That race had a lot of things going for it. It was a sprint distance, the temperature was perfect, there wasn't too much wind, I hadn't had vacation for a week in front of it. All those are good things. Now, take every one of those things and cross it out and you had this race.
In-between the sprint tri and this tri Kate, Natalie and I headed to vacation with my parents at a lake near Grand Rapids. This was great for relaxation purposes but maybe not ideal for training purposes. I got in two workouts during the week. I swam out to a sunken island for a 1/2 mile or so workout in some pretty rough winds, and I ran 3 miles on a stinking hot day. Both of those were good training for what was coming, though I'd be lying to you if I said that felt like enough.
Olympic triathlons have a standard 1.5k/40k/10k distance, or about 0.93 miles of swimming, 24.8 miles biking, and 6.2 miles running. I'm at a point now where all of that sounds pretty manageable, but what sounded less manageable was 90 degree heat and winds for open water swimming and running in the sun. That sounded just terrible.
Race day
We stayed in a junky motel in Detroit Lakes the night before and dined at Brew Ales and Eats (which was fantastic and we repeated our visit the next day after the race). During dinner I got a hold of my buddy, Jesson, for any heat-related race advice. He gave me most of the info I already had, but somehow it helps to hear it again from another human being.
The next morning we arrived bright and early and got everything together. I was planning on taking my sweet time in transition what with this being my first race at this longer distance and also with the heat. So I loaded a cooler full of ice, soaked my cooling sleeves (purchased the day before) in the ice water and did the same with four separate buffs (moisture-wicking, cooling fabric... Kate's idea!). Then I made my way to the water for the swim.
Swim
The course for the Young Life Olympic Triathlon takes swimmers out to what feels like the middle of Detroit Lake. We'd swim straight out to two buoys which were a gate we had to swim through, then veer southwest to a buoy way off in the distance, then turn east toward a buoy that seemed just a little closer, before turning north and taking a long straightaway back to shore. Imagine a "P" and you're pretty close to what it looked like. Thankfully, they had a jet ski demonstrate the correct course for us ahead of time, because I couldn't really visualize it from the explanations.
As the clock was ticking down close to start time I created for myself a massive problem. Fidgeting with my goggles I managed to pull the ends through in the back and the whole goggle contraption came apart. I struggled to figure out where everything went back together as the announcer said "5 minutes" then "3 minutes" and "2 minutes!" Thankfully Kate was a little less stressed than me and she took them and put them back together just as I heard "1 minute!" So, my race started not with dread but with relief. There was no way I was swimming without goggles, because there was no way I could see and also I'd be sure to lose both my contacts (which is 100 times worse than losing the one contact, which I did in Nevis the week before), which would make biking insanely dangerous.
Anyway, I avoided all that. The gun went off and I was swimming.... or rather I was walking. The thing I didn't realize it that the first 300 meters or so, the entire distance out to the first buoy was so shallow a person could walk. And plenty of people were. In fact it was kind of disheartening when I was swimming and they were walking just as fast next to me. There were a lot of people and I had hoped just to ease into the race so I took the first buoy real slow, swimming mostly, occasionally walking a step when I'd run into somebody, and just feeling like I was going in slow motion.
Part of the problem was the 10 mph headwind at the start. We were working against the waves and it was tough. I slowly made my way past the first buoy, then through the gate, and off into the middle of the lake. I was feeling alright but also painfully slow. Anytime I saw somebody it was a person swimming faster than me, which presented me with some difficulties, because it meant that if they were faster than me they were also likely to be more erratic on the course than me, or else why was I even with them? This kept happening. Faster swimmers would go on by and I'd struggle to sight off of them, because they were swimming all over the place. I would try to look up and sight to buoy every five strokes or so, but I am so poor at sighting that the act of doing so really kills my momentum. So, I'm either damned to swim off course or constantly stop and start.
In short, I need to work on my open water swimming. I made the turn and the long straightaway out in the lake before turning toward shore. I had hoped that the tailwind would make for a nice ride in, but somehow it didn't feel much easier. Different, perhaps, but not easier. I knew I was slow and I didn't care that much, but I'm also a bit competitive and the fact that I might be the slowest guy in the whole race was getting on my nerves. So it was with welcome relief that I got out of the water and made my way to the transition area. 39:36 was my time, and though it felt like I was the slowest I actually finished 43 out of 53 finishers. To give some perspective I was swimming 1.5k in the pool in Hallock in the 33-34 minute range, so obviously lost a lot in the open water. But to be honest I wasn't too worried about that. I was excited to bike.
Bike
I took my time in the first transition, putting on a cold buff under my helmet and stuffing gels in my back pockets. Then I told Kate and Natalie I loved them and was off. The excitement over being on the bike quickly changed to exuberance as I looked ahead on the road. Because the sprint triathlon started some 15 or 20 minutes after the Olympic I found myself toward the latter end of the sprint tri participants who were biking the same course (they did one lap, we did two), which meant I had a never-ending stream of people to pass. I was giddy. I'd come up to a person or two, whiz by, then get the next couple in my sights. On and on it went, passing people on their left.
Now, I didn't kill the course quite like the week before. This was longer and I was pacing myself and, frankly, it was already starting to feel hot. I was downing the water and Gatorade. Another purchase the day before the race was an Aero30 water bottle that fit between the aero bars of my tri bike.
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| It looks like this (though this is not my bike!) |
I did do something really stupid on the bike; in fact, this was so stupidly dumb I am a little ashamed to admit it. Halfway through the first lap of the course I hit a bump and the sensor for my bike's speedometer spun around (the zip ties apparently were not on tight enough). This meant I was getting no speed readings, which shouldn't have been a terribly big deal. I should have just continued biking as hard as I felt I should, but instead I tried to be a hero. As I was riding I reached down and tried to flip the sensor back around. Did I mention this was a really dumb idea?
Well, the sensor was stuck facing backwards so I had to apply a good deal of force to unstick it, which I did, but that force also spun it around rather quickly (with my fingers still attached) and it sent those same fingers back around and into the spokes. So, yes, not only did I not fix the issue I actually ended up with two fingers in the spokes going 20-ish mph. I legitimately thought I broke my finger. But as I moved them around I found I only had a couple cuts, full range of motion, and nothing obviously out of place. I learned my lesson and biked the rest of the race without a working speedometer.
The 2nd time around the course was harder. The wind had picked up and I had less carrots to chase, but the nice thing about this time around was that I was chasing almost exclusively Olympic racers. I passed three at the very beginning of the second lap, feeling better and better about how things were going. The wind was kicking up strong as I turned back southward. I remembered this part of the course, thinking I would hit wind the first time and feeling pleasantly surprised at the lack of it, but the second time through was another story. 20-25 mph wind gusts were pushing against me hard.
Overall, I had a very good bike ride. 1:12:25 was a time I would have been happy with even on an ideal day but in the heat and wind it was better than expected. All told I was 15th fastest on the bike (by far my best placing of the day).
Run
If I slowed down the first time through transition, the second time I pretty much crawled. I put on both cooling sleeves, all three of the remaining buffs (one on my head, two around my wrists), and I poured almost all the remaining ice and water down the front and back of my tri suit. I managed the slowest time of all 53 finishers in T2, but it was oh, so worth it. I actually felt cold(!) at the beginning of the run.
The temps were warming into the mid-80s as I hit out on foot along the northwest shore of Detroit Lake. The cool of the ice down my back wore off somewhere in the first mile and I was ready for a break by the time I reached the first aid station. I told myself I would never stop running between aid stations, but I would stop at every single one along the way. Sometimes I stopped for 10 seconds, sometimes it was more like a minute. Either way, I repeated the same routine over and over: Pour water over arm sleeves, pour water on head and down my back, then drink water or Gatorade, however and whatever I felt like drinking.
It worked wonderfully for the first couple miles. However, as we turned off Lake Drive and made our way on trail through the woods the air became stifling. The ground temperature was approaching 100 degrees and now that we had left the lakeshore into the protected area around the trail the wind was nonexistent.
I don't have many qualms about the race that Young Life puts on, but my one critique would have to be the fact that there were two aid stations within a half mile of each other toward the turnaround at 5k with only one aid station after that on the way home. I know why they do it this way; there just isn't a place to bring a vehicle anywhere sooner on the trail; but the distance between aid station 1 and 2, as well as 1 and the start/finish of the run feels so huge. With that said, aid station 3 was fantastic with not only water and Gatorade but also some small children with super soakers (filled with ice cold water!) dousing runners going by. You could tell they weren't sure if they should be aggressive with it or not, so I made it very clear, saying something like "Give it to me!" which probably sounded more like "Gabotttomy!" given my current state of mind at that point in the run.
All told the run went well. I never walked and stopped only at the aid stations. I probably could have spent less time loading up with water (I actually had to pee at the finish, believe it or not), but I was more concerned with finishing healthy than with getting a great time. The 10k run ended up taking 56:07, which (for the record) is the slowest 10k I've ever run period by several minutes, but to give some perspective on how hard the day was my time was still 24th fastest on the day. I had finished. I felt decent. It was good.
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| Me shortly after finishing |
On to the next challenge!
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