And that's kinda how it went...
Coming off the Tom Hoskins sprint and getting picked up by Cycle Center, I figured it was worth a shot to race juuuuuuuuust one more time this season, if for anything, just to be able to sport the Cycle Center team kit... I also had a friend, Gavin, who was racing and it was his first race, so of course, I said ok...
As has been the norm, I wasn't swimming much leading up to this race... I've gone from full on "can't wait to go swim" to damn near having a phobia of going to the pool... I hate it... and the Dam Swim for Drew didn't help much either... I've got to find a way to lick this problem, and have gone as far as to look into shelling out an additional 20 bucks a month just to join the campus rec center so I can swim in the mornings... Pro: I don't mind getting up in the morning to do workouts, so I could bang out a swim before work, then run after work... Con: it's a SCY pool... other than that, the minor adjustments to schedules and most importantly, breakfast and coffee time, can be made fairly easily... From what I understand, the rec center pool is never crowded in the morning, so hopefully, I'll get in my little princess mode and have a lane all to myself and start enjoying swimming again...
So yeah, my toes didn't touch water from the Dam Swim until I went for a warm up swim before this race... I elected not to wear a wetsuit since it was only 1000 (I had actually lent it to Gavin) and so I could let everyone know that I race for Cycle Center! My rides and runs had been pretty consistent though, with improving quality over the last few weeks (had some killer runs off the bike lately)...
The night before the race, my friend Lindi stayed at the Davecave, which was awesome because I hadn't seen her in like, three years... She works at Tennessee in Greek Life and we have kept in touch since I left MSU... I even mentioned to her that she was one of like, 4 or 5 Greek Life people that I still kept in touch with... She was in town to work with a sorority chapter here at USC and I was beyond thrilled to have her stay... After a great dinner at Za Pizza, we got to catch up a little bit before I hit the sack...
Race day, alarm goes off, and I immediately tweet, "No matter how many races I do, I never get used to getting up at 4:am"... Clearly, I felt that everyone who was up at that time needed to know that I didn't being up that early... oh social media...
Unlike so many of my races as of late, I decided to actually give a shit about pre and during race nutrition... I decided not to care how dumb I looked if I carried a Fuel Belt bottle with me during the bike or run, because I have a hard time (now) stomaching a gel THEN water (I now prefer a mixture of 2 or more gels diluted with water)... So I mixed up 2 Green Apple Power Bar gels in an 8oz Fuel Belt bottle, topped it off with some water, and decided to take this with me on the bike... I dropped 1 Orange Nuun tablet into a 10oz Fuel Belt bottle as my fluids for the run... these Fuel Belt bottles fit perfectly into the back pockets of the CC tri top...
Scarfed down a bagel w/peanut butter and banana, bottle of Nuun (1 tablet), and about 5 Endurolytes (even though I had not been training with them, I used them all week to build up Sodium in my system)... Filled up my race bottles (2 bottles of 2 Nuun tablets a piece), couple of extra water bottles, and of course, beer, and loaded up the car...
Head out to Lake Murray Dam and during the car ride there, I started thinking about the course itself... The swim would be ok, I just needed to finish it in a respectable time... I admitted to myself that I wasn't going to have a stellar swim time because of my genuine disinterest in swimming lately, and tried to encourage myself that I'd post up an awesome bike split and killer run off the bike...
Turns out I was right on the mark...
Set up transition, chat with Gavin, then start my warm up... Decided to do more of a bike focused warm up because I always seem to have problems coming out of the water and onto the bike, where it takes me muuuuuuch longer than I'd like to get my bike legs under me... So I did a modified loop of the bike course to get the blood flowing to the legs... During this warmup, I started feeling REALLY good about the race... Something clicked in my legs... maybe it was because I pushed past the shitty feeling I always get when I first get on the bike... maybe it was the ease with which I was riding... I don't know what it was, but I liked it...
Did a quick run warmup, and didn't have the results I had on the bike... I started to feel really really tired just a few hundred yards into the run, so I decided to back off and do some dynamic warmups, jog a little, then do some striders... seemed to work...
So here we go, The Dam Triathlon race report:
Swim:
Wave start with the following: ALL males 39 and under, ALL Clydesdales, and ALL Master Clydes... easily 100+ in my wave... of course, I start near the outside and resolve to just swim inwards until I can get into a pack and draft off whoever I can... This doesn't exactly happen and as I swim, I notice that I'm yet again drifting way outside of the "race lane" (as I call it)... seemed like everyone was on my left, and no one was on my right... dammit...
Not much to report about the swim... counter clockwise triangle around three buoys... sort of strong current on the way out, which helped coming back in... I seemed to pass a few people from the wave before mine, which made me feel good, but ending up coming out of the water 6th in the Clydes with an abysmal time of 19:03... Definitely not my best time, but being an OWS and the lack of training, I accepted it and decided to move on...
T1:
Short trot from the beach to T1... when I popped up out of the water, I checked my time and it said 18:xx, which I thought had put me in a pretty good position getting on the bike... Short trot, helmet, shades, fuel, bike, gone... Time of 0:51s... not bad...
Bike:
Knowing that the bike was much longer than what I'm used to in terms of racing (21mi vs. 13-16) I knew I had to be conservative on the first lap... Don't burn too many matches, take it easy, get to know the course... I hadn't done a drive through of the bike course, which was tremendously stupid on my part, so the first lap was an "active recon" mission... Coming out of T1, there was a pretty brutal quarter mile climb, just to get to the highway... I saw a lot of people standing, trying to hammer out of T1... No way am I going to do that... That's just asking for trouble (for me)...
 |
| Two loops course, total of 20.70 miles |
The fist lap, as planned, was fairly conservative... I tried to keep my HR in Z3 and my cadence up, which seemed to work pretty well... I really liked this bike course... Like, a lot... I may not have posted up my fastest bike split ever, but I was damn close, and given the terrain, I'm really happy with how I rode...
The bike course, for me, was as challenging as it was rewarding (for bigger guys like me)... There were some long, gradual climbs that I had to work for, but there were also some great downhills and flats where I was really able to open it up... In particular, taking a left onto Old Cherokee Road... On the first lap, I was tempted to give this section all I had, because it was a gradual downhill and I built up speed pretty quickly, while keeping my HR low and cadence high... Split second conversation with myself, and I resolved to dial it back juuuuuust a bit on this first lap, then on the second lap, unleash hell... and unleash hell I did, posting up a mile 14 split/speed of 1:56, or 30.9mph...
Took in my gel/water mixture after the first lap to give it time to be absorbed for the remainder of the bike and the run... this seemed to work great, knowing that I had about 25ish minutes left on the bike... I figured the calories and caffeine would kick right when I needed it- coming into T2...
The second lap was more enjoyable since I felt like I had a better handle on the course and how to manage my effort... Old Cherokee Road was good to me on the second lap and I knew I had made up some time on whoever was ahead of me, if anyone, in the Clydes division...
Coming back across the Dam on the second lap, I managed to pass Gavin, who was just finishing up his first lap... I blew past him, said, "Looking good there buddy", then went on... I could hear him say something, but was too far ahead to actually make out what it was... Come to find out, he asked me "is this your second lap?", then immediately realized it had to be my second lap since he was on his first... Oh Gav...
There was pretty good crowd support along the Dam itself, especially coming into T2... I was feeling really good about getting off the bike and kept telling myself that I needed to keep my first mile around 9:00, no matter how slow it felt... Get off the bike, run easy and get your run legs under you, and try to negative split the 7k run...
Came into T2 after bombing the (now) quarter mile downhill... the dismount line wasn't really well marked-- just a small line that I couldn't really see until I was right up on it, with only one volunteer telling me to "slow down"... instead, try telling me where the dismount line is by motioning to it...
Doing a quick split of the mileage from my Garmin, I negative split the bike, which thrills me to death...
Miles 1-10~ 21.44mph
Miles 11-20.70~ 22.94mph
Final bike time: 57:48, avg of 21.5mph
T2:
Came off the bike hot and managed to have the bottle come out of my back pocket, so I quickly stopped to pick it up... maybe lost a few seconds, but I knew I was in a good position...
To the rack, usual process, off on the run...
Time of 0:42s
Run:
Leading up to the race, I had some GREAT runs off the bike (albeit short)... 9's were feeling easy, 8:30's were feeling fairly easy, and 8's were working it... As I mentioned above, I knew I had to be smart on the bike to survive the 7k run, which I had a sneaking suspicion was going to be short (and it was)...
The run itself was an out and back across the Dam itself... Slight climb out of the park to get onto the sidewalk, but other than that, it was pretty flat...
 | ||
| Climbing out of T2.. the woman on my left was NOT a happy camper... |
 |
| "Nothing new on Race Day" be damned... New kit, visor, and shoes.. |
So my plan was to go easy on the first mile.. nothing faster than 9min/mile... but damn, I was feeling really really good... So good in fact, that I had to do a mental check to see if my body was playing tricks on me...
Clicked off the first mile much faster than I had wanted at 8:35... I felt comfortable though, wasn't hurting, breathing was good, legs felt good, so I kept pushing... Ended up trailing a 14 y/o kid named Drew for the entire run... Drew, despite being less than half my age, looked like he was hurting... I kept telling myself that it'd probably be easier to just pass him and keep my own pace, but as I kept checking my Garmin, I realized he was running about what I wanted to/needed to be running... So, I let him pace me until he took off towards the end of the run...
The run was fairly uneventful... just like the Dam Swim, the sidewalk wasn't closed for the race, so there were walkers and runners that you had to weave through on the course... I guess you have to take what you can get on a course like this- no way could they have shut down the bike/run course...
During the first half of the run, I waged a mental battle on myself... I knew my pace was going to put me finishing the run around 32+ minutes, which I knew just simply wouldn't be good enough for a podium spot... I went back and forth on if I should just step on it and risk running out of steam before the run was done, or, should I just keep running my race and try to post up a solid run with negative splits... I came down to this: "You've had a good race thus far, you may not clinch 1st, but you could be up there... just keep running, and punch it when you get back into the park"...
So that's what I did...
 |
| Inching towards sub 8 min miles... I'll take the negative splits! |
I started counting how many people were in front of me... but more so, I was watching for how many "bigger dudes" might be in front of me... I couldn't recall ever getting passed on the bike by a Clyde, nor could I really recall passing any Clydes on the bike (turns out, that I clearly did, but just didn't remember it)... I figured I was in decent shape when I clicked off the 3rd mile in 8:01... Figured it was time to punch it... All systems go... The last time I eased on up this exact course, two older guys passed me... I wasn't gonna let that shit happen again... I punch it and am giving it everything I got... check my Garmin and I'm running stupid fast (for me)... might as well gut myself, the race is almost over... If I puke, I puke...
Final run time: 31:18...
Cross the finish line (no finisher pic, which pisses me off, cause I'm sure it was epic) in a total time of 1:49:46, besting 2nd place by 0:45s and hanging over 6mins on last year's Clyde winner... I was totally spent...
Did the usual warm down/cool down walk to bring HR down and flush the legs... grabbed a couple of Cokes and spent some time walking around the park... Managed to see Gavin come into T2, so I was pumped to know that he was still in it and that I'd be able to see him cross the finish line.. It's pretty cool to watch your friends finish their first race, and this time was no different...
Had enough time to grab dry clothes and a beer and make it back towards the finish chute, where I found our friend Erin who had been tapped to take pics of the race (and who's pics are in this post!)... Beforehand, I checked the results and saw my name, with a little "C" next to it... then a bunch of other names, then someone else's name with a "C" next to it... Unlike the Tom Hoskins sprint, I knew these results wouldn't change much since it had been a wave start... Picked up the W... Head held high...
Watched Gav barrel down the finishers chute, posting up a solid time of 2:25:09 (impressive 6th place bike split for a Novice)...
Race day is done, time for beer...
 | ||
| Boom! And yes, this is what podium spots receive... Long sleeve tech tees that are exactly like the race tees... bush league... |
 |
| I'm a good sport.. Congratulating the 3rd place Clyde (Greg Knopf) |
 |
| It's official... |
I have to admit, I loved this race even though my swim was horrendous... The swim was challenging enough, the bike was fast, and the run was flat... Weather conditions were perfect (mild temps and overcast), but a race this late can go either way... I'd like to think that this race, and not the Tom Hoskins sprint is what officially "introduced" me to the triathlon community in Columbia... This race is only 2 years old, so I will definitely be back next year to defend my title! It's also cool to know that I will hold the Clydesdale course record for the entire year! (Ok, enough bragging)
I finished this season off pretty convincingly, which is beyond exciting for me because I never really thought I'd have such a good season... If you would have asked me in March what my season would have been like, I would have probably said something like, "Eh, who cares.. I just want to finish my dissertation and buy a new bike"...
I guess I just started racing-- no, I started caring about racing, while not really caring about it too... I know that makes absolutely no sense, so I'll just save that gem for the season wrap-up post (hopefully to be done soon)...
Starting to like Columbia, one race at a time...
Thanks for reading...
 |
| Me and Gav, having post race beers |
No comments:
Post a Comment