Elephant Man Butt Whupping

Did my first Olympic distance triathlon in EB last Sunday. Just writing about it now because haven't had time and I needed the time to gain perspective on the race. The race was a 1 mile swim, 27 mile bike, and 6 mile run. My thinking was to be under 3 hours based on my performances in sprints this year. A confluence of events caused me to rethink my strategy race morning.  First, I already had enough points in the SW Challenge Series so, unless I got first place in my division, it wouldn't effect my point standings if I came in 2nd or last in my division. Second, I looked around at the start and holy cow there were some studs there! There were teams from Univ of Arizona, the Black Dog Tri team, and overall some big dudes that looked like former Navy Seals that all had their game faces on.  Having no particular ego-induced delusions about my own athletic prowess, I meekly asked Coach Gretchen at the transition area, "Uh Coach, would you be pissed if I just 'experienced' this race?"  For those of you who don't do these masochistic events on a regular basis, when you don't have a good race you just say "I wasn't racing that event, I was just using it as training."  Works like a charm.  Gretchen told me this is your first Oly, this is a very, very difficult race, it's the last race of the season - just have fun! Well, that's why she's a good coach, so that's what I set out to do.

I repeated my prerace approach from Socorro and rode my bike from the hotel to the transition area.  If you have the chance to do this, I highly recommend it as your family doesn't have to get up at dawn, you bypass all the traffic and hiking to transition area, and you get a little warm up/equipment check for free. Besides that, you look cool riding to your race with your tri gear on your back (at least I think so).  Had a large contingent of local tri geeks in attendance. Training partners Brooks Vandivort and Art Sanchez were carrying the big stick and doing the 70.3 (both 1sts for them, which leads me to question their sanity because this race will definitely not be my first 70.3). Cody H. did the 70.3 as well and is a stud of all studs for doing so (he knows why).  Gretchen, Jason M., Greg G., Juan E., Lowry B., Dr. Mark and a host of others were doing the Oly.

As stated, the swim was 1 mile in open water although all agreed it looked a lot longer than a mile. My number one goal for the swim was to survive as the longest open water swim I had done was 500 yards in a pond at Dexter that's maybe 5 feet deep and that took me 12 minutes. I was less than enthused about swimming a mile where I could never touch the bottom.  I've been working hard on my swimming though so I figured 35-45 minutes would be acceptable.  The water was 78 degrees and no wake, no wind at all so perfect conditions. I wore a sleeveless wetsuit for the first time because I feel too constrained in the full.  I kept up with the pack for the first 100 meters or so and then settled into a quasi rhythm interrupted by frequent sight checks.  I can't swim a straight line to save my life but managed not to take too many detours.  I stopped one time early on b/c my wetsuit strap kept wrapping around my right arm and was driving me batty (note to tri newbies - make sure your strap is tucked in).  Overall, I kept a very steady pace but slow and managed to come out of the water in one piece in 45 minutes.

I really don't think there's any way to mimic open water swimming in a pool. You just have to swim in big bodies of water which we are unfortunately lacking in El Paso.  I suggest all local triathletes pool our money (pun intended, ha ha) and get us a nice man-make lake in which we can train.  We could call it Lake Proud in honor of uber athlete Diana Proud who just passed from ALS. Diana Proud local legend
Food for thought.

This race has by far the longest transition of any race I've entered. Turns out when you have a triathlon with an open water swim, and the body of water is at a record low level, you have to go a long way to get to the parking lot that is serving as a transition area.  And you have to go up a big ass hill, barefoot, in the sand.  At least I had a cheerleader in my corner.

This particular 8 year old cheerleader had just completed his race the day before with his old man running up the hill beside him yelling encouragement including that he was being passed by certain other 8 year olds.  So he dutifully told me, "Dad, he's passing you!" at about this point. You can see the burst of speed I put on while telling him there's a long way to go.

Thanks to my beautiful wife for taking the photos and also encouraging me all the way.

My calves cramped up when I sat down to have my wetsuit stripped but it stopped when I stood up.  Got on my bike knowing that sub 3 hours was probably out of the picture due to my swim and decided to push hard but not kill myself and enjoy the experience.  

Even with that, I managed to pass 30 people on the bike (yes, I counted).  The bike course has an elevation change of over 1000 feet because there are some good climbs in and out of some canyons. I had no problems on the bike despite the rough road surface and felt pretty good coming back into transition and my bike split was 1:33.

On to the run.  For perspective, Clay Mosley won the 70.3 in a time of 4:44.  I heard him say afterward that the run course was the hardest he had ever been on.  It was brutal.  No flat terrain, up and down winding hills, no shade, no relief.  I took my time like I've never done before, walked most of the uphills and finished the run in 1:06 for a total time of 3:30.

Do I regret not pushing myself more and putting up a more respectable time? Absolutely not.  I enjoyed the experience and for a first time oly distance on such a hard course, I'm happy with it. I even managed to have some encouraging words for other athletes and a smile on my face for parts of the race.

The race itself was well-organized with tons of helpful volunteers.  The race director? Not such a nice lady but I'm kind of spoiled by race director extraordinaire Gabby Gallegos who always had a smile on her face even though there were over 500 athletes at the Eagle in the Sun asking lots of questions.  I think Kori just wants everybody to show up, race, and keep their mouth shuts. I was very leery of her going in due to some comments she made after the Dam It man Triathlon but kept a open mind.  I know now how she earned her reputation as she was very terse and dismissive when I tried to ask a couple of questions.  That being said, the race was organized and executed beautifully so personal dislike for her communication skills aside, I give the race a thumbs up.