Radar
Strike 2? My polar watch died and of course on the day before the race. Strike 3? So did my dishwasher. And with it's last sputtering breathe it decided to regurgitate all the water that it had been clogged with, completed with bits and pieces of salmon, beneath our kitchen floor boards. Yummy. As J eloquently stated, "That's three. You're finished." I was optimistic that he was correct.
J, Whitney and I loaded up the Tahoe, made a quick stop by Bikesport to pick up my bike after a fine tuning-and a new Polar watch- and we were on our way to Galveston. The drive down to Galveston was a lot like every drive out of Houston J has recently described on his blog...torrential rains. I could not believe that a sprint triathlon could be taking place in such weather, but a friend later told me that one lady finished the run with her goggles on. The rain began to disappate and the winds died down and I began to think that we might actually be able to have a weather-free race on our hands.
I kept the night pretty calm. Made some last minute tweaks, nothing major, to the bike, watched some Jackass 2 and hit the hay at 10:30.
Race Day Rig
Fast forward to race morning. Our gracious hosts, the Muecks, let us stay at their bayside home in Lafitte's Cove. Charming family. I woke up one hour late as they, understandably, had not yet changed all the clocks to Daylight Savings time. Arriving to transition, everything was very professionally set up. The wind was howling. I threw everything into place in transition, made a "pit stop" and headed down to the bay for the race start.
Setting up
As I entered the water the winds had calmed but my heart rate had elevated in its place. Boom!
The swim was rather uneventful. I was unable to find the feet of anyone that could (a) keep a steady pace and (b) accurately sight through the open water so I elected to pave my own path past all the turn buoys. As soon as I made this decion three guys hopped on my feet and I pulled them for what I estimate to be 1,200 meters or so. I exited the swim stripped the wetsuit and was into T1.
My bike was racked right near the entrance and alongside the railing. I dumped my wetsuit, put on my helmet and sunglasses, stowed my third bottle in my pocket, gave a waive goodbye and an "I love you" to Whitney and was off.
T1 Exit
I made my way out of the Moody Gardens campus and onto the seawall. WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! The wind was stiff in our face out of the southeast at easily 10 knots. The road to the turnaround was slow but it was steady. People were blowing by me every so often but I figured I would likely see half of them later. At one point I noticed a large fella was riding his tri bike in the road position (hands on the brakes, not in the aero position) and was happily enjoying the draft behind me. I don't like giving people free rides and after being drafted in the swim, I didn't want to be drafted again, even legally, by someone unwilling to swap pulls. After about 13-15 minutes, I decided to pick up the pace by about 10-15% to see if he would try to stick around to benefit and hang in the draft behind me.
235 watts for one minute. That is a significant power output for the typical age grouper for even one minute. He was still there. I turned around and said, "Are you going to come up here and pull or are you just going to fuck me all day?" He sorted of tilted his head "OK then" and came out in front. I got legal (three bike lengths behind him) and he was visibily fighting very hard to keep the same speed we had been. I left him at the turn around and never saw him again.
At the turnaround, 15mph turned to 25mph. By the time I hit the second loop of the bike course the wind had picked up and I was doing 14mph outbound and 27mph on the way back in. I saw many cyclists in the last leg of the bike that had powered by me earlier in the bike course. I was happy that my PowerTap had kept things in check for me in terms of effort. My heart rate was way high from the swim until about mile 12. And the wind was denying me any chance of relying on speed to determine my efforts. It is clear the PT was the best investment I made all season.
I told myself I wouldn't look at my clock on the bike until I reached T2. I clicked over from Cadence to Clock on my PT and it read 2:42:30 as I entered transition. I had beaten my goal by almost ten mintues. Whoa.
I headed out onto the run course and hoped for the best. With chronic Achilles tendonitis, I hadn't run over 3 miles at one time in over a month. Tons of water jogging though. I sailed through the first mile in 6:59. I ran the second mile in 8:20 and felt I had backed off and settled into a really nice pace. Now it was just a matter of time before the fatigue would set in. I had planned my nutrition very precisely and had not knocked it out so far. I was anxious to complete the race.
The run was two loops of 6.55 miles each to make 13.1 miles. It was nice because the course was very spectator friendly and the course was lined with people cheering me on. It's always amazing to me how complete strangers will scream at the top of their lungs to help me. Good to see the better side of humanity. Anyway, I was able to see Whitney and her parents three or four times per loop so that was obviously very helpful for mental status.
By mile 7 I was able to say "two more loops" to myself, recalling the three mile loops at Memorial Park. As I have trained there so often, I pretty much gage (sp?) all running workouts by what multiple of three miles they are. While saying "only two more loops" was a nice notion in my head, I was beginning to really feel the effects of the day. The wind had beaten me up mentally on the bike and, accordingly, I had little, but still some, mental strength left in me. I was just ready to sit. I passed Whitney and her parents at 10 miles and I stopped to give Whitney a kiss and to say, "three more miles."
Three more miles
It was a long three miles. My legs were tired but my Achilles was killing me. Every step with my right foot felt like my Achilles was being stretched over something stiff and bumpy. I could feel the it getting tighter and tighter with every minute. But as I looked down with 1.5 miles to go or so I realized I might break 5:30:00. This was when I finally I reached the point where the fatigue wore off and the adrenaline of reaching the finish line kicked in. It was a very sweet trot to the finishing shoot. I saw Harris was spotting for me as the girls had moved closer to the finish line. I waived to him and turned for the line.
I had thought a lot about how I might feel. Would I cry? Would I smile? Would I collapse? Would I jump? I didn't know. What I forgot about racing is that if you do it right, you don't have much left in your tank at the end. And I certainly didn't. I simply ran, crossed the line and sat down to breathe and to pray.
I thanked God for everything: for keeping me safe, for giving me the strength to train every week and to race, for Justin for his insight, guidance and most of all patience, for all of the volunteers, and lastly, and yes most importantly, for Whitney and all of her love and support.
Finished
I walked out of the finishers' corral and gave Whitney a huge hug and kiss and spent the rest of the day talking about the race with friends, family and even strngers. I am little sore today and the swelling in my right Achilles has made it look like I have a cankle. Sweet.
So now it is time to shift gears to help Whitney train for her own race. I will take a week or so off hard training to rest the heel and to fatten up to 178-180 or so. Let's hope it takes more than just a week. See you all soon!
Overall
77
Bib
135
Final Time
5:20:37
1_2mi_swim_rank
61
1_2mi_swim_time
35:15
1_2mi_swim_pace
1:50/100m
t1_time
02:37
56mi_bike_rank
54
56mi_bike_time
2:42:38
56mi_bike_pace
20.7mph
t2_time
01:34
13_1mi_run_rank
173
13_1mi_run_time
1:58:29
13_1mi_run_pace
9:03/mile
