Sunday, May 15, 2011

Statesville Rotary Triathlon


Statesville Rotary Triathlon- 05/14/11
Overall Time- 1:12:50
300m Swim- 6:00
11.6 Mile Bike 4:41:49
5k Run- 23:43 (11th Overall)

26th Place Overall
AG 3rd Place- That's not just a finisher medal!!

Pre-race- Walked to the venue, placed my bike on the rack at 06:00. Walked back home, ate my normal wheat toast with PB, honey, and bananas, showered and walked back to the venue to set up transition and warm up. It made me feel good to hear people trying to figure out how to set up transition and whispering "let's watch how he does it". I wanted to turn and help but I don't want to seem like I feel I know what I'm doing. You guys know better.

Swim- With a 6 minute flat time, I swam faster that I hoped I would because the 6 minutes includes getting out of the pool, leaving the Y, going down the stairs and running to transition. I was the first person in the third wave, following the elites in the first wave and the predicted race winners in the second. There was a two minute wait between me and the previous wave, this meant no one to draft behind, but no one to fight with for passing or and turns. The  kid person behind me caught up with me at 200m, but I always reserve a sprint for the last 25-50m and passed him back as soon as I started the sprint.

T1- Embarrassing. I had T1 problems reminiscent of my first ever race last October. I ran in smoothly, right to my spot. I threw my goggles, swim cap, and garmin on the ground. DOH!!! Pick Garmin back up. Grab bike and go. Knock helmet off bike to the ground. DOH!!! Why is my helmet not on????  Pick up helmet while cussing, place on head, buckle, and go again.

Bike- Crash and collapse a few feet after the mount line, Get passed while down. Try to get up and realize it hurt. Try to get up again. Run to bike. Realize shoe has been thrown backward, go get it. While running back to bike see my Aerobottle is on the other side of the road ahead of my bike, got get it. Put bottle back on and put shoe on. Mount bike. Try to pedal- chain is off. Get back off bike and fix chain. get back on bike and go. I started spinning and made the first two quick turns. During the .35 miles between the second turn and the third I see a guy get hit by a truck. Get to the corner and pause for a moment for the ambulance. Somewhere around now I realize I still haven't put my other shoe on yet.

After I the first mile things start getting back to normal and I was thinking to myself that if I push hard can make up SOME of the ground I lost with my fiasco. I was planning my shifting like chess moves and thinking about the course ahead. Everything was going smoothly. Every time I felt I was mashing too hard I shifted and increased my cadence. I tried to keep telling myself to save my legs for the tough climbs and the run. At the second large descent the elites and race leaders passed me on their way back. Just past mile five I entered the longest climb on the course (1.5 miles), I was averaging 17 mph and since my coach's plan predicted 18 mph I need to push, then I spotted the person who passed me in transition. I kept pushing and passed him. After the next curve I saw 6 more people and caught up and passed each one as they struggled with the climb.  One of them passed me back on the next descent. On the next climb, I passed that person again plus 2 more. A few miles later on the next to last climb I passed three more people.

Just after the last major hill I shifted to a better gear to for the last mile and lost my chain. I got off the bike to put the chain back on for the second time. Once I got back on I checked the Garmin and my average speed was 18 mph. I was happy considering that this avg includes the time I spent on the ground and the time I spent off the bike fixing the chain.

T2- In and out. BAM!

Run- Pushed as hard as I could. I was on pace for the first mile. Once I hit the large, half mile hill on the first lap I slowed dramatically. Dramatically for my planned pace, not too slow in general. I still managed to pass large groups of people going up the hill. The rest of that lap went smoothly. At the start of the same hill on the second lap I was holding an average pace faster than my planned pace when my stomach started to cramp. All of a sudden something felt like it was coming up my throat, I opened my mouth expecting to puke and let out the nastiest, wettest burp I have ever had in my life.  The cramp went away immediately. As I pushed up the hill, the harder I pushed the more it came back. Three quarters of the way up the hill a guy came up next to me and started talking to me- first time on this run that someone came from behind me. He bitched about the course and it having too many hills. He said he has done "a few tri's and this has been the hilliest, its like racing in the Alps". I decided this was a perfect time for me to use him as a carrot and stick with him to the finish. I worked as hard as I could to keep up- he would get 6 inches past me and I would surge back. It looked like a drag race scene from a 1950's movie.  The more I kept up with him the worse my nausea got and I started to feel something coming up again and decided to pull back a little- I decided I didn't want to finish with both blood and puke on my suit, one of the two is good enough :). This may be the closest I have ever come to a bonk. As I slowed I looked at my Garmin and was holding a 6:00 pace trying to keep up with the guy. As he pulled away I saw his age on his leg and bib number on his arm and realized he was one of the two guys in my AG, I reconned pre-race that I thought would be my biggest competition. Shortly after I slowed I started down the hill to the finishing chute, thunder clapped, it started raining, and I sprinted in to the finish. Great timing.

The results were just posted tonight and I have had my normal fun with numbers.


5 comments:

Unknown said...

Well done on the race. The bike part seems pretty traumatic!!

Unknown said...

crashes, trucks hitting cyclists??? that bike start was crazy!!!

Was the guy that got hit okay? How did that happen?

Congrats on the podium.

JohnP said...

Congrats on the awesome result!!!

Oh damn, too funny about T1 - thats classic :) It happens to so many people though, ur not alone. Although maybe you should know better by now eh!? hah! lol

Love the drag racing - way to tough it out!

LB said...

congrats!!!!! what a dramatic bike start though!!!!!

Big Daddy Diesel said...

Congrats on the poduim finish.

Sorry to hear about the mishap out of T1

Cool picture of you with your medal