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| Karin and I celebrating With friends in Asheville the night before her debut |
I know what you are thinking just as you read the title of this blog, "oh what is Lamperski ranting and raving about this time" or " here goes Mr. Humble and his pride". Well it's not quite what you may perceive initially, as this blog post will pertain to my athletic adventures on a very limited scale. As any of you who know me, you are aware that I am very lax at updating my blog post so this is a few weeks dated but very necessary to someone whom I support in every way. You will soon know this person as Mrs. Lamperski, (Wow) but most of you would know her as Karin Helmbrecht currently.
Karin embarked upon the sport of triathlon because her running injuries began to linger more and more, so I decided it was time for her to hop on a bike and save her body from the beating of the concrete while running only to beat up the concrete with her sweet Giant Avail, that she would classify as "really cute". After all at the end of the day who wants a fast bike when you can have a "cute" one right? Anyways, I lured Karin into signing up for the Lake Logan Triathlon, since I was working the event as well as participating in the Olympic distance the day before she would make her debut in the sprint distance. In short, Karin provided Bill Shires a pretty amazing recap of her first adventure into the multi-sport world and I wanted to highlight this on my own blog post. I was more proud of her finishing (and finishing well to boot!) this triathlon than I was for any other personal achievement I have netted. Please take a moment to read her recap, I am a very proud fiancee' to say the least, she did even better than I could have imagined.
Karin Helmbrecht's recap of the Lake Logan Sprint Triathlon:
"I recently had my first experience competing in a triathlon, the Lake Logan Sprint, which is part of the TrySports triathlon series. I had always wanted to compete in one of these races at some point in my life, and since they are a big part of my fiancé, Chris Lamperski’s, life, he gave me the push I needed to sign up for this event.
I am still new to cycling, I got my first road bike in May
and spent a good amount of time cycling while I was coming off a running
injury, but cycling took a back seat recently now that I am into NYC marathon
training. I still have been riding one
or two times a week, but there just hasn’t been very much focus on
cycling.
As far as swimming goes, I hardly ever can get myself into
the pool. Chris and I spent a week in
July at Lake Toxaway, and he took me on my first ever open water swim. I really enjoyed this, and we did this swim
each morning. It wasn’t until one week
before the race that I participated in my first OWS with other swimmers, at the
Lake Norman YMCA OWS. This, I did not
like as much. We started in the back of
the pack and so many swimmers just kept stopping, and I would run into them,
and get kicked. I decided that I could
get through 500 meters of swimming even if I don’t practice, so I was not
terribly worried about the swim portion of the race.
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| The gang happy and full of hops |
We went up to Lake Logan on Friday evening, so Chris could
work this event, and he was also competing in the Olympic distance competition
on Saturday morning. This was my first
time even watching a triathlon, and it made me pretty nervous for my own race
the next morning. I had several friends
competing on Saturday, and they all looked like they were having fun, but they
are all seasoned tri-athletes, and to me, it just looked like so
intimidating. I watched the transitions
and these even seemed like hard work to me.
Chris had a great race, as usual, and all my other friends who competed
loved the race and all did so well. They
warned me that the lake water was very cold and highly recommended I wear a wet
suit, which I have never worn before. A
few of my friends also had panic attacks in the water during their swim, which
just added to my nervousness.
Saturday night we met up with our friends in Asheville for a
couple hours, then fueled up for the race at Mellow Mushroom, before heading
back to our hotel to get to sleep for another 4:30am wake up call. As I went to sleep I just kept thinking about
how much work a triathlon seems, and is it really worth it? We
got to the event site a little before 6 o’clock in the morning, for the race to
begin at 7:30. I picked up my packet,
chip and got my body markings. Then I
headed to the transition zone to set up everything I needed. A woman in the transition zone recognized
Chris from winning the run split of the triathlon the previous day, she asked
if I would be a contender in my race, to which I replied, “um, no, I don’t do
many races.” She said, “yes, I could
tell from your Giant bike.” I still
don’t quite understand what she meant by that, but it sounded like an insult to
me. Good confidence booster going into
my race. Maybe it’s the fact that I have
reflectors on my wheels still, which I hear is so un-cool, I also still have
the 2nd set of brakes on my top handle bars, which is another sign
that I am not a serious cyclist. These
don’t bother me much, so I’m okay with being un-cool.
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| Karin soaking in the Cold Water before the start |
Chris helped me slip into my wet suit, which if anyone has
ever worn a wet suit, you know there is no such thing as just ‘slipping’ into a
wet suit. (Again, so much effort for
this race.) We sprayed my body with Pam cooking spray and went to work getting
myself into this wet suit, which I was still a little skeptical of
wearing. We then headed over to the lake
so I could get in the water before the race started to see what it feels like
to swim in a wet suit, and also, get use to the 68 degree water
temperature.
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| Karin coming first out of the water only to be passed by some other woman in route to T1 |
I got into the water, and I immediately loved the wet suit
with each step. The water was cold, but
this suit helped so much. I had no hesitation
getting in all the way. I swam around a
little then headed over to the start of the swim. It was an in-water start. The men and open athletes started three
minutes before the women. As soon as
they announced for us to start, I went, I started in front, so I was just
waiting to start getting passed at any time.
To my surprise, I never got passed.
I still do not know how this is possible, but it was nice, because I felt
like I had the whole lake to myself. I
swam around the first buoy, still no one around, then onto the second buoy
where I started passing some of the men.
From this part on, there were some obstacles to take to make sure I
didn’t get kicked in the face by these back of the pack swimmers who were
either back stroking, or breast stroking or even doggie paddling. When I got to the portion of the swim where
you swim under a bridge, the water temperature dropped substantially. Surprisingly though, I found it
refreshing. I loved every part of this
swim. I felt like the wet suit did all
the work and I barely had to even kick or use my arms much. I figured that I was the first female when I
got to the dock, since I never saw any blue caps around me, and Chris confirmed
this when he saw me getting out. I got a
little confused getting to the end of the swim, there were a few volunteers on
the dock telling me to get out anywhere, I swam to the furthest side of the
dock to get out, and just got out very slowly, to which, I was passed out of
the water by the next woman.
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| Karin flying through the swim, look at that extension! |
I took my sweet time in this transition, I had no problem
getting my wet suit off, I then put on my cycling shoes, a shirt over my
tri-suit, since I was a little chilly, threw on my helmet and off I went with
my bike. As Chris can confirm, I had
some troubles getting onto my bike and clipped in, then I was off, to the
uphill start. It was great to struggle
going uphill at the very beginning of the bike portion. This was my least favorite leg of the
race. It was just not a good cycling day
for me. There were good parts, when we
were going downhill, or on flat surface, but the hills just killed me. I struggled again on the hill at the fifth
mile, to where a male cyclist caught up with me and encouraged me up the hill,
telling me that it was all smooth sailing from the top to the finish. I asked him about the last hill I was warned
about, he sort of brushed it aside, but I still tried to save my energy for
this last hill. I was mostly alone for
the bike portion, I got passed by some people, probably about 10 male and
females combined. I kept looking at my
mileage, and just hoping I would be done soon.
I got to the last hill at 12 miles.
It just didn’t seem to stop going up, I knew there was a nice downhill to
the finish once I got up there, but I seriously thought I was going to have to
walk my bike up at one point. I just
kept reminding myself to pull my legs up. I did see at least 4-5 cyclists
struggling with this hill ahead of me as well.
Finally I reached the top and it was smooth sailing to the finish. It was not a good cycling experience for me,
and that part makes me want to do this race again, just to improve on my
bike. I really didn’t like the part
where we had to run with our bikes to the transition zone, it seemed to take
forever to get there.
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| Out of T2 and ready to Roll! |
Again, I took my time getting through the next transition to
the run. Put on my socks and running
flats, put on a visor, as it was getting pretty sunny out at this time, and
headed off for the last leg of the race, YAY!
I knew this was an out and back course, straight up the hill, then
straight back down to the finish. I felt
alright at this point. Since I have
never done a true brick (I attempted twice in 3 months time, but always had at
least 15 minutes in between my bike and run,) I wasn’t sure what to expect, or
how I would feel. It was great to start
passing people in the run. The uphill
was tough, but I knew the downhill was coming, and I love downhill running. I will admit, I stopped at the water stop to
grab a cup of water and drink it while I walked. This probably took all of 5-7 seconds, in
which time I got passed by a runner I had passed on the way up. I looked at her leg and saw she was in my age
group, I remember her passing me on the bike as well. I started to run and caught her, to which she
told me “good run, good luck,” I said “thanks, you too,” and continued on. That was nice of her. I reached the turn around and then got really
excited that I was almost done. I really
had no clue what pace I was going, I was just ready to be done. I got passed by a woman on the way down, she
was in my age group as well, and she had a lot of energy running down the hill,
cheering on runners going up on the other side of us. I knew I could not stay with her, so I let
her go. It was finally the home stretch
and I could see the finish line and Chris at the end. I was very excited to be finished!
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| Heading up the mountain, looking super smooth |
I finished in 10th place overall, with a time of
1:23:27. I got 4th place in
the swim with 9:57, 17th place in the bike with 47:23 (ouch) and 7th
in the run with 21:40. My transition
times were 2:39 and 1:50. Not as bad as
I thought they were going to be.
Overall I think that was the perfect race for my first
triathlon. It was a great experience and
I’m glad I had the support and encouragement from Chris and all of my
runner/tri-athlete friends. The other
competitors were so nice and so encouraging through the whole race. Since I am training for the NYC marathon, I
don’t think I will be doing any more triathlons this year, but there are
definitely more in my future!"
As far as my performance at Lake Logan, I was very very satisfied considering most of my training has been mental as I head into the multi-sport events loaded with confidence that I can still push without the proper training. My swim went very well as it always does in cold water swimming, I just feel so much more relaxed, my breathing is level and my stroke just seems much easier with or without a wetsuit, but thankfully I was able to wear one here. I ended up having a huge PR in the swim which leads me to believe the buoy's were certainly move at some point and that I should add about 2 minutes to that time. The bike went relatively well minus rain that halted me from any signs of courage I might of had while using a friend's $5000+ try bike equipped with a $1500 set of race wheels. needless to say I DID NOT attack the corners as I did not want to pay for this bike had I wrecked, but when there was a straight shot I dug down and picked up the pace the best I could. On the run I relaxed and just kept patient, which really paid off. I didn't go out quite as hard as i normally would but I kept a solid steady pace through 2 miles then really picked up the 3rd mile before turning back down the mountain. Overall I finished 9th place and 2nd in my AG, and as a HUGE surprise I learned that I had the fastest run split by over 2 minutes with a 34:41 and $75 cash prize!