Matt's Morgantown Race Report

This is long. I apologize. Most of you should just skip the Saturday Journal :-).

Saturday AM:
Started out the morning by going to the garage to get the bike to put onto the car. Rear tire is flat… Should I deal with this now or later? I decide later I will have plenty of time. I put the bike on the roof rack and with the rear tire with no pressure really didn’t seem to be secured by the strap. (THULE). So I pull it back down and swap out the tube. The tube I pulled out was leaking through a patch from last summer, that’s not going to repair easily if at all. I have another spare with a hole near the stem…. Time to buy some new tubes. The one thing this accomplished was I decided to try out my new CO2 system. It inflated simply enough but it was as if it was frozen onto the stem and difficult to get back off. Not sure if that was really the case or if I just did something wrong. Whatever it’s done and it did the job.
We left about 7AM to drive to Morgantown. I believe we got to the hotel at about 1. Very easy drive.
I have been having problems with the power meter on my bike so I bought batteries for my wireless Speed and Cadence sensors and went to work installing those. That involved cutting a bunch of tie wraps and trying to get the batteries out of the sensors without breaking anything. Got it all together and went for a short spin down the road. I had to make sure that tube replacement was a good install as well. Everything checked out.
Next on the list: packet pickup, bike check in and dinner.
We follow Craig and Tamara down to the race site and pickup up the packet at the Waterfront Hotel, a very nice place. Definitely would like to take advantage of the triathlete discount in future years. The expo was one vendor. Ha!
Craig then shows us where the swim start is with the docks and then we roll our bikes over to the parking garage and rack our bikes.
Then it’s time for the Carb load. Nice place called Oliverio’s, right there between the swim start and transition. Craig picked up the check, Thanks Craig!
Craig then drives the Bike course with us. It seems really long to us for some reason and the roads are looking pretty rough.
We then drive the bit of the run course, which is not on the bike path. There is one monster hill. It is so steep!! Picture a steep set of stairs without the steps for an entire block. Ugh! I decide that I’m not going to go into the race thinking I’m going to walk it. I’ll deal with it once I get there.
Back to the hotel.
Because of our quick pack to get out of NJ. I need to consolidate all the stuff into the transition bag. I go through the checklist. Talk with Shawn about my need to be at the race site early. I believe we are total opposites in this area. I can’t roll out of bed and be racing an hour later. I’ve got to be up for awhile.
So 5:45AM is going to be the departure time. Transition closes at 7:30 our wave start is 8:03.
Time to ZZZZ.

Race Day:
It’s as if Shawn was standing at the door until exactly 5:45. He’s ready.
Fortunately the transition area was in the parking garage as it has been raining all night and is likely to rain during the race today at some point. So Transition is dry.

I get setup rather quickly. My stomach is not feeling like it should. I decide I’m going to take a quick jog to see what the result of that is going to be. It just feels heavy, I figure the run is still hours away and try to forget about it.

We go down to the Swim Start, I notice a guy wearing a race jersey from a town near where I grew up. I figure it’s one of the guys from the Trifuel forums. I go over and introduce myself to him. He had done the Triple Tri not to long ago and we talk about that for a bit before he’s off to do the Half Iron, which starts before our event. For the record he says the Triple T is tougher than IronMan distance.

Swim: 79/180 overall 00:31:34
I felt very relaxed again at the beginning of this race. I guess I no longer fear not being able to complete this distance.
My biggest problem on the swim is that if I really dig in. I seem to track to the left and lose my line. So what’s better? Swim slower in a straight line or faster and have to constantly correct? Well I decided to really focus on holding the line as we were going upstream. (there wasn’t supposed to be current but the rains made it so they couldn’t shut the locks, so yes it was swimming upstream for half the swim).
Again I feel that I get stuck in traffic time and again. I try to crank up the speed and get around people from time to time but I never feel successful at that. Maybe it’s working out better than I think?
Finally after finishing the upstream part of the swim we are “going with the flow”. I look at the caps out in front of me. Such a mix of colors. Sadly I didn’t make enough of a note as to which started when. So I can’t decide if there is a direction I should avoid. Well it didn’t matter. I decided to start pouring it on a bit, which of course pushed me to the left. I was basically in my own lane the entire downstream swim. I haven’t any clue if I added distance because of it but it was odd after spending the last 20 minutes or so smacking arms and legs with other people.
I get to the dock and as the people in front of me flop onto the deck to get out, I’m thinking “Seriously people, you need to MOVE!!” I would like to think when I got to the dock I was up and out of the way quickly and not looking like a walrus as I was thinking these people were.
Now I’ve got to run/trot down the bike path to transition.
I had my HR monitor during the swim. 171 Avg in very tight range the entire time. It doesn’t work in the pool so I don’t have anything to compare against. I’ll try some stuff out in the Lake in a couple weeks.

Bike: 73/ 180 01:17:26 19.2 mph
I get rolling out of town, across the bridge and then start looking for someone a bit better than me to try to push me. This took longer than expected. Most of the people passing me are passing me at a rate I can’t touch. My HR monitor is not working for some reason. So I’m not able to glance down to find out if I’m being weak or not. Oh well. Hey there goes that Noah Kid from the race last year! He’s going at a pace I might be able to hang with for a while. There is a woman directly behind him, as in “DRAFTING” for a long while. I decide that should switch to my 39 ring in the front. When I switch it the chain drops to the inside, Ugh!! The guy behind me thinks I’ve cramped up and says “Work it out! Get it Back!” I tell him my chain dropped and he says “Sorry dude” LOL.
I was hoping my watch would show how much time I lost here, it didn’t record anything yet so I’m guessing a minute stopped. I was really bummed about losing my Pacer.
So I get going again and am on the lookout for another person to hang onto. We are getting into that 5 mile hill when I look to my left to see who is passing me and I’m looking at the top tube of the largest bike I’ve ever seen. I had to look up to see the guy. Well I did my best to stay with him and did fairly well all the way to the turnaround. Where he was asking for tape and stopped to get it. So I’m in the one section of overlap and I see Shawn headed towards me. We both cheer a bit then back to work. Wasn’t too long before the super tall guy is passing me again. When we hit the steeper 1 mile hill I lost both him and the pack in front of him. Grrr. Then finally DOWNHILL!!! It’s going to be mostly down the rest of the way but then it decided to pour down rain. I have done no riding in the rain. So I do a couple brake tests just to get an idea of what I’m dealing with. The real trouble is puddles, potholes and wet sunglasses. Fortunately I didn’t have anything happen to shake my confidence but I was definitely holding on tight. Rain kinda hurts at 25+ mph.
Overall I think we all deserve some extra credit for surviving a pretty rough bike course.
Oh. Noah averaged 20.5mph and the tall guy did the half iron and averaged 19.6mph.
And paint on the road to indicate directions is of no help when it rains. The Mooseman signs again prove to be the proper way to mark a course. Morgantown did have many intersections manned though…. I’m just saying paint just isn’t the way to go.

Run: 67/180 00:59:03 9:01 pace. It was not a 10K run. It was 6.55 miles. Our T2 time was added into this time.
So here we go am I going to be able to crank out a good run? Well it sure didn’t help that the first person to pass me on the run was a woman that was just flying. I felt like I was standing still. It’s times like this I’m glad I have the footpod. I look at my watch and see that I’m at an 8:15 pace which is good for me. Sadly my stomach is back to feeling very heavy ah well. Just try to hold pace and get it done. I make the U-Turn and start heading back the other way. It wasn’t too long that I see Craig. Then directly behind Craig is Shawn!!! I am laughing, I’m just picturing these guys fighting it out for the last 2 hours. (that was not the case, but I didn’t know that). I run past our “fan club” and give them the update that Craig is now leading Shawn. The bike path run went fairly well for me. As I was nearing the Turn towards “Devils Hill” I see a girl that I think is the one that won the women’s division of the sprint last fall. I am stunned that I’m gaining on her and pass her right at the turn. I’m now looking at the hill…. I see the devil on the other side of the intersection. I hold pace going up to him. Give the devil a very low 5 on the way by and he wishes me luck on my climb. I almost immediately decide to walk up the stairway. Which is what it feels like. I get to the top. They have water and a tank to dunk your head into. It’s not that hot. I start running again.
I’m stunned that nobody ran by me during my walk and that I have 3 people in front of me which I might be able to reel in. As I get to the first guy, I’m needing to get fired up. So I say to him. “what do we have? About a mile left? Let’s catch those guys ahead of us”. I do well pulling away during the flats and uphills. Sadly there was more downhill from here on out. I couldn’t hammer the downhills. I gave up ground every time. So I didn’t catch the other 2 and the guy I passed got by me on the final down hill.
Got to the finish and the clock wasn’t at 3 hours yet so I was happy. I’m still amazed that I’m able to race for 3 hours. That wasn’t possible a year ago.
I hit the food tent and chowed down. Oranges, popsicles, about 3 bottles of water…
Then went over with everyone to watch for Craig and Shawn to run in.
It’s great to see Craig finish. You can just see that he’s leaving it all out there. Every second counts. I look at the pictures of me along the way and think that I’m not really pushing as hard as I could be.
When Shawn is nearing the finish line, he looks very happy. I’m guessing a combination of being glad he’s done but more likely he’s happy with the improvements he’s made since the Mooseman 3 weeks ago.

Final 71/180 02:52:21
I find it interesting that here my overall rankings are best for my run, then bike and then swim. I believe at the mooseman it was the exact opposite. (not that it means anything).

I was slower at all three legs of this race compared to the Mooseman. Different course, different conditions… I don’t feel badly about it. I really enjoyed the weekend and I finally got to complete a full Olympic distance race. So the bar has been set.

Next up: Kinzua Country Tango Adventure Race.