Sorry for the delay, it has
almost been a month since the race but with school finishing up and moving
home, I am just now catching up on things. After the race, I had a 13 hour
drive from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Iowa City, Iowa and that gave me an
opportunity to really think about how the weekend went down. Below is my race report. Enjoy!
We got in Thursday night
around 6:00pm. I was able to go for a 30:00 easy jog and have a stretch. We
made dinner in the hotel, organized a little bit, I foam rolled and took a
shower. We were in bed around 10:30 and I was pretty beat.
I woke up around 8:00 on
Friday morning. Had some breakfast, hung out for a bit and then we went for a
ride around 10:00. We did a slow ride around the campus and then made our way
over to the run course to ride around the whole 10k loop. We did the entire
thing and I was able to get a pretty good feel for the turns and elevation. On
the way back we rode some of the bike course and did a few building efforts. I
didn’t feel great on the efforts, just not overly powerful for some
reason. I got back to the hotel, put the
run shoes on and went for a 15:00 jog around with a few pickups to loosen up
the legs. I felt good on the run, very fast and smooth. I grabbed a quick lunch and then we went to packet pickup, swam the course for about 20:00 and had a mixed relay meeting
at 3:30. We went back to the hotel and got bags/ numbers together for the
morning. There was a pasta party that night which I went to but did not eat
there. I waited until we got back to eat back at the hotel (we had a kitchen).
It was about 8:00 by the time we got eating but I felt good and ready to go for
the morning.
Wakeup was at 4:00am even
though my race did not start until 10:30.
I woke up, changed and had some breakfast (2 packages of oatmeal, peanut
butter, banana, blueberries, 1 clif kids zbar, 1 small cup of coffee and some
water). I headed down to the race site, set up my transition area and then went
to hang out at the team tent. From about 7:45-9:00 I snacked on another clif
kids z bar, a banana and a few shot blocks. We watched a bit of the girl’s race
and pretty much just hung out for a few hours. At 9:00, Alex and I went for our
warm up which was a 15:00 jog with a few building efforts to open up the hips.
I felt pretty good on these and was able to really open up. We went back to the
team tent, stretched out a bit and grabbed our things to head down to the swim
start around 9:45.
We got down to the entrance
to the swim start and put the wetsuits on.
I was in the water around 10:05 and the men had until 10:20 to warm
up. I started swimming and getting
mentally prepared. I lined up, entered the water and held onto the side of the
dock with everyone else to wait for the gun to go off.
Wave 1 was obviously all of
the fast guys looking to get a good position at the start of the swim. The race started and it was a serious free for all. I got totally beaten down. I missed the first group and was left with
the second group, which I was much faster than.
I worked on just picking people off but I was without a doubt doing the
work on my own. It was not until about the last 600m that I caught up to a
group and was able to draft a little bit. I came to the last buoy and swam
towards the exit. Then, AGAIN, I felt the small twinges and cramps in my feet
and hamstrings. Same thing as Hy-Vee last year but not as serious or
debilitating. I got out of the water and just worked on getting my feet under
me, there was a 300m run from the swim exit to the transition area, which
actually helped in getting my feet back.
No problems in transition.
It was not hot and it was not
sunny at all. Really good conditions to be able to hammer. There was about a
15-20mph wind that was annoying and something that everyone had to deal with. I
got on the bike and just worked on spinning out the legs for the first mile to
get rid of any of the little cramps I had coming out of the swim. It didn’t
take long for me to bounce back and I started to get to work. I felt good but not great on the bike. I
couldn’t ever really get into a rhythm on the first lap but I still came in the
20k around 31:00. I went out on the second lap and that is where I got the
penalty. I was riding up a hill where I
had to get out of my bars. Some dude comes up on me starting his first lap, passed
me up the hill and then died. I stopped
pedaling to let him go ahead but we were going uphill so if I were to slow down
anymore, I would have practically lost all speed and eventually stopped moving.
Right as he cut in front of me and died, the official pulled up next to me and
I got dinged. After that, my mental got a little off, I just had the feeling
that I had gotten the penalty. I had a hard time getting back into it on the
bike after that. I ended up hurting a little bit on the last 1/3 and was about
2:00+ on the second lap compared to the first. On the bike I got through a
whole bottle of GU Roctane drink.
I hit T2 and got my legs
underneath me. There is a huge hill about 400m out of transition and I planned
on taking that first 400 conservatively.
I made it up with no problems. I was feeling good and took a GU
Chocolate Raspberry Roctane gel here. My legs were rolling and I was focusing
on cadence. Right from mile 1 I started
to get stomach cramps. I just pushed through and suffered the pain. Some were really painful and I just worked on
relaxing to recover and then bounce back.
I was able to pick off about 8 people on the run, which was pretty good.
I suffered the last 2 miles and came in strong.
I crossed the line and was
hurting but happy with my finish. 2:05 is actually a PR for me in a true
Olympic distance event (even though this was supposedly a little long). I found
out that I got the penalty and started to bum out pretty hard. I was angry
because my finish was 37th place, right within my goal of top 50. I
wanted to break 2:05 but it was a little long so I was happy with that
too. I was pretty stoked originally and
then getting the penalty moved me back to 70th place and that pissed
me off. 70th place was really not anywhere where I thought I would
end up finishing. I know I should think
about the race as a 2:05 but it is hard to ignore what is on the paper and what
everyone else sees. I was also disappointed because I feel like I could have
biked better. I think my swim was right on point even though I missed the
group. But I think that on a solid day I am a 1:00-1:02 biker, not 1:03:45.
Obviously with the long runs to the transition area, my transition times are
usually faster and that takes off about 1:30-2:00 on a different course. Still,
I was happy with my run form and I think that if it was actually long, I can
run right on 37:00 on any given day.
Official results:
Division Place (male
undergraduate)- 49th
Overall place- 68th
Swim- 21:23
T1- 2:23
Bike- 1:03:51
T2- 0:47:00
Run- 37:25
Time- 2:07:47
Penalty- 2:00
For the first race of the
season, it was not a bad opener! It was a fun weekend and a great experience. I
was also happy to represent my team and my school! On to the next one, in just
8 days, St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg, Florida.
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