This race almost never happened for so many reasons. My health hasn’t been that great, and then I developed a problem in a tooth requiring a root canal Wednesday. It wasn’t until Friday morning that I decided for sure that I was going to go at all.
The drive by myself was hard, and I found myself wishing I hadn’t come. Then I got to the race site and conditions were horrible. It was very windy, which really was stirring up the water into a choppy mess. While checking out the water Saturday afternoon I saw they had sunk a boat, not a good sign for an easy swim. Everyone kept saying the wind would die down, so there was hope.
On my easy workout Saturday morning, I got a flat tire. I had a spare, but needed to find another one for the race. I drove all over trying to get a replacement. It was after 3 pm before I finished my chores for the day and was able to sit down and relax – NOT the way it is supposed to happen. When I started winding down for the evening I thought to myself that I wasn’t prepared like I wanted to be, and wished I had stayed home. I told myself that if I didn’t race I would never know how I would have done, and that was it.
Race morning found the wind just as strong as the day before (where it was 17 gusting to 30). I walked out to the water to check out the course and there were no buoys in place. Long story short, the swim was cancelled due to the water conditions, and replaced with a 2 mile run. I talked to several people who weren’t happy with the decision to cancel the swim, probably all strong swimmers. In my opinion it was the right thing to do. There were too many people out there that weren’t strong swimmers, and with limited support (no kayaks, and the jet skis were really fighting the waves), it was just too dangerous.
I had no idea how to approach this new run-bike-run format. I can run 2 miles pretty quickly, but what would it do to my bike and second run leg? I decided not to use my watch to time the run, and just go by feel. I started off slowly, but had dropped to a reasonable pace by the end for an average pace of 7:50 or so. It wasn’t a mass start, but my wave was all the men, and many of them started at the front when they had no business up there. I really hate that!
My racing shoes are made for getting them on quickly, not so much for removing them. I got one off and then tried to loosen the laces. That was backwards and I fought with them for what seemed forever. Also, I needed to take off my sunglasses before putting on my helmet. This was a transition I hadn’t practiced and it showed.
Finally out on the bike I really noticed the wind. It seemed to be mostly cross winds which made it hard to hold my line. As we were still bunched up from the mass start, there was a lot of passing going on. I saw several packs of riders. They were making no attempt to pass, happy to just ride in a group which really bothers me. I never felt much of a head wind, focusing instead on staying tucked in, making myself small, and focusing on my power. My power seemed a bit high, but my legs felt ok, and the pace was in the mid 18s. When we turned around at about mile 17 the wind was gone, evidentially it had been more of a head wind than I thought. My pace picked up to around 23, that should give me a good bike split. I got passed by two people in my age group, but they were too strong for me that day to try and stay with them.
There weren’t a lot of bike in transition when I got there, usually a good sign. When I took off on the run my legs felt ok: not great, but certainly not bad. I was out there early enough to see the leaders coming in on the run. They were flying and covered in sweat. That surprised me a bit; with all the wind I was actually a bit cool. At mile 1 I caught my first peer. I told myself I had just run into 9th. I’m not sure where I came up with that, but it was my motivation. I wasn’t going to let him catch me from behind. I really needed to pee, but wearing a one piece uniform that would be complicated. I decided to skip the pit-stop and made up my mind I wasn’t going to walk at all, not even through the aid stations.
At this point there just weren’t that many people out there. I didn’t think I was going to catch anyone, so I was going to finish in 9th. I finally caught someone at the base of an overpass, another peer! I leaned forward, picked up the pace, determined to capture 8th place. About a mile later, coming down a hill I caught another one, I was in 7th. I saw one last person in front of me, but with only 1/2 mile left I didn’t think I would catch him, and had no idea if he was even a peer. At the six mile mark I did in fact catch him. I thought for sure he was going to pass me at the finish line so I kicked it into the next gear. It was a tough time to run fast as it was on gravel with lots of turns.
And then it was over! I’d actually finished 5th, good enough for a nice little trophy for my office. I’d also qualified for the HyVee championships. Not a big deal for how small our field was. I had already decided I wasn’t going if I did qualify, and then I heard them talk about the race. Getting in to this race is hard. There are races in DC with 4K entrants and NY with 6K, and they have the same number of qualifiers as my little race with 350. I suspect more people will sign up for this race when people find out how easy it was to qualify at here.
So do I go to this race, where less than 100 people in the US in my age group will get invited, knowing I would probably be the slowest one of them? Or do I take my trophy and invitation and run? I don’t know yet, but with only two weeks to register I will need to decide pretty soon!
I couldn’t figure out where to put this without disturbing whatever flow I had going, but I think I could have run faster. I was going pretty quick by the end, and could have gone further at that pace, so obviously I could have started that pace sooner. I’m going to have to find out how to convince myself during the run that I can go faster. I guess I will have to risk blowing up at one of these races to do so!
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