline. Surprisingly, amidst all that chaos not a single person touched me the entire swim, which was great because I certainly didn’t need to add that to my struggles.

By about 200 yards in, I took in a face full of water and my heart rate was way up. I rolled over onto my back and back stroked about 10 seconds just to get my composure. I pressed on for another couple hundred yards but was really struggling. No rhythm, breathing was erratic, things were not going good. At this point, I was about a split second away from turning right and taking it back to the beach.

I rolled onto my back again and backstroked, this time for about 30 seconds or so. I looked up at the clouds and the sun and started praying, asking God to calm my heart. And he did. By the midway point of the swim, everything just came together. I was now swimming like normal. The rhythm was back. I now knew how long it takes me to get use to swimming in the ocean – about 500 yards.

The rest of the swim was actually a blast. I kind of wanted to go start it over again and definitely looking forward to the next one. I exited at on the beach near the boardwalk at the city park on Isle of Palms where the TA was. There were a good number of folks out there on the beach watching, including Allyson. I came out and got a hoorah from David Bolger, one of the founders of Try Sports, a multi-sport store chain in NC/SC. I had a chance to hang out with him back in December.

Then there was the transition. I remember looking down at my watch as both feet left the water and it was around 19:30. The timing mat was at the entrance to the TA and my total swim time was 22:12?!? Needless to say, it was a haul to the TA from the water. For the most part, T1 went great. I was on the Giant Trinity I was testing out and was loving it. In the first mile, there was a quick climb to the top of the connector bridge, then quick down and all flat from there.

The first 8-10 miles of the bike were fast and flat. The highlight was coming back across the IOP connector and reaching the top of the connector bridge. For a split second I almost stopped the bike and took in the scenery. What an incredible view of the Atlantic, the beaches, Charleston off in the distance. It was beautiful, but there were still another 6 miles or so to go, so back on the pedals.

A hard right hander took us down to Sullivan Island and then back to the TA. I was fortunate to log my fastest bike split of any sort to date. Off the bike and onto the run. And it was starting to heat up. The first mile wound us through a residential neighborhood on IOP, then it was back up the connector bridge and the long, straight, completely wide open and none shaded run to the finish. This was a point to point run, and once you got to the top of the connector bridge, as far as I could see was as far as I was running. I carried a bottled water with me on the run. Good idea. I passed a few folks once I got on the connector, but it was quiet otherwise. The action started picking up toward the finish line. I saw Allyson as I turned left into the shopping plaza/finish chute. She was snapping some photos. Pushed through the finish at 1:35:31. This was nearly ten minutes faster than I was expecting. The evening before at Try Sports packet pickup, they had a contest where you filled out your projected splits. I can’t remember exactly what all of them were, I just remember it adding up to 1:45.

I saw my buddy Steve a couple of times quickly on the bike. Other than that, it was a short wait at the finish line for him. He knocked 15 – count ‘em, 15 – minutes off his time from the previous year. Great job, Steve. Allyson slipped off to find my new favorite post-race beverage – very bold, dark roast coffee. I have no idea why. She found some good brew and we hung around for the awards ceremony, listening to some good tunes, talking with folks. I wanted to hang out and see if maybe I had placed in my age group. They did not post any prelim results. The 35-39ers were toward the end and I missed third by 52 seconds I would have rather missed by 5 minutes. Still was able to come in 27th overall. Not a bad day at the track and a fun first ocean experience.

We went back to the TA, grabbed our stuff, off to Steve’s to shower up and head out for some really good post-race pizza. It was great to catch up with him on life the past 15 years. We had to get back to Charlotte, so dropped of Steve at his place and hit the road mid-afternoon.

So Whats?

- A swim is a swim is a swim. I don’t need to get all freaked out by the conditions, the competition or the venue. Stick to the technique, stroke pattern and game plan and things come together.

- I had no idea how much of a difference a tri-specific bike would make. It makes a ton of difference, especially on a flat, open course like IOP. And I came off the bike feeling better than I ever have at any race.

- Carrying the water bottle on a sprint distance works for me. I normally train for longer stuff with a Fuel Belt, which is overkill for the short races. The water bottle helped with hydration and distraction.

Really enjoyed this race. Looking forward to going back and giving it another go next year, hopefully with a bunch of my local tri buddies. It was also a good warm up for the big race in two weeks – White Lake Half Ironman. I’ll be riding the same bike, so it was good to get some seat time on it. After that swim, 1.2 miles in the placid waters of White Lake should feel like a breeze. Feeling good coming off this race.