Chick Fil A Sprint triathlon race report

So this Friday I'm driving the 7 hours to Amarillo so I can do the aforementioned tri. Had my kids the night before and I have a 2 day trial starting on Monday so i was a little in a hurry to get going. I felt a little guilty taking off to go do a triathlon when I'm picking a jury on Monday but I worked hard all week getting my case and client together so what the heck right?! HOLY CRAP is that a long drive! Especially by yourself. Especially when you get a speeding ticket in a one building town with decreasing speed limit signs every 50 feet called Elida (warning - if you are anywhere near this town, there WILL be a sawed off little redneck in a 1990 vintage pickup waiting to light you up - I saw him twice). The drive gets even longer when you realize ,oh, about 6 hours into this 7 hour drive that you forgot to bring anything to wear to race in. Oops. If Amarillo didn't have some kind of sporting goods store open late, I was screwed or would have to race naked and nobody would want to see that.

So I get to packet pickup a whole 5 minutes before they shut down and luckily the pickup is at a sporting goods store that actually sells tri gear! Solved that problem. New problem - race starts at 7:00 a.m. Which is good because it's cooler, but bad because it's 7 central time and el paso is mountain. Transition opened at 5 (4), which means I need to get up at 4:30 (3:30) after driving 7 hours. I really enjoyed the race but I'll never do it again unless I go up at least a day earlier. I was exhausted.

That being said, what an excellent race! 1st class all the way. I got lots of emails before the race began, everything was organized well, precious little bad to say about it.

As far as the race itself, Swim was 10 minutes. 400 meter seeded swim start. Not too much mosh pit. Gotta work on my swimming. I was 2 minutes slower than just about everybody in big boy bracket. Bike avg speed was 20.1 and I had fastest bike split of clydes. Big wind for 3 mile so happy about the bike. Got off bike and right calf cramped up hard. Run was 24 mins. 2.9 miles.  Flat, flat course all around.

Felt better on the swim than I ever have. Didn't stop once, stayed consistent. Didn't stop at the wall and let people go past me which is first time that happened. Just slow. Gotta figure out how to pace myself faster without blowing up on the swim.

Ended up 2nd in Clydesdale category again finishing behind a 31 year old "kid" that looked undersized to me.

I wish they would bring a scale to the starts of these events. I've done 8 this year and nobody's been weighed ever. Let's keep everybody honest out there!

Next race isn't til July 9 which is good since I've done 3 races in a row. If I make it through this trial, I'll try to write about something other than boring race reports.

Ruidoso Sprint

Great trip to Ruidoso! I redeemed myself from Dexter, all our good friends from the world of triathlon were there, and my kids got to participate and rocked the kids triathlon! Here's my two budding triathletes.

Cannon's 7 and Sarah's 10 and they're already better swimmers than I am. Ruidoso was a hard course for a kids tri (it killed me) and they rocked it!  Couldn't be prouder.

Nora and I and the kids spent the night at the host hotel the Holiday Inn Express. Sarah wanted to know if they had a train there (I think she equates Ruidoso with snow, Polar Express the movie, you can see her logic, right?). Took this pic and couldn't resist posting as well. I know there's some kind of law that nobody ever thinks your kids are as cute as you think they are, but my blog, my kids, my posts.

Anyway, the race weather was perfect. No wind, no clouds, moderate temps. I don't think there's a flat area anywhere in the village of Ruidoso. The only thing flat about the course was the swimming pool. I did the same race last year and apparently I have a very selective memory. Bobby Gonzalez, Gretchen McElroy and Brooks Vandivort are all much better triathletes than me but were all asking me how the run route was. Due to my selective memory and fact that I had averaged an 8:30 pace last year, I told them it wasn't bad at all. I was wrong.

They reversed the route this year to make it USAT compliant and twisted the end of the run around and it was tough, very tough. It was basically a trail run on a trail on which most people wouldn't even think of trying to run. I was satisfied with my effort though and due to the fact that they started us Clydesdales with the ladies, I was able to judge pretty well where I was. I tried to keep Gretchen in sight for as long as I could and after that I got passed by only 2 Clydes.

Smoked transition to my bike and hit the road. Nora said I looked like a completely different athlete from last year at this event - maybe because this year I didn't clip into my pedals at the start of the bike and immediately fall over! One lady did (sorry ma'am, I was there, know how it feels). Flying down the hill towards the road that runs to Inn of the Mountain Gods. Long, steady hill climb for 2-3 miles past the lake by the Inn and then the turnaround. I was looking for my main man John Gardea because I knew I was ahead of him but didn't know by how far.

I saw John hauling butt about 1-2 minutes after I made the turn. By this time I was going back down that long, long hill with the wind at my back and was flying. I was going so fast that when I hit a little pothole, my brand new aero bottle went flying (again!). For those of you keeping track, that's two races in two weeks and two aero bottles lost. Expensive hobby.

Anyway, I kept going as hard as I could. There were two Clydes in front of me that I knew and i passed one on the long climb heading back into the transition area. He was walking his bike up the hill. As far as I knew, there was only one clyde in front of me. I knew I probably couldn't catch him since my swim sucks but I figured I could stay ahead of John b/c his swim isn't any better than mine. I figured 2nd place would be awesome because they give out actual carved bears to the winners in the groups.

I got in the pool after a long ass run from the transition area to the pool across a side hill parking lot and street and across what can only be described as dorm-room carpet scraps laid end-to-end and into the pool. The pool swim requires you to swim up and down each lane 4 times, get out of the pool and be magic markered by a lady standing there, and then back into the pool for a repeat of the same. Then you take your happy self out of the pool and run across the aformentioned carpet samples to the finish line.

I was about 2 laps in when I saw John come in. I managed to keep those two lanes in between us the whole way and ran to the finish. I was happy with my effort and waited for the results.  After a while, I found out that I got 3rd in the Clydesdales. I knew about the one guy that was ahead of me but had no idea who else it could be because only two guys passed me during the run and I caught one of them.  Nobody and I mean nobody at all passed me on the bike so I was perplexed. But I was happy because I figured, I'm top 3, I get a cool bear!

Wrong! Epic fail on the race's part.  Apparently, the race decided that since they were giving out such cool finisher prizes, they would only give them to the top 2, instead of normal top 3. That means yours truly got a nice pat on the back from his friends and no stinking bear.  To top that off, Gretchen and Bobby rocked the course and up until the moment they called out awards (and even a little after in Gretchen's case) they didn't even show that either Bobby or Gretchen had even finished the race.

Oh, and I finally saw the guy that finished first in Clydesdale in 1:07. Looked about 19 and Nora said (and I agree) no way is that kid over 200 pounds. So for the record, those are Nora's sour grapes and not mine (but again I agree with her, as a good husband should). 2nd place was 1:17 and I was 1:20. 3rd out of 15 Clydes. I'm happy with that.

All in all a good race, a great weekend with my wife and kids and life is good. Bonus is that it should have been good training for my 3rd race in a row this weekend, the Chick-Fil-A tri in scenic Amarillo. I'm actually looking forward to this one as I've gotten emails this week from the run coordinator, the swim coordinator, the bike coordinator, and even the transition coordinator (didn't even know there was such a thing) telling me in exquisite detail everything about their respective realms.  They must put on one hell of a show.  I'll let you know.

Finishing Milkman

I was so fast, the clock burned out - not!

Milkman Triathlon 2011 - A humbling experience

Well run tri with wave start by age group. Arrived early on Friday before race and so Gretchen, Bobby and I drove the bike route to get a feel for it. The road felt rough sitting in a brand new Yukon so I knew it was going to be rattly.  

I did the Milkman last year and it was the hottest most miserable race in which I've competed. My time last year was 1:33 which for a 500 meter swim, 12.4 mile bike, and 5K run is pretty slow for me. I went to bed about 10 but couldn't get to sleep until about 1 a.m. so had lots of time to formulate how well I was going to do the next day. I told the race director at packet pick up that 1:15 was my goal. Sounded reasonable when I was standing between two legends - my coach and Bobby Gonzalez.  While I was trying to go to sleep, I thought I could do the 500 meters in about 10 minutes, bike less than 40 (only have to average 20 mph to do that), and counting quick transitions I could run the 5K in under 25 minutes and be golden. All those times are slow compared to my training. I just did a 550 yard swim time trial in 9:57 and my fastest 5K time is a little less than 21.  All these thoughts were racing in my tired head at the glamorous and luxurious Fairfield Inn in scenic Roswell (gotta love Marriott Rewards Points!)

Got up at 5:30 on race morning and this time didn't stop at a gas station to get a honey bun for breakfast (did that last year - one of my many excuses for the 1:33). My beautiful wife actually packed me breakfast stuff so I had a banana and some almond butter and a lara bar. Good to go!

Got sat up and my friend John Gardea was there and we wished each other luck, knowing that we had been chasing each other in 4 or 5 prior races. A lot of people were vacillating between wearing a wet suit or not. I had already made up my mind that I was going to wear mine even though the only one I have is full suit. The people that were wearing suits had on sleeveless. Water was 67 degrees and clear.

I started with my wave and felt much better than I did last year when I was uncomfortable and freaking about swimming "that far" in a lake. Came out of the water in 12:00. Oops, a little behind schedule but I figured I can make that up on the bike.

This is where it started to fall apart. I came out of the water before my good friend/competition John but I COULD NOT get the damn wetsuit off my feet! I know, I know, everybody said that would be a problem and I did practice taking the wet suit off.  Unfortunately, I just don't think you can simulate trying to get a wet suit off after swimming 500 meters being pushed around, digging seaweed off your face, and the general free for all that is the swim start of a triathlon.  I was so slow in transition, that John beat me out and was gone on the bike.

Felt good going out and was averaging well over 20 mph until I started climbing a hill that went up down and up for about 2 1/2 miles. I didn't even remember any hill climbing in last year's race but apparently I just blocked that out b/c they were definitely there and killed my speed to the 12-14 mph department. Gretchen started 5 minutes after me and passed me on the bike with first 4 miles. Also, the damn road was so bumpy, my fancy aero bottle bounced out from between my aero bars.  Thankfully they were handing out actual waters bottles that were blessedly cold at the half way turnaround on the bike.

I was trying to get John in my sights and saw him coming back when i was 1/2 mile from turnaround. Bobby passed me about 2 miles into the return trip.   I thought if I can just get close enough to John that I could see him starting his run when I'm coming in off the bike, I'd be able to catch him on the run.  He's a beast on the bike but I'm a lot faster than him on the run so I figured I could catch him if I saw him.  The ride back was hot and into a headwind.  Unfortunately for all my "catch John Gardea plans," I wrecked - again. Turning last corner to go back into the park area and all of sudden it was like my wheels were on ice and they just slid right from underneath me! I landed by sliding on my left side. Here's some photos

I'm proud to say I didn't stay down very long. I didn't even give the two guys that were standing at that particular corner to get to me. I just jumped back on my bike (no obvious damage this time), and kept going - and promptly fell at the next corner too. No new injuries that time but by this point, I was afraid to look. I just got back into transition area and put on my running shoes.

At least I thought they were running shoes, but apparently some jerk replaced my shoes with concrete replicas because I could not manager any better than 9:30 pace.  I don't know why, but the Dexter Milkman just kicks my ass for some reason.  My two worst performances last year was this race and the Eagle in the Sun and the only things those have in common is a swim start.

I faded worse in the last part of the run but managed to finish the run despite the blood, sweat and tears. Finished in 1:27 so that's 6 minutes better than last year but no where near what I thought I could do. Bad news John came in around 1:17 and kicked everybody's butt in the Clydesdale division, 7 minutes ahead of closest competitor. I was 4th out of 5.  Sucky, sucky, sucky. I have Ruidoso this weekend and Amarillo weekend after that so I need to get over my pity party pretty pronto.  I've trained well since I got over the double pneumonia but I don't think my fitness is near where it was. I'm going have to race my way back into shape!

the rest of my crew did aweome. Both Bobby and Gretchen were second overall and 1st in their age group. Brooks was top 15 in 2nd in his age group. I need some of their star power to start rubbing off on me!