So it's been awhile... a long while.... but I"m ok with that... I don't really have any good excuses as to why I haven't been posting race reports or random musings... Maybe I just don't care anymore, or maybe it's a function of how horrible things have been going lately with triathlon... Who knows... but, I'll do my best to recount the ups and downs of MiM...
Head out Friday, riding shotgun with my boy Stephen Rumble... Rumble is fairly new to triathlon, is a grad student at UA, and lives in my apartment complex and is therefore the defacto internet/TV provider for me... He keeps me honest when we're training-- always pushing me on the bike (he probably doesn't know how bad I hurt when I ride with him) and always forcing me to go to the pool even when I don't want to... Anyway, his Dad hooked us up with a sweet hotel room in Memphis on Friday night, so we hit the road....
The trip to Memphis was horrific... High speeds coupled with Rumble's ADD and tendency to text/Facebook/Twitter while driving had me white knuckled for most of the ride... We get to Memphis and pretty much split ways: he went to dinner with his (as of recently) girlfriend and parents and I met up with my former Grad Asst. from Mississippi State for dinner and drinks... Good night, in bed kinda late'ish-- waking up early the next morning was going to be tough...
Up early on Saturday morning to head to Tunica, to watch Kendrick and Chad (and Neal NeSmith) race the sprint... Kendrick and Chad were doing the amateur challenge, where you race the sprint on Saturday and Olympic on Sunday... Kinda crazy, but there's money to be won (which, both of them won some cash)... Sprint's over pretty quick, both Kendrick and Chad place in their AG (no shock)... Spend the rest of the day hanging out, packet pickup, and shakeout bike/runs... I figured that MiM, being an Olympic distance race, was going to be "fun" like NOLA...
I was wrong...
Race morning comes and I'm just not feeling it... I knew I'd be ok on the swim and bike, but the run would be tough- mainly because of the distance for me (10k) and the heat... I figured I'd just roll like I did in NOLA and run from aid station to aid station... I was racing in the collegiate division so that the UA Team would pay for it, so I really had no illusions of grandeur of doing well or placing... I just wanted a good bike split...
The swim start was located directly behind our hotel... literally could have rolled out of bed and hit the starting line... They sent the collegiate males off second (after the relays and disabled peeps) and being blessed with a last name that starts with an A, yours truly was first in the water for the collegiate men... While in line, the kid behind me (who turns out, goes to Auburn- go figure), looks at me, then turns to the race official and says, "Is HE in the collegiate division?", like I had a third eye or something... He couldn't believe that this old fat guy was gonna get in the water mere seconds before him... I turned around and said, "Yeah man, I'm a grad student... where do you go to school?"... "Auburn".... "Figures"...
I hit the water and had a good swim... nothing really out of the ordinary, except for having to snake your way around a certain buoy, which come to find out, practically no one did except for me and Rumble... We had to swim down a narrow channel to get to the second lake and during that short swim, my hands were hitting concrete... Kinda freaked me out, but it didn't last too long, so I just kept on swimmin...
Round the last buoy and I'm a few hundred yards from the shore... The swim was a 1500, and I felt it on every stroke... Turns out that the swim was probably longer than a 1500, with my Garmin showing a 1.02 mi swim (which would make it at least a 1600, maybe more)... anyway, I hit the beach with a decent swim time of 27:27, taking over 4 mins off of my previous Olympic swim time... I was pretty stoked about that and started to jog to T1
Special note: this was my first race wearing a wetsuit... lots of people sing wetsuits praises, but I'm still unmoved... maybe I just have to swim more in one to get a feel for it...
Hit T1 and am already feeling tired... get to my bike and start peeling off the wetsuit, which came off with appreciated ease... As I was doing this, I overhear some people across the fence say, "Oh, Alabama ok... wait, is HE collegiate? No WAY he's collegiate!!"... I looked up, smiled, and said, "Yeah, I know, weird huh? I'm working on my Ph.D.! But right now, I've got a race to do, so I'll talk to ya'll later"
They all laughed and I headed out on the bike course...
The bike course was pancake flat... which would have been PERFECT for me if it hadn't been for the crazy wind, rain, and lightning that was going on during the bike... I won't lie, there were some pretty hairy moments for me, riding an aluminum frame bike... A few thunderclaps and lightning strikes startled me pretty good, one of them enough to make me swerve... I was riding Jim Hamner's (a buddy of mine) HED tri spoke front and Zipp 808 w/ disc cover rear, so I was kinda getting blown all over the place...
This is where my race starts to unravel... I tried racing the elements... I tried racing the headwind... I tried racing... and it caught up to me pretty quick... I was getting tired... really really REALLY tired... my knees were aching, my back was hating me, and my lungs were on fire... As bad as I didn't want to admit it, I was having a shitty bike.... I fought like hell the entire time and managed a respectable 1:09 on the bike, avg. speed of 21.0 mph... Not exactly what I wanted, but it coulda been way worse...
Into T2 and I'm feeling like absolute shit... I'm winded jogging to my rack, which, was much further away than I had anticipated (probably should have walked the bike-in to rack route like I always do)... Rack the bike, throw on the shoes, and head out of T2... "Gonna be a long run" I thought... little did I know...
I exit T2 and hear a guy say, "Roll Tide! Go get 'em! Give 'em everything you got!"... I muster up an exhausted, "Man, this IS all I got" as I trot off towards the run course... Truth be told, I was done, and I knew it... No way was I going to average 10min miles like I wanted to...
I get about .25 mi into the run and start cramping... awesome... I take the liberty to lean on a cop car to stretch, much to the chagrin of the black lady cop inside the car... So, accepting that this was going to be a shitshow, I start the "shuffle", the kind of walk/run/waddle that I've grown accustomed to doing during races...
Rumble passes me at maybe Mile 1... It's raining and I'm hating life... the run course veers off and takes us down this shitty loose gravel/hard clay trail... I see a guy in front of me slip on some wet clay, nearly bite it, and immediately reach down and grab his knee... I jog up to him, ask if he's ok which he assures me he is, and continue on...
I managed to get passed by everyone.... Rumble first, then Kendrick, and Chad, and our friend from Chicago Eric, and our friend Scott, and this nerd from Mississippi State named Michael Lee, then an old friend from college named Andrew Dollar (story for later)... The run course was thankfully flat... but it didn't matter... I was cooked...
As I made my run/walk way through the course, I was noticing that my Garmin was beeping its mile notifications much earlier than the race course signs were indicating and far before the typical spots for aid stations... The only reason I was at all concerned with this is that I wanted off that damn run course as quickly as possible, and the only way of doing so was to trudge ahead...
I hit the turn around and start heading back to the hotel/finish line... At this point, you could see the hotel far to the left... I guess it was the only thing that was comforting me at this point... I keep shuffling along, hoping that my Garmin is right and that this race is almost done...
I pass the 6 mile marker, yet notice that my Garmin has passed its 6 mile marker about .2 ago... WTF? This race should be done by now... The run is a 10k... last time I checked, 10k is 6.2 miles... and I'm nowhere close to the hotel... Also a rookie mistake, I should have ridden the run course the day before... dammit... So I keep running... The Garmin keeps adding distance and adding distance
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