Columbia Triathlon 2011 Race Report

A bit of pre-race story first.

I haven’t raced my bike in 50 weeks, so my race day toolbox was a mess. This is also my first race on the tri bike and hopefully riding the Hed3 Tubulars that Todd loaned me. So there are additional items that are required: Right angle adaptor for the air pump, spare tire, and fix-a-flat. As I was sorting through stuff I came across batteries, small ones like the ones that go into my HR monitor. These were the wrong model for my HR monitor tho’. So they were left behind.

You check in your bike the day before at this race. So after packet pickup, we head down to the park. I wanted to do a short ride if possible. The weather looks like it’s going to be nice so I commit to using the Hed 3s. The rear wheel magnet for my bike computer is in a different place on the Hed 3s. So instead of using my wired computer, I had mounted the front fork wireless sensor for my polar watch the other week. My speed isn’t so important to me during the race but sometimes knowing the distance travelled is. Well, it would seem that the battery for my polar speed sensor is dead. Yep, the spares are the ones that I left at home. (like there wasn’t room in the toolbox for this tiny item). I just couldn’t remember what it was for. Now I know.

Well if it’s not working, it’s not staying on the bike. I cut the front sensor off the fork and decide that I’m going to reposition the rear sensor so I can place the magnet onto the rear tire and it should work with my wired cateye computer. Everything checked out. Time for that short ride.

It turned out to be really short. The traffic was very heavy and there wasn’t much room at the side of the road. Maybe if I got further down the course it would have been better. I wasn’t comfortable with it and decided it wasn’t worth it. I had considered packing our bike trainer so I could spin in the parking lot. I guess that would have been the better choice for me today. I roll the bike into transition and head back to the hotel.

Should I do a short run? My legs feel fine, not tight and our dinner plans are fast approaching. No run. No worries.

I slept well. Easy wakeup and we are out the door on schedule.

I head down to transition to set up my bike and run gear. A nice upgrade to the transition area this year, they added letter signs at the racks. (Keith Jordan Style). My bike rack is the first rack in when running in from the water. Basically the same location as the pros. It’s the longest run to the bike in/out but that isn’t a big deal. I don’t have a problem running with my bike in this transition area with my bike shoes on. When it’s pavement or sand, that’s when I wish I would start with my shoes on the bike. I check everything over. Wheels and brakes are set properly, computers are working, chain is in the proper gearing and moving well and so on. One big decision to make, the spare tire (not the 10 extra pounds around my waist). I have a spare tubular but I don’t think it’s pre-stretched and I’ve never put a tubular on before. I decide that the fix-a-flat goop is going to have to be enough, I take the spare tire back to the car with me.

Back at the car I finish up applying body glide and all that in preparation of the swim. Then head for the swim start. I think my wave was 40 minutes after the pro start so I waited quite awhile before pulling the wetsuit on. I stood with Genine down the swim course, away from the start while she was snapping pictures. Oscar was there as well. I think being away from all the nervous people hanging around the swim start allowed me to be much more calm. When our group was called, I walked up to the front and swam as much as possible to get warmed up. Unfortunately, that meant I was not in the front row at the start because there were a bunch of us in this wave. 215 of us I think.

This is my first wetsuit swim since the Tango back in August of last year. I’m a big fan of the wetsuit swim but I sure felt like I was getting nowhere fast. I knew from last year that the swim is congested until you start swimming back towards the finish. That makes sighting simple but every time I looked up, I felt like I was seeing 200 of my swim wave ahead of me. I just felt SLOW. Nothing to do but to keep on pushing the pace and focus on form.

I have no way of knowing for sure but I felt that I stayed on line as well as I ever have during a swim.

Exited the water looked at my watch, it didn’t start or it turned off. Well that’s one way to keep from being disappointed in your swim time.

Turns out I finished in 26:16 65 AG/ 320 Male. That’s 11 seconds faster than last year but still that 1:45/ 100 meter pace I know so well.

T1 2:21 :26 faster than last year.

As I’m running up towards transition, I hear someone cheering for me. It’s Oscar. Genine captures my reaction to Oscar’s cheer.

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I have a pretty good transition HR seems to be well under control. As I get to the mount line, I see people struggling a bit getting started. I decide to step ahead of them. Fortunately I clip in very quickly and I’m off. Genine is there cheering me on and taking pictures.

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Alright this should be interesting, last year the course was wet and I played it safe at times. I’ve got a dry course, a tri bike, race wheels and a good training plan. I figured I’m going to break 20mph avg on the course today. At the same time, I’m hoping to pace myself well enough that I improve my run as well. My watch is showing HR, my computer is showing cadence and distance. My HR is definitely higher than I expect but it feels right so I guess I’ll go with it. About 7 miles in I look down to check my cadence and it’s not registering. I slide the computer forward and then lock it back into place and we are back in business. Around the half way mark, I move from my bullhorns to my aero position and when I make this move I drag my forearm across my bike computer. It breaks free and is gone. It was at a manned “intersection”, I’m guessing someone there picked it up. It’s odd that this happened, this has never been an issue. I guess I’m just moving differently with the race day intensity. So I’m without cadence and distance now. All I’ve got is HR. Not a big deal. Although if I had the spare battery my watch would have had speed and distance for me. I guess what made the whole thing even more comical to me was as we got to about 5 miles left to go, faster bikers from later waves would pull up along side me and ask how much further we had to go. I wonder if they believed me when I said that I didn’t know. (it kind of killed me how fast they would drop me).

When I finished the final climb, I looked at my stopwatch and saw that my goal of 1:15:00 was a reality but I was going to have to stay on the gas to make it happen. I was feeling great and was passing quite a few people and then. PFFFFFFFFFT. My front tire goes flat with about 1.5-2 miles to go. I have no idea why. I didn’t hit anything… My options were to stop and try the fix a flat goop or ride it in flat. I decided it would probably just as fast to ride it in slowly on the flat. Also I knew I’d be finished rather than finding out the goop doesn’t work and then I ride it in flat anyhow. So I sit up and pedal it in easy. The first guy to pass me is a guy I just flew by. He asks if I’m alright, he probably thinks something must be wrong with me physically since I’m still riding the bike. I tell him I’m fine and he keeps rolling. I’m guessing 20 or so people go by me as I ride back into transition. Without the computer data, I can only guess if 20mph was really going to happen today. Genine and Chris cheer for me as I ride into transition.

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One other thing, I thought the speedfil was great. I was never messing around with bike bottles.

Bike 1:18:21 19.5mph 92 AG/ 368 Male. That’s 1:53 faster than last year.

T2: 1:41. 28 Seconds faster than last year.

Now for the run: Last year I was dying on this run course. I walked a number of times. It was a tough mental battle. It’s a tough course. I really wanted to have a good run today. I pulled socks on in transition. I didn’t need blisters today. I also tried to turn on my foot pod for pace. Once again, I was unsuccessful. I could have stopped at any point to turn it on but it just didn’t matter to me. I figured I’d just take my splits along the way. Well there were no mile markers. Maybe that was a good thing. It’s tough seeing those slow splits for the first 3-4 miles. The most uncomfortable part outside of the hills was the fact that my abs were cramping. I guess running hills after a tough bike will do that to you. The good news is that mentally I did not give up at any time. There was no walking. I was thrilled when I got back to the ball fields. I guess it’s about 1.5 miles to go and no hills to speak of. Finally, I am running and I’m passing people. I definitely moved up within my age group during this final 1.5. I’m getting into the final turn and I hear someone call out my name. There is Chris he was the first of the high fives on the way into the finish. I make the turn and I hear Genine cheering. The little kids are lined up at the sides waiting for high 5’s. This always makes me smile. It’s better than a sign or a cowbell in my opinion.

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Run : 49:25 7:58 min/mile 48 AG/ 256 Male. That’s :55 faster than last year.

So AG Results S/B/R 65/92/48 landed me in 59^th place of 215 finishers. (yes of course I looked, 3 minutes faster would placed me at 49^th , 23%)

Male Results S/B/R 320/368/256 landed me in 276^th of 1064 finishers. (3 minutes faster on the bike would have me in 227^th and about 21%)

I’m happy with the results. I don’t feel that I’ve done anything spectacular with my training that would have led me to believe that I should have done better. The one difference I keep noticing at all of my races this year compared to last is the mental battle. Last year during races my brain was constantly pleading with me to stop and rest. This year it seems to be asking the legs for more and the leg speed/strength just isn’t there. The other thing is that I can now see how I might change my training program next year if I keep the same schedule. My schedule is built with one purpose this year, the half iron in August. I haven’t had any scheduled speed workouts yet. They actually start this week. Next year maybe I’ll build two peaks into my schedule. Then I would expect more improvement from myself.