Another weekend in September means another race, this time a small local triathlon put on by my favorite Tri shop and race director. I hadn’t planned on doing this many races because I didn’t want to get a national ranking that might depress me. However, someone convinced me that I should get a ranking so I can see where I am this year and compare it to next year. Besides, I had so much fun at my last triathlon I could hardly stay away!
This was a weird race/distance, at least to me. The swim and run, at 500 yards and 3.1 miles, were consistent with a sprint, but the bike leg was long at 21 miles. That would be the furthest I’d raced on a bike since April 2012, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to post the type of results I had on the shorter courses. Fortunately that distracted me from the swim, which while it wasn’t long, it was the longest OWS without a wetsuit I’d done since my disaster at Lake Pflugerville 2 years ago.
Like I mentioned previously, the race director is a good friend, so I volunteered to help with packet pickup – the only place where I could help since I was racing. Next thing I knew they had me signed up to work there two full days before the race. That was going to interfere some with my normal pre-race hydration and resting. I showed up the first day and there were no chairs for us to sit in. After standing for nearly 13 hours in two days my legs were tired and my joints all hurt. Not the pre-race I would have picked!
I got there race morning, checked in, set up, and hung out with all my new friends I’d made during packet pick-up. It seemed like everyone knew my name! We finally made it out to the swim start to see the course and it sure looked long to me. I remembered just now that they always look long to me, and with 500 yards being about one lap on the track it probably was accurate.
I was in the last wave, which meant I wouldn’t have people running over me from behind. I took my spot in about the middle of the pack, and we left. I started off doing the new stroke I’ve been working on in practice. I started to digress after about 100 yards and by the halfway point as those muscles got tired I completely reverted to my old style. I also noticed at about this time that there were very few people around me. I saw one guy that was doing the breast stroke ahead of me, which got me thinking I was pretty far back in the pack. As we made the final turn in to the exit I started seeing green swim caps from the previous wave. It sounds sexist, but it was a female wave and I didn’t think much about it. Especially when I hit the lap counter on my watch and it said I had taken more than 12 minutes. I was way back in the pack.
We climbed out of the water, and I congratulated the only other swimmer I saw with my color cap (as I passed him on the way to transition). I was broken hearted when I got there as it was almost completely empty. I was focused on my bike and getting there and swore I only saw about 5 bikes. I knew I had a lot of ground to make up!
I got out on the bike and was determined to catch some of the people who had left me behind on the swim. The only problem was that there was no one in sight. I rode as hard as I could but my pace was off from the previous races, especially when we came to the chip-seal section. Finally around mile 16 we got some favorable conditions and it showed. I was, for a long period of time, holding over 27 mph. With a few miles out I started calculating my estimated bike split at somewhere between 1:03 and 1:05 or around 20 mph. As we made the final turn I realized I’d miscounted the miles and I was going to finish in under an hour!
Before I forget, I saw one or two of my age groupers on the bike which shocked me. I figured I was WAY behind. On the other hand, I passed a lot of people and not a single person passed me.
I had a great transition, buoyed by one of my new friends that had done the swim portion of a relay, and was pretty quickly out on the run. With the longer bike I figured I would be slower than the previous week. Unlike the previous week though I started running immediately upon leaving my bike.
I tried to distract myself by looking around at the course which was supposed to be beautiful. I suspect it was, though at the time all I saw was grass, trees, and a long path for me to follow. I passed a bunch of people on the run, stopping at each aid station only long enough to pour a cup of water over my head. At the second aid station I grabbed two cups, one for my head and one for a drink. I took one sip, which went down the wrong way and I started coughing and almost threw up. It was at that point that someone caught up to me. He said he had been chasing me since the 5 mile mark on the bike. I was feeling pretty tired, so when he told me he wasn’t in my age group (he was 57) I told him not to let me slow him down. Then for whatever reason he started to fall back. He later told me that he’d used everything he had to catch me and just couldn’t hang on.
As we got close to the finish line I heard people cheering for Rick, telling him that the gap was only 100 yards. If they were talking about someone catching me, that wasn’t going to happen without him putting in a whole lot of effort so I really kicked in the afterburners. I turned to look when they announced Rick was finishing, and it was the guy who had tailed me for so long. He ended up winning his bracket. He’d better watch out for next year when I age up!
After a long delay due to athletes accidentally placed in the wrong brackets they announced the winners. I was surprised to see I took 3rd, mostly because of my lousy swim and because I never saw anyone else from my bracket out on the course. It turns out that they were all behind me!
In speaking with my coach this is something I need to get used to as I’m only going to get faster. It’s been 15 months since I had my injury, 6 months since surgery, and 5 months since my first run. I look at where I am now, with such little training and wonder what the limit is. If this continues, last Sunday won’t be the last podium for me!
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