Shawn's Race Report

Mooseman 2008

The portents of things to come started early.

On the Wednesday before the race, in an effort to prevent chest-hair ripping from band-aid removal, we decided to Nair my chest. To make a long story short, let’s just say I won’t be doing that again. I had Naired my back for last year’s Tango, and it was fine. Something different happened this time. I felt like I put battery acid on my chest, and when I tried to wash it off, the water felt like napalm. I awoke the next day with second-degree burns from armpit to armpit, neck to gut. I packed some lotion in the hopes of calming that down.

We left after school on Thursday, heading for the Super 8 motel in Danbury CT. All went smoothly. Our new navigation system rocked. That night, when looking for my lotion, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Where is it? I packed it in the same bag as my water bottles and vitamins. Hmm, come to think of it, I haven’t seen those either. I dig through the entire car, and that bag isn’t in there. My special handlebar water bottle and my two new regular bottles are not here! Great. I made that Urge bottle so I wouldn’t have to monkey around with grabbing a bottle on the road. Oh well, nothing I can do about that now. Maybe I can buy one tomorrow. I sleep fitfully, thinking thoughts of dehydration and burning chest hair. Chalk up one night of too little sleep.

We awake and drive to New Hampshire the next day. We stopped at Wal-Mart to look for water bottles, but they had only one option that came with a cage and it wasn’t really a good bottle anyway, so we passed. I bought some “soothing aloe relief” lotion. All goes well the rest of the way up and Matt and Genine are waiting for us at the house. We go down to the course and register and meet Craig and family, then we drive the bike course. I am distressed at the number of sizable hills. It’s not going to kill me, but it will not facilitate a fast time for a man of my gravitational gifts. Time to go carbo-load. Our dinner is excellent and we chat and prepare our stuff as the night winds down. I put on some lotion and find it neither “soothing” nor do I get “relief.” In fact it feels like more napalm. Wash it off. I don’t go to sleep early enough.

I’m not a morning person. So getting up at 4:45 AM on race day may not have been the best idea for me, but we had to get there early to get everything set up, as it was a 7:30 start. Or so they told us.

Setting up the transition goes well. This is my first time ever. I feel like I have a ton of stuff and the guys around me are going to complain, so I keep trying to shrink the size of my empire. I notice that I have a very tall bike, and a very cheap and dorky helmet. These are both things that I’d like to replace, but the helmet is a lot easier to fix. Gotta get myself a cool Giro or something. Craig and I decide to hit the Porta-John before we hit the lake, but the lines for them are about 30 people long, so we head for the flush toilets about a quarter mile away. On the way back, we encounter the ultimate Clydesdale warming up with a jog. This guy had to be 4 to 6 inches taller than me (I am 6’5”), and he wasn’t terribly skinny, though I’d say considerably skinnier than me. We said “Hi” and I told him it’s nice to meet someone like him occasionally because it never hurts to feel dainty. He laughed and we left him behind. The next time I saw him, we was running toward me on the run, about two miles ahead of me. We make it to the pre-race meeting, and put on our wetsuits. Some guy noticed my nipple band-aids and swore at himself for forgetting his. We head over to the start area and I eat a Clif Bar, and about 15 minutes before the start I down a Powergel with 2X caffeine.

Then we don’t start. I need to warm up again. I need to pee again. I don’t want to go anywhere because we can’t hear much if we’re not in the right place, and they are threatening to start at any time. An hour later, they suddenly (at least to us, it seemed like this) decided to start with a shorter swim. I am kinda bummed, because I am expecting the swim to be a good event for me. First wave lines up and off they go. We are in the second wave. I am next to Craig in the center rear of the pack. I am expecting to take it easy and try to stay on course, pulling smoothly. Boom, we’re off. About 100 yards in, I start to have breathing difficulty, like serious hyperventilating. I suck in water. I start coughing. My heart is racing. I am thinking “What the heck is happening?” I am not panicking. I am totally comfortable in the water. It feels like I am having a drug overdose, or a vitamin overdose. Could it be the Powergel? I don’t think so, because I normally drink way more caffeine than that in the morning. What the heck? I roll over, and start backstroking, trying to catch my breath. I keep moving, looking up, breathing very rapidly, thinking over and over, “I wonder why this happening?” I came up with many variables that could have played a part, but it didn’t really matter at that point. I had to calm that heart down. Upon reflection, I now think it was a combination of lack of sleep, jumping in freezing water and the sudden exertion from a relatively somnambulant state. I think my body (independently minded, as usual) thought “There is no reason my occupant would be doing this unless he is being chased by a dragon and is about to die.” Subsequently, it pumped a bunch of fight-or-flight chemicals into my bloodstream that put me into some kind of hyperactive stupor. Had I needed to climb a tree, I probably would have been at the top in three seconds, but unfortunately, I needed to breath rhythmically, and it wasn’t happening. This set the stage for a pretty unsatisfying race, but I plugged on. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from finishing this thing I had trained 18 months to complete. My backstroke actually worked out pretty well. I tracked nicely, and only once had to make any significant correction. As I heard the voices of the announcer, I flipped back over to the crawl, looking for the ground so I could stand again. I saw it and sped forward. Get my feet, and wobble toward the shore. I am so dizzy, I literally stop on the sand, cracking up at how lucky I am to be alive. I stumble toward a tree and catch my balance again. Go to the wetsuit strippers and off it comes. I don’t want to stand up again. But I must! I have to catch Craig! Is he out of the water yet? Goodness, I hope so, but let’s go see. I get to the rack, and his bike is gone, as are almost all the others in my wave. Not too surprising. I decide to just take it easy in the transition and do it right. I am not thinking clearly and don’t want to forget anything. My heart is still racing and I don’t want to be biking while dizzy. So I methodically put my bike shoes on, glasses, helmet, etc, and start jogging my bike toward to mounting zone.

The bike was good. This is my element. I was purposely taking it easy so my heart would come back to normal. I was still having breathing issues, something like an asthma attack with high heart rate, but it was less dangerous now, as drowning was no longer a possibility. We got a bit of downhill coming toward the base of Devil’s Hill, and I passed a few people, as I usually do when gravity is on my side. The hill was actually less bad than I expected, and I didn’t have to walk up it, which some people were doing. Not much happened for quite a while, other than pedaling. Some girls passed me on the hill, but I was actually passing people going up, which was quite exciting for a 250-pound guy. Made it to the top, and started to try to pick up speed. Somewhere in that long straight-away, going slowly up a slight incline, I went for my water bottle, (because I didn’t have my Urge bottle!) and this action caused me to lean slightly and I drove into the sand, then couldn’t get my wheel back on the road and crash, I went down. Thank goodness no one was passing, because I was like a tree tipping over, and I made a sizable obstacle in the road. I unclipped and was back in less than 30 seconds and got rolling again. No one else seemed to be affected, although because it was a long straight section of road, I was hearing about it as people passed me for five minutes. “Are you okay, buddy?,” “You alright, Dude?” Yes, thanks for reminding me. I used to have a shelf full of BMX trophies, and I can’t ride a freaking bike in the sand. People did seem to be generally friendly throughout. There were a couple of people I kept trading positions with, and there was one woman who was going almost exactly the same speed as me the entire time, but 25 yards ahead. I couldn't catch her! I think maybe about Bristol I was getting more like myself, and things started to pick up. Of course there is a long slow climb here, so I couldn’t really pick much up, but I was getting passed much less often now. I even passed a few more people. We finally made it to the top of the hills about two-thirds in, and I realize I haven't put my glasses on yet. They are hanging around my neck. Very aerodynamic. I put them on. I come up behind Genine on her hybrid. Keep in mind their swimmer started two waves behind us, and I was only catching up most of the way through the bike course. This shows either how good they were doing, or how terrible my swim was. Probably some combination of those. I think Genine will rock if she gets a nice bike. I wouldn’t have caught her had she been on a road bike. But Lo! This was the start of a glorious section of riding that included much declining topography, and I started flying. That was so great. I passed girls with solid wheels and all the expensive stuff on. I blew by people at the fire station at about 45 mph. I finally passed the woman I had been chasing the whole race. I hammered on all the way to the end, and thought about how nice it would have been to have been able to ride like that from the start.

Run transition was speedy, but as I’m heading out, I have to pee really badly. I had only consumed half of one water bottle as it turned out, (I think I was afraid to try again) yet still it was a pressing need, so I stopped in the porta-potty. My T2 was 3:03. I think I would have been under 2 minutes if I hadn’t stopped, but I didn’t want to run for an hour feeling like that, and I wasn’t willing to soil my pantaloons to save the minute. What was it going to gain me, 3 places in the rankings?

The run was uneventful. Adam, from Team Bloomingdales caught me within seconds of getting on the road. That meant Genine wasn’t far behind me. That’s cool. She must have dug in at the end too. Matt comes racing by in the opposite direction at about mile 1, meaning he’s 4 miles ahead of me. Dang, that's like 40 minutes ahead. He must've been flying! Craig comes by a little before mile 2, meaning he’s about 2 and a half miles ahead of me. The giant guy was a little after mile 2. I waved. I stopped at several of the water stations and walked while I drank. It’s hard to drink much while running. I walked up some of the steeper hills. I was basically toast. My body assumed the dragon hadn’t eaten me, so why would I still be running? I finished with an 11 min/mile pace in 1:08. I was hoping for 10 min/mile average, but given the situation, I was happy I was able to run at all. I beat the next Clyde by 12 seconds, so it’s a good thing I made a show of it at the end. I ran the last half-mile and was thrilled to make it to the finish!

615th place out of 730 starters, 716 finishers with a time of 3:22:33.
675th in the swim (Ugh!)
552nd on the bike (Better)
645th in the run (I beat 71 people!)
I was 367th out of 408 men.

I had completed my first tri, an Olympic at that. Sure, my performance wasn’t what I was hoping, but I completed a 3+ hour athletic endeavor and felt pretty good afterwards. We have another one in three weeks, so I think I can do much better next time. If I conquer this swimming problem, I think everything else will improve automatically. Can’t wait to try! I promise the next race report will include much lower numbers.

I must add that this weekend was made all the better by the fun companions, the delectable food, gracious lodging, beautiful surroundings, and excellent event organization. It wouldn’t have been possible for us without the wonderful Bed and Breakfast at the old farmstead. Of course Genine single-handedly tried to ruin my weight-loss plan, but who’s complaining? Matt and Genine are among the best people ever! Thank you guys so much!