Malibu Triathlon: The Real Deal

September 13

A co-worker of mine organized our team for the triathlon, and on Friday he sent out an e-mail to everyone that said, "Get a good night's sleep tonight, because tomorrow night you won't." Seeing as he is an accomplished triathlete and marathoner, I figured he knew what he was talking about. So naturally, I got 5 hours (but they were a solid 5 hours) of sleep on Friday night (thanks for the pre-7:00 am wake-up call, Dutch!). What follows is a timeline of my first taste of a triathlon....

4:30 am - alarm goes off
4:57 am - I pull out of the garage to start the 58-mile drive to Malibu
5:02 am - I stop at a gas station to get a bottle of water. I contemplate getting something to eat, but then remember the bathroom stalls at Zuma Beach do not have doors on them.
5:39 am - A calm but concerned e-mail chain starts amongst teammates, as we're all within a few miles of Zuma, but PCH is a virtual parking lot with no alternative
5:49 am - The e-mail exchange continues, getting increasingly less calm and more frantic
6:26 am - I take a chance and park at Malibu High School. I jump on my bike and ride the last 2 miles
6:43 am - Panic starts to set in as our swimmer and I can't find each other. I have her swim cap and transition area bracelet. She is helpless without these two items. Starting/transition area is an absolute madhouse.
6:48 am - We find each other, I give her the cap and bracelet and get my bike racked with about a minute to spare
7:15 am - The race starts! Our information packet says we're in Wave 8. By my math, the 5-minute intervals between waves put our swimmer in the water at about 7:50. She said her goal was 25 minutes, so I tell myself I need to be ready by 8:05 am.
7:51 am - As I'm doing some last-minute tire maintenance, our swimmer, soaking wet and out of breath, runs up and hands me the timing chip. "I'm not ready!" I scream, panicked and completely unprepared. Someone forgot to tell me that the intervals between waves were shorter than 5 minutes.
7:51-7:53 am - I sprint back to our corporate tent, put my shoes on and sprint back to the transition area. No Power Bar consumed, not a single stretch completed. I grab my bike and start a fast walk to the bike mount area.
7:53 am - I'm clipped in and riding in my first triathlon!
8:56 am - I'm off the bike and walking back into the transition area
8:57 am - I look at my Apple iPhone and am shocked when Runkeeper tells me I did 18 miles in 63 minutes
8:58 am - I realize my legs want to fold in half, so I take a load off and continue sweating.


This experience far exceeded my expectations. Four months ago I was probably in the worst shape of my life, and I saw this as an opportunity to motivate and get my body moving again. Over the course of 101 days I went from someone who struggled to go 3 miles to someone who could ride 20 miles with energy to spare. I came up with a training plan, followed it fairly religiously and ended up blowing past both my "realistic" goal of 72 minutes and my "ideal" goal of 70 minutes.

While I was really happy with my performance, I was also really inspired by every person I saw competing. Nobody was judged -- young, old, fat, thin -- it didn't matter. Random people encouraged random people and even though it was technically a race, it didn't feel like a cutthroat competition. 

My one regret was that I was only taking part in one event, but that will change. My training will continue into 2010, but it will include swimming and running. Because in 2010, I'll be entering a triathlon as an individual competitor.

Malibu Triathlon Training: Week 14

Sept. 1 & Sept. 3
This was my second-to-last week of training for the Malibu Triathlon. My original training plan was to go 20 miles three times, but after going the full tri distance of 18 miles on Days 30 & 31 I knew that 20x3 would be too much.

Sept. 1
Having finally found an 18-mile loop that was both logical and relatively close to home, I decided to just stick with it. This ride was pretty uneventful, but I did manage to shave a few seconds off my pace and got it down to 4:15 -- 3 seconds faster than my last 18-miler and 6 seconds faster than the time before that.

Distance: 18.09 miles
Time: 1:16:55
Pace: 4:15




Sept. 3
As I mentioned, 18 miles seemed to be just about all my body could take on one day's rest, and even that was pushing it (are your quads supposed to constantly be sore?!). But according to my schedule, I only had 3-4 more training rides before the triathlon, and there was a training goal I wanted to hit: 20 miles. So despite cringing at the thought of another 18-mile ride in 3 days, I figured it was now or never. With some encouragement from Liz (who has been amazingly supportive throughout this whole process) and the thought of Miles telling Joel, "Every now and then, say 'What the fuck'" running through my head, I decided to go for it.

Instead of trying to come up with some new, crazy, convoluted route that would get me there, I just followed my normal 18-mile loop and took a few scenic detours along the way. By the time I rolled up the driveway and stopped Runkeeper, I was sure I had topped 20 miles. But when I looked and my Apple iPhone, it said I was actually a shade under 18 miles. And the worst part was that it had taken my 1:24:38 -- I felt like I had gone a little slower than usual, but I didn't think I was that far off my usual pace.

Feeling slightly dejected, I went into the house, reported my disappointment to Liz and logged on to the Runkeeper website to survey my ride. When I looked at the map, I realized what had happened: the GPS signal had gotten screwy at around Mile 14, evidenced by the straight line running from Mile 14 to Mile 17, which would've required me to ride over (or through) several buildings and cross two major streets at really odd angles.

I won't get too technical, but I was able to download the data from the website, import it into a different routing program and see that I had, in fact, ridden 19.95 miles! But hey, I'm calling it 20. I probably stopped the timer a second or so before I actually reached my driveway, and for the record, .05 miles is only 264 feet ... OK?!

Distance: 19.95 miles
Time: 1:24:38
Pace: 4:15

I Fell

I do stuff other than ride my bike.

Falling with Style from Josh Engel on Vimeo.

Malibu Triathlon Training: Day 32

August 30
I was on a business trip Thursday and Friday, and Saturday was Movie Night at the Engels', so I was rarin' and ready to go when Sunday rolled around. Since it had been 4 days since my last ride and the triathlon itself will not be taking place at my customary riding hour of 9:30 pm, I decided to take advantage of our Lazy Sunday and go for a ride during daylight hours.

So after everyone was up and about and had some time to drink a cup of coffee, I hit the road. At this point it was already around 10:30 and we've been in the throes of a mini heat wave lately, so I was pressing my luck by getting such a late start. Oh, and did I mention the Station Fire that had started to move toward us? I could smell the smoke when I walked out of the house, but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity for a daytime ride.

It turns out jumping on your bike on an empty stomach (well, I had coffee in there) in late August with a brush fire blowing toward you isn't the most enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning. I think I actually got confused by the ability to see my surroundings so well, and I took a wrong turn that cut my ride down by 2+ miles. I still ended up going a little over 15 miles, but I certainly wasn't setting the world -- wait for it -- on fire with my 4:23 pace. That's a little misleading though, because my pace for miles 1-14 was about 4:07. Once again it was Hells-borough Parkway that did me in, ruining my overall pace by bitch-slapping me with a split of 8:22 (ouch).


But in my defense, here's what I saw when I loaded The Weather Channel app on my (Apple) iPhone a few minutes after I got back home:

So it was hot. Really hot. Really flippin' hot. At least now I know why the streets were deserted when I was out sweating my ass off!