Michael: Muscle Memory

Shimmering green leaves
On the lonely sagebrush trail
Reminds us to live.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Last Saturday was my first duathlon in 4 years and coming in 6th and really enjoying the experience has me pumped up for adding more dus into next year’s calendar.

This was almost a sheer muscle memory test as I’ve only ridden my tri bike 3 times this year, and that was predominantly as equipment checks. Fortunately, my muscles’ memories were decent enough as my cerebral memory let me down a bit, or I would’ve done slightly better.

And this is where numbers can be deceptive. According to the numbers, I actually gained time during the transitions as opposed to 4 years ago and lost time on the bike and first run. I’ll concede the loss on the first run (Though I’m pretty pleased with still holding to a 21 minute last 5k over a 4 year time lapse. Not bad for a 60 year old.) But I know I didn’t lose as much on the bike as the clock indicates.

And this where the cerebral failure comes into play. Outside of the transition area, I struggled to get my foot into my bike shoe. Why? Because I forgot my old trick of holding my shoe up with a rubber band so I don’t have to play with trying to pull it up into an easy position while trying to slide my foot in. I also didn’t start off riding with my feet on top of my shoes and build up a little momentum and then coast and be moving forward while I put my feet into my shoes. Both of these lapses cost me time on the bike that really were transition mistakes.

Still, I probably lost about a minute on the bike compared to 4 years ago. But being stubborn and cranky (pun intended), I’m not willing to chalk that time loss up to age just yet. As compared to 4 years ago, I didn’t do any brick work and have cut my bike training rides from three per week to two. But I feel the biggest difference between now and then was not training with a group at all this year as opposed to regularly training with Holger’s L.A. Tri Club group on Saturdays four years ago. I’m not sure I’ll be able to fit that in, going into next year’s training, but I’m sure that would make more of a difference than anything else I could do to improve next season.

Still, all considered, I was very pleased with doing so well after such a long lay off and tickled about getting back into such a joyful sport.