What a Weekend!

Going into this weekend I had more concerns than confidence. Would my kids have a clue as to what their assignment was on the field. Would my blood sugars be ok while coaching. Have I trained hard enough for my triathlon, will I encounter a low and have to pull out of my triathlon - I was lossing sleep over that stuff all week but in the end the stress gave way to joy and excitement.

On Saturday my Pee Wee football team (the Downtown Giants) took on the Brooklyn Titans. This is only the second year the Downtown Giants have been in existence, the Brooklyn Titans have been around for about 5 years. Most of the kids on my team have never played a down of football in their life and some have only been to three or four practices! But you have to play the cards your dealt and play we did. From the moment my guys got to the field I was impressed, we were able to line up in 2 straight lines and get into our warm up grid flawlessly. My assistant coach and I asked each other who the heck are these kids. They were focused, they were intense and most importantly they were having fun. From the opening kick off my kids played hard and fought each play. Sure we had missed assignments, broke contain a couple times and jumped offsides here and there but by and large they shut down a more experienced, more athletic team. Final score 6 - 0 Downtown Giants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only encountered one low during pre game so that was a success as well - but I owe my kids 6 sprints at practice tonight, I made them a deal that for every win we have I'll do one sprint for the # of points we win by, I'm really going to regret that decision once everyone "gets it" and we have some big wins.

Now onto the triathlon er should I say duathlon. Late Friday night I got an e-mail from the race director stating that the swim had been canceled for the Bear Mountain Triathlon. Apparently the fecal matter level was 1,700, the legal limit for a triathlon is 1,000, so it went from a 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike and 3.1 mile run to a 1.5 mile run, 12 mile bike and 3.1 mile run; but USAT triathlon points would be awarded so I guess according to the governing body I did a triathlon although I don't know if I can consider myself one just yet until I actually swim in a race.

Waking up at 5:42 am was not easy, I didn't get to my parent's house upstate until midnight and didn't fall asleep until 1. Groggily I got into my car and drove to Bear Mountain; once there I realized how cold it was and really regretted my decision not to bring a jacket for the bike. Pre race I had a muffin, turned my pump down to 10% and had a clif bar - started with a blood sugar of 120 right after the clif bar so was most likely 170 when the race started. I ran the first 1.5 miles in 11 minutes 50 seconds towards the end of the first loop I heard my name being chanted, I looked up and saw my Uncle who runs Marathons and his son who is a cross country runner in high school cheering me on - thanks Freddie and Uncle Fred you two provided a huge boost! I ran over to my bike and T1 was 51 seconds, I hopped onto my bike and headed up an ENORMOUS hill. They say not to do a triathlon without having seen the course before and now I know why. It's not that I had a problem getting up the hill as I passed 5 to 10 people on my initial climb, it's that I had no idea how long it would go for so I didn't know how hard to pedal - my average speed on the bike was 14.1 mph, had I had better race planning I could have increased that by a decent margin.

On the bike I had an accel-gel on my initial climb. My quest to find the perfect workout food for a diabetic continues but accel-gel has taken the lead. Unlike Carb Booms, Hammer Gels or Clif Shots - Accel-Gel has actual sugar not just carbs! The Delicious Key Lim Accel-Gel has 12 g of sugars while chocolate has 17 g of sugars - while Hammer Gel takes about 25 minutes to change by bs Accel-Gel does it within 10 minutes, a huge help during endurance events.

During the first downhill I really really really regretted not having a long sleeve jersey on. While I looked darn sexy in my orange and blue tri suit - the goose bumps on my arms proved how moronic I was! 33 mph on a downhill when it is barely 50 degrees out in a sleeveless tri suit is just a very bad idea, if that makes me soft so be it, I'm not as tough as I once was, I guess an auto-immune disease will do that to a man. I finished up my bike ride drinking gatorade, and had a hammer gel at mile 9 - T2 was 48 seconds, slowed slightly by the amount of gatorade I pounded in the transition area. I ran out of the gate and finished the 3.1 miles in 23 minutes 49 seconds for a 7 minute 39 second pace and a total Triathlon time of 1 hour, 29 minutes and 54 seconds - good for 39th overall (out of 93) and 4th in my age group (out of 9) - couldn't be happier with my results.

Stupidly I didn't test at all during the tri/duathlon for 2 reasons; I felt fantastic and didn't' want to psych myself out, I finished with a bs of 178 so my nutrition was really spot on; had I felt weak at any point I would have tested but I didn't want a seed of doubt entering into my mind. Could I have run into trouble from this mentality - absolutely but I also believe you have to trust your body and listen to it - I had no symptoms of a low and felt like I was at full power so I didn't think it was necessary to test during the race.