We'll start in Nevis.
The Northwoods Triathlon isn't particularly big (some 200-some people), but it is popular, which sounds kind of confusing, but trust me, I'll explain. Registration opens each year for the race in the first week of January at 8 a.m. on some random morning. Race registration fills up by 9 a.m. of said morning every year. So, I had to actually put registering for a race on my calendar. It's a minor miracle I remembered.
Challenge #1:
I may have registered for the race months and months ahead of time, but that didn't stop me from completely forgetting about such unimportant things as, you know, lodging. So, a week before we were heading out Kate had the bright idea to check on hotel rooms. Nothing. Not expensive, not inexpensive. Nothing. The idea of tent camping before a race sounded less than ideal (especially with a toddler), but we didn't know what else to do. Then I had the brilliant idea to check with Steve Peterson, now Executive Director at Pathways to see if we could stay at Camp Emmaus, 25 miles from Nevis. We could. Thank God. Steve saved the day.
Challenge #2:
I got a new bike over the winter. It was Kate's Christmas present for me... and birthday present... and probably the next couple Christmases and birthdays to come. Even better, when we bought the bike the very nice guy who sold it to us threw in his race wheels. These were deep-set carbon Reynolds wheels that retailed from something like $1200. (Yes, I know, it's crazy that wheels can cost that much. Go to a triathlon shop or high-end bike shop sometime and just ogle the insanity that is high-end bike wheels.)
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| Pre-race picture with Natalie and my awesome new bike |
So, fast-forward to the day before the race and here I was standing at the Ski and Bike Shop in Grand Forks, having them move the cassette over from my training wheels to the race wheels. This was no problem. The problem was in fitting the race wheels in-between the brake calipers. In short, they didn't fit. And I just didn't know how to adjust the brakes myself (not on the fancy triathlon bike with all its cables inside the tube). So, the fantastic guys at the Ski and Bike shop not only fit me in when they didn't have the time, they also fixed the brakes, didn't charge me for it, and threw in a free magnet for the bike computer. Win.
Challenge #3:
We arrived at the start in Nevis at Lake Belle Taine with plenty of time to spare and I got myself situated like a pro. Everything was going to plan until I jumped in the lake to do a last-minute warmup before the race. I swam about 25 meters and turned around, climbing out on shore. That's when I noticed something was off. My vision was a tad blurry. I rubbed my eyes. Still blurry. And I didn't feel that familiar discomfort of a contact on the side of my eye.
My contact had come out. In the water. And there was four minutes until race start. Oh well, I told Kate (and myself). Guess I'm not going to be able to see that well.
The swim
Not being able to see isn't a terrible handicap for swimming, because I'm not really able to see much in the water anyway. I started out wide with the idea of avoiding the craziest of the swim mayhem with the fast guys, which worked out well for about 50 meters until a guy who must have been breast-stroking in front of me wound up and gave me a double-kick to the face. That was fun.
I took the swim at an easier pace. I felt fine, but also didn't really feel the need to push it. I knew I was a ways behind the fastest guys, and that was OK. After the initial kick to the face I settled into a groove and though I was getting passed pretty consistently I also didn't see any caps from other waves. All in all, it went fine. The part of the race I was looking forward to lay ahead.
Swim time: 9:54 (1/4 mile)
Transition 1: 1:44
The bike
The transition lay up a fairly steep hill, so that transition time involved some climbing. Apparently I passed 10 people in T1, which makes me happy (especially when we look at my transition times in the 2nd triathlon the next week! Yikes!).
The bike course was fun. Good roads. Lots of cyclists. There was, however, one problem. The rules for the race prohibited drafting (i.e. riding behind another bicyclist to save energy), but the race instructions were also clearly to stay out of the middle of the road as much as possible and to pass quickly. This became a problem when I got in with about four guys going all about the same speed. One of us would pass and by the time they came around we were all in a pacing line, whether we were trying to be or not. I would swing out wide but then I'd have to pass and swing back in to the line. It was seriously challenging NOT to draft. We had a race volunteer yell at us, but I could only shake my head. Am I supposed to stop pedaling? Swing out across the lane? I have no idea.
Eventually we spread out a little bit. I couldn't believe how fast we were going. I'd look down and see 25, 26, 27, 28 mph. I even hit 31 on the flat for a brief time! 30 is a number I usually only see with an intense tailwind, but the wind was mild. I was just cruising.
Among the four or five guys who were going back and forth in position there was one guy riding a carbon frame road bike. I marveled at how he stayed with us.. or rather how he yo-yo'd with us. On every flat and downhill I would pass him and put some distance between us, then I'd see him coming on by every time we'd head back up. It became a little bit of a game. It was pretty clear he could straight up ride. He was staying with several of the fastest tri-bikes in the race.
I can't say enough how thrilled I was with this ride. I got onto the bike thinking my goal finishing time of 1 hour, 15 minutes was probably out of reach, but as the miles kept ticking by I was going faster and faster than I could have imagined riding my bike. The carbon wheels helped, for sure, but I was also feeling as good as I've ever felt on a bike.
So, it was with a good deal of joy that I pulled into the finishing straight back into the town of Nevis and looked down at my watch.
Bike time: 37:15 (14.2 miles)
Average Speed: 22.9 mph
Transition 2: 1:13
The run
I took an extra second to tell Natalie I loved her. I forgot to tell Kate, but I'd apologize later (sorry!!). I had other things on my mind, like running fast. This has been an interesting year for me running. I've taken a small step back and haven't had great times. I haven't been running as much, either (it's almost as like those two things are related somehow). But on this day I felt pretty good, and I wasn't blazing my guys but I wasn't getting passed either.
The route took us out on the Heartland Trail--out and back--which meant I got to see the race leaders coming back from the turnaround. First there was one guy, then another, then another, but I was getting pretty close to the turnaround and there weren't that many people ahead of me. 8... 9... 10... 11... 12... That's all I counted. I was 13th on the road. That was really exciting.
Now, I definitely need to clarify. I was in the first wave. I knew others behind me were going to be faster, but probably not that many. I felt really good. And my run times were solid. I was holding around a 7:20 mile pace. Nothing super special, but solid by my standards. And that's pretty much how things stayed.
Run time: 22:50 (5k)
Run pace: 7:20/mile
Total time: 1:12:54
Place: 19th out of 218 (First of out 5 in my age group!)
The end
I had completed another race. Oh, and my contact? Yeah, didn't really affect me too much, except I was starting to get a hint of a headache at the finish. Other than that I felt great--no ill effects on the stomach. I ate a cookie and a banana and chatted with Steve, who had come down to see the race, and Kate. All this was very good, because I knew this was only the warmup; the real race was coming seven days from now. But I felt great. If I was ever going to be ready, this was the time!
And that's where I'll leave it for next time!
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