Aug 10th - The CDA Triathlon

Today was the day we were all waiting for. It started last night with thunder, lightning, and rain but by race time all cleared out and was overcast and cloudy - just right for a race morning.

My three key words for the race was to (1) survive the swimming, (2) attack the biking, and (3) glide in running the last part. How did I do?

The very first part of the swim was wonderful. All the kicking, froth, and drafting made it easy to swim. I think I was very buoyant. But I never got into a relaxed rhythm that I could sustain. I rested on my back about every 100 yards, had a hard time getting through the cross current of the Olympic distance swimmers in the middle and by the end kept drifting left towards the shore and not to the finish on the right. Swimming did not click for me. It will require more practice, more distance training, and perseverance. I know it will come. It did on my last practice Friday. I kept up with Julienne's pace for 600 yards. That would have resulted in a time of 12 minutes not 18 minutes.

 Biking was all I had hoped it would be. I encouraged each person that I passed. I thrived on the hills. My speed was generally always over 20 mph. I was mostly in a tuck. I gave it all I had and had  one of the best times in our family.

Running was hard. I came out of transition huffing and puffing. You can see it in the picture here.  It took me until after the park and into the road by NIC to calm my breathing down and get more relaxed. I kept looking for the mile marker and found it later than I thought. I tried eating some gel, but that just stuck to my mouth. By the time I reached the drink station before the turn around I needed some water to wash it down and stopped just after passing a young woman. After the turn around I stopped again at the drink station and the young woman passed me. I decided I needed to stick with her like glue as I was certainly not running with ease. To me she was the MVP of the race. She helped me finish and distracted me the last few miles with conversaation. Her pace was slower than mine, but she kept me from stopping and that is what counted.

Here we are at the end of the race. Her name is Erika Klenk, age 18, from Tahoe, CA.  Her entire family (the Porcarelli family) has been racing in the CDA triathlon for 3 generations. He grandma Sally is 78 and started the trend of triathletes through the family. They have always loved this race because of the family gathering and competition. Erika is the youngest in the family and is 18 and hopes to keep coming here and keeping the tradition alive. Erika placed second in her age group.

DANCE FAMILY RESULTS

Devin from the CDA Press kept asking me how many other family members were participating in the CDA triathlon with me. I never could answer her for sure, because my Dad's funeral took precedence and no one was sure when it would be and how other things would need to change to make everything fit in. Eventually 5 of us participated: My wife Julienne, my second son Dave, my seventh child Jacob, and my nephew Blake.  All of us ran the Sprint Distance except Dave who ran the Olympic Distance.  The names LAST, FIRST, SECOND, THIRD etc are in comparison with each other. The Age Place is the medal won in their Age Division at the CDA Triathlon. We took home five medals.

 Blake, Jake, David, Richard, Julienne

Bib Name Swim T1 Bike T2 Run Chip Elapsed Time Age Age Place 105 RICHARD DANCE 0:18:01 0:03:11 0:43:51 0:01:26 0:27:29 1:33:58   62 2 LAST FIRST FIRST THIRD THIRD THIRD 779 JULIENNE DANCE 0:12:50 0:03:56 0:51:56 0:01:02 0:29:08 1:38:52  61 2 SECOND  LAST LAST FIRST LAST FOURTH 763 JACOB DANCE 0:12:19 0:03:16 0:44:52 0:01:28 0:23:08 1:25:03  24 1 FIRST SECOND  SECOND  LAST SECOND  FIRST 764 BLAKE MCDONALD 0:13:46 0:03:33 0:46:57 0:01:14 0:22:55 1:28:25   23 2 THIRD THIRD THIRD SECOND  FIRST SECOND 65 DAVID DANCE 0:29:31 0:01:41 1:10:41 0:01:07 0:40:00 2:23:00  36 3 FIRST FIRST FIRST FIRST FIRST
More pictures follow:

Julienne getting on her bike

          


Jake our First Place Sprint Finisher              Blake our Fastest Runner-Smiling

			Here is Julienne passing the runner  in First Place about 100 Yards from the Finish Line
			Julienne having to settle for 2nd in her age division about 50 yards from the Finish Line

 

											Age Place
			Ann in the center got second in her last race about 50 yards from the finish line,  so when she saw Julienne, also in her 60+ age group pass her, she put on the extra effort and took first. Good for her to learn from her last race and make good on her resolve. Congratulations Ann on getting 1st.								2
			Dave Dance showing us how it is really done in the CDA Olympic Distance, coming on strong in 3rd place for his age group (35-39) finishing as the 31st male, just 19 seconds behind second place. He is about 100 yards from the finish line in this photo.								2
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August 9th - Front Page CDAPress-100th Blog

This is my 100th blog. This is also the day the CDA Press came out with a front page article entitled

A spiritual journey to the Cd'A Triathlon

Training, tragedy, inspiration, hope"   Here is the link to see the article:

CDA Press Front Page August 9th, 2013

DEVIN HEILMAN/Staff writer did a good job trying to get the story in before her deadline on a busy day for me.  She kept asking me who of my family was also running the triathlon. I didn't really tell her because with my father's funeral everything went up in the air. At first no one could enter as we thought the funeral would be August 10th, then when the decision was made to hold it Aug 17th there was an opening, but the arrangement of people's schedules caused others to drop out. 

Who is doing it?

Richard Dance

Julienne Dance

David Dance - 2nd son

Jacob Dance - 6th son

Blake McDonald - cousin

Who was training or is capable of doing it, except for scheduling and out-of-town conflicts?

Tom Dance - 1st son

Kim Dance - daughter-in-law

Channing Dance - Dave's wife, daughter-in-law

Jeff Dance - 3rd son

Kari Dance - daughter-in-law

Logan Dance - 4th son

Heather Dance - daughter-in-law

Dallin Dance - 5th son

Chelsie Dance - pregnant daughter-in-law

Maria Dance - one and only daughter, just completed the CDA Ironman

Johnny Dance - 7th son and 8th child

That is 15 people in my immediate family who could do it. Basically everyone if they were not pregnant or out of town. 

Now you know why I wanted to be fit enough to do one myself, just to keep up with them a little bit.  

SHAWN GUST / Press Photographer did a great job with the pictures. He didn't want me posing so I had to do an actual workout. When he took the running picture I had already run 1/2 mile or more and was looking like I was shuffeling more than running. For the biking picture I had already ridden 1 mile or more and was going up some hills. It looks like I am huffing and puffing.  Realistic shots. It takes real work and exertion to do a triathlon. 

Thank you CDA Press. I hope this article encourages others with adversity to keep persisting.

Aug 9th - Last Swim

This morning I went down for my last swim before the CDA Triathlon. Julienne went with me. She has been my training partner from the beginning. She got me out in the morning when we moved to Hayden and was the better swimmer, biker, and runner before and during most of  the sponsorship. She has faithfully been on almost every training session. It only took her a few swim lessons to master it. I think that I am just about ready to click in swimming.

Today we swam 600 yards. I stopped 5 times and rested on my back about every 100 yards.  I now know that I can swim the sprint distance with the crawl which is a major major improvement over doing a sidestroke or backstroke.

Aug 8th - Wowie Zowie 155.9 Pounds I met my Goal

Earlier today I told the CDA Press (Devon) I weighed 157.5 pounds, down 22.5 pounds from my initial weight at the beginning of training, but after CDA Press Photographer (Shawn) put me through an actual training run and bike ride before taking pictures I got sweaty in the hot sun and burned off some water weight, so maybe it is not my true everyday weight, but it was late in the day about 4pm when you generally have gained several pounds back from breakfast, and lunch and I didn’t do a full workout, less than 5 miles total between running and biking, so maybe it was the true weight anyway. But the scale said 155.9 the first time I’ve seen that in decades.  I am ready for the triathlon.

This is my last bike ride of any consequence before the race. 

Tonight is the night to get to bed early and get some good sleep as we will have guests tomorrow night because I’ve heard that sometimes the night before a race is  a tossing and turning one.  I’d like to get a full 8 hours of sleep and see if I can rest off all my sore muscles from moving the past three days. 

Race day is getting close and I am excited.

August 7th - Swim and Run

This morning I had my last training session with Derek Garcia before the triathlon. Derek got a bee sting and swells up like I do. So he took an inflammation pack and will not have recovered enough by Saturday to do the race. He’ll be there to cheer me and others on. 

More than tips about sighting, knowing where you are, and breathing, the best thing a coach can do is encourage you to keep striving, knowing that you’ll get there at the right time.  He said that I should probably do the sprint, but by the end of the season could do an Olympic distance just fine.  I just had to get used to swimming longer distances. My stoke rate was okay for now, my breathing was starting to come, my form was not that far off that he thought I was at a 45 minute mile pace which is great for me.  It means a reasonable swim time which is the weakest link in my triathlon. 

He said I had improved a lot during the week, but I knew more could have been done. I didn’t train much after Saturday when my Dad passed away. It just seems like other things occupy your mind for while before you can spring back to training. I have been imagining the reunion between my Mother who died in May and my Father Aug 3^rd. My Mother had MS for over 40 years and it’s been that long since she could run and dance. My Father became almost immobile the past year. I can imagine my Mother taking him around to see his Dad that died 50 years ago and his Mother who died about 25 years ago and other close friends and then suggesting that they go on a run together or to a dance and float around a bit. 

In the afternoon I went to the CDA Chamber and worked on the final article to print off for all participants about my journey into the triathlon. Katherine has been a good supporter all along and Diane took the pictures. One standing next to a tree in my running clothes is on the participant handout. 

After that I ran the sprint run course and a little bit more to get a feel for it. I was a steady gliding runner but happy to end it in the afternoon 90 degree heat after about 4.5 miles.  That should be my last run of any consequence before the race.

Aug 5th & 6th Moving

August 5^th/ 6^th – Move Date       

The landlord of the house we had been renting the past year is moving back and this necessitates a move again on our part.  We had a false start Monday morning as the new rental home was not cleaned, but by 5pm it was and helpers started appearing. We had help from the following friends. More than 30 people in all. 

Linda Felsing

Jeff, Julie, and Ryan Crandall

Ken & Bev Sewell

Nancy Clarke

Bruce Owens

 Judi Owens brought dinner

The Estes family made a pie

John and Ben Geddes

Matt Ratelle, Bryan Duffy, Tyler

Gary & Dana & Aaron Smith

Fred, Sheila, and Hayden Sharp

Ernie, Jane, Kent, Reed, & Becca Richter

Dave & Channing Dance and kids

Tom & Kim Dance and kids

Blake McDonald

Jacob Dance

Johnny Dance

Of course the main burden was on Julienne Dance. We appreciate all that helped us. Several loaned us trailers and trucks, dollies, and carpet cleaners along with muscle power. Julienne and I were very appreciative of the help we received. It is always amazing how many possessions we have and how many become less meaningful in a move.

I was so tired and my muscles so sore at the end of each day that I just sunk into bed.