You may have noticed I do not race often. To me racing is a time to measure myself, my fitness, and where I stand with my competition. I race on the knife edge. Sometimes that leads to breakthrough performances slicing time off the clock. Other times it leads to a puncture wound letting all the air out prematurely.
My first hint of things not going my way occurred around 5:30 PM Saturday night. I started putting my numbers together and pulled out my tri suit to find my bike jersey. Hmm….tear apart my gear and realize I have no tri suit or tri bottoms. I have base layer
Craft shorts or
Speedo jammers.
We quickly mobilized and started calling around. Two local bike shops had closed at 5. The surf shop had nothing that would help. We found an Olympia sports that had 3 bike shorts (as in 3 total bike shorts in the place) 2 were xl and one was large. I bought the large. On the way to dinner Mike (of Mike and Mary Arnold) saw a local bike shop
Stedman's just closing. They stayed open for me and I bought a pair of nice Pearl Izumi’s. I knew I couldn’t run in the bike shorts and swimming in them would not be ideal either so during dinner we decided I should wear the Craft’s under my wetsuit and put on the bike shorts for the bike and drop the bike shorts for the run. As Mary said, fortunately, they were black.
Woke up and the rain was over but it was still windy. Got to transition and they delayed the start by 15 minutes (which became 25 minutes) because the buoys were being blown all over the place. The conditions were so bad they offered a du-athlon option if people didn’t feel comfortable in the conditions. Did a short warm up swim and thought it might get better after the rollers. I was in the 8th wave and watched the buoys still blowing all over. The cannon sounded and I was off. I jumped in and tried to swim. The swim started out okay we got by the rollers and it seemed like it was starting to calm down. I was focused and sighting well. After the third buoy it started to get crazy. The swells had to be at least a foot. I almost had to sight every stroke because we were getting thrown all over the place. When I made the turn out by the break wall it was near impossible to get across to the next turn buoy. Finally, got around it and it was easier coming in. About 200 yards from shore my right calf cramped. Bad. I focused, tried to relax and kick gently. Probably a minute later I started to feel a bit better but it was still twitching. Reached close to shore and tried to stripe off my wet suit in the water which normally is very easy for me. Today I fell over. Finally, out and on to the bike. I was surprised to see my swim time was close to last year only 2 minutes slower. The conditions were much worse and last year they were bad.
My bike transition was about 3 minutes which wasn’t great but wasn’t bad either considering I needed to put on my bike shirt and shorts. Immediately I felt good on the bike. I had been having some derailleur issues but John Young had given me a good website and I had worked on it so I was only missing 1 gear. My aero helmet has a face shield and it started fogging up. I kept wiping it clean but I was still moving strong. About 3 miles in I took my first sip of my ultra fuel bottle and set it back in the down cage only it didn’t go in. It was gone, 3 miles in and my 300 calorie drink was gone. I had extra gu / blocks so I knew I would need to be more diligent and eat more often. I opened my first pack of clif shots and started eating them. About halfway through the bike I started to have stomach issues. I took 2 more salt tablets and ate another gel. It was weird. On bike descents I will get in a tight tuck resting my shoulders on my aero bar pads. I have done it for years without it every being a problem. Today it was making my stomach worse. I tried to ignore it and pressed on. After the fact I think the swim might have given me a bit of seasickness.
Lots of other weird stuff happened on the bike. Almost hit a car that stopped dead in the road. I had to wait while an official gave another guy a drafting penalty but blocked the road so I couldn’t get by. About 40 miles into the bike (making it around 10 AM) two raccoons ran across the road in front of me. I lost two more gears on the bike. Hit 44mph a new PR on one of the down hills. About 45 miles in I started channeling my inner Gatens. I knew that if I pushed the bike home I had a shot at sub 5. I was riding strong and just kept right on pushing and passing people. It was funny I was hammering the bike and felt my legs getting stronger and knew I would be able to run off the bike. My legs would not be the problem today. Hit transition 3:25 into the day (2:42 bike split) ready to run. I knew I needed 1:35 and thought it would be close but I had a shot. Got through transition fast even with taking off the bike shots. It was time to run in my underwear.
Took off and felt okay. My stomach was still upset but I seemed to be running okay. Climbed the hill the firs time and missed the 1 mile mark hit 2 in 14:24 and smiled. I thought to myself about the sprinters in the indoor meets wearing sunglasses. My wife asked “why do they wear sunglasses?” “Because they can” I answered. This is my day. Why can he wear those shorts, because he can (or at least I could at the time)? My quad started cramping and I changed my stride to more like marching and it settled down. I thought to myself just keep it going. I was looking out for DC who started 15 minutes ahead of me and trying to be smooth. I was taking coke and pouring water over my head. I saw him and thought he is not far enough ahead. I am catching him. Passed a few people I knew and one lady who looked much younger then she was so I said excuse me ma’am but I think they made a mistake with your age. She smiled and thanked me the next women in front of her said hey I get no love. But she looked her age. I smiled and went faster.
I knew I was running a fine line and just tried to keep going. It is a 2 loop course so every time I saw the second set of mile markers I said just get back here. I made the turn around 44 minutes and saw mile 8 and took my split 53.xx. I felt slower then that and hoped I could keep going. I knew I was getting closer to the edge. I said to DC’s wife is it time to take up golf. She laughed. I started up the hill the second time and my friends were screaming like crazy. At this point my stomach was screaming it was completely empty. I started to feel hungry and sick at the same time. I tried to take a few orange slices but you could stick a fork in me I was done. I visited a little blue box but nothing was coming out or up. Mary who I had passed on the bike caught me and said oh no what is wrong. I said you just wanted to see me in my underwear she laughed and kept going. I ran when I could and walked the water stopped. I just kept moving. Finally, at mile 11 my legs started to feel the finish and took over control and ran to the finis. My final time was 5:25:16. My last 5.1 miles were 1:03.xx.
I finished, mentally and physically spent. For over 5 hours I had focused all my effort all my attention going as fast as I could. I swam biked and ran on the edge. Ultimately, the little cuts along the way lead to the crash. Sometimes that happens. At the end of the day I knew I had left it all out on the road. I gave it my best shot and mixed it up. Am I disappointed in my time? No doubt but I can sleep easily because I knew I put myself in position to compete. Today I am more mentally tired then physically tired. The two spots that cramped (my right calf and left quad) are both sore but otherwise physically I am okay.
There is more work to do to make sure next time is better.