We started the 650 mile trip out to Cambridge on Friday morning. We decided to rent a car because my Jeep is on it's last leg and it also costs an arm and a leg to fill up. Man was that a good decision. Filling up a tank of gas for less than $40 was nothing short of awesome. The drive was pretty standard, rain and traffic the entire time. We arrived on Friday night and joined follow Wattie Inkers Roger Thrall and Jon Miles for a few drinks. For some reason, I like having a beer or two the days leading up to a race, it helps calm my nerves and makes me feel "normal" again.
Saturday was spent at packet pickup and going for a light jog...but that wasn't after going to the pro panel and meeting Meredith Kessler and Mirinda Carfrae (as well as Greg and Laura Bennett). Both girls have won this race before so Sunday was going to be a shootout. SPOILER ALERT: Neither girl wins, or even finishes! Kessler collided with an AG'er on the bike, knocking her unconscious and Carfrae had cramps on the bike. Nothing else was too exciting about Saturday, it's usually pretty low key and trying to get off my feet as quickly as possible. I spent the evening preparing my water bottles and going through my mental checklist of things to do.
Pre-Race
Well my wave was 2nd to last to go, around 8:30am and unfortunately transition closed around 6:30 so I had to still get there at normal time. The alarm went off at 4:30 and I had my traditional bagel with peanut butter and banana. I also try to get down 1 full water bottle of PowerBar Perform to get my electrolyte levels higher. Eagleman was known for being hot, and it was raining the previous several days so I knew it was also going to be humid.
We got to transition and I went through my regular routine of throwing in my headphones and checking everything 3 times. Although time spent in transition becomes less of a factor the longer the race is, I still want to have everything organized and easily accessible. Once everything was in its proper order, we headed down to the swim start...where I had another hour and a half to wait...and wait...and wait.
Lauren and I watched the pro's go off then headed down to the swim exit to watch a majority of the pro's and AG'ers come in out of the water. This was by far the longest time I had to wait for my wave to go off. We watched most people come out of the water then I headed to the swim start to get a quick warm up in before the 1.2 mile swim.
SWIM
There were about 100 guys in my wave. The gun went off and as usual, I started out at a quicker pace than I wanted in order to get settled in. I found a guys feet and drafted off of him for about 1200 meters. The pace was pretty steady and I was feeling good. At the 1/2 way point, I got smacked upside the head by a guy who didn't know how to stroke but it didn't throw me off that much. We came to the final turn buoy and had about 1000 meters to go. I then saw that several people were standing up and walking...in the water! Because our wave went so late, low tide had approached and we were able to stand in water up to our knees. I stood up, got my bearings, took a few steps forward then went back to swimming. I exited the water at 35:53, good enough for 27th in my age group. Most of the top 10 guys swam 30-31 minutes and after even talking with Andy Potts he said that for whatever reason, the swim at Eagleman was traditionally long. There isn't much I would change about the swim, I felt pretty comfortable the whole time. I just need to get it down to a sub 30 minute swim.
T1
The run to my bike was fairly short which is always nice. I quickly found my bike and off I went. My shoes were already clipped in so it was a quick transition. The 2 days prior to the race it had been raining almost all day. There was about a 25 yard stretch from transition to the bike mount that was completely mud, like ankle deep mud. There was no way around it so I decided to make it into a cyclecross-like event. I couldn't imagine trying to walk through the mud with my cycling shoes on. I glanced at Lauren real quick, said hi and made my way to the mount line. T1 was 2:43
BIKE
The bike felt fairly good the entire time. My goal was to average 22 mph which would put me around 2:30-2:35. The course was incredibly flat, basically as flat as you can get and most of the road was newly paved. I kept thinking to myself "this smooth road has got to end at some point"...but it never did. I found a pack of 3-4 guys and 1 girl that I determined were about my same level. We all didn't say anything to each other, but we kept looking at each other and we knew we were feeding off of one another quite a bit. We kept jockeying back and forth and there might've been a little bit of drafting here and there but when your wave goes last and you pass someone every couple of yards, its difficult not to draft. I did my best though to not make it a habit or stay in the draft zone for too long. I managed to get my average mph to 22 within the first 20 miles so I just had to settle in and enjoy the ride. I kept my nutrition in check and swapped out water bottles at every aid station. I felt good the entire time. I finished the bike in 2:32, 22.1 avg mph.
T2I did a fly dismount, picked up my bike and through the swampland I went. I got to my rack and my feet were completely caked in mud. I knew I couldn't run like that so I grabbed some random guys water bottle and quickly hosed off my feet. I threw on my K-Swiss Kwicky Blade Light's, grabbed my flask, hat and race belt and off I went. T2 was 2:41.
RUNMy goal before the race started was to finish in 4:45. I started the run in 3:15 so if I wanted to make my goal, I would've had to post a 1:30 half marathon. That was certainly doable, but I knew I had to have an awesome run. My goal for next year is to easily have a 1:30 run split for every race. At mile 3, I saw a teammate, Denise Hiller, who ran up and smacked my ass as I passed. That certainly gave me a little boost of energy so for that...I thank her. The run zig-zags for 3 miles through town then its 3 miles in open marshland to the turnaround. Although I've never done Kona (yet), but there was a part of the run that reminded me of the Energy Lab...no trees or spectators, just open roads and blistering sun. I grabbed water or Perform at every aid station, even though it was sometimes hard to grab because there were only 3-4 volunteers at each stop so there were even points where I had to stop at the table and grab my own water. I know that sounds snobby of me but I just wasn't expecting that. I made it to the turn around knew that 4:45 wasn't going to be attainable so I just wanted to do a sub-5 hour race. Around mile 8 I was about to get chicked so I used her to pace me and we were elbow to elbow for about 3 miles. Long story short...she eventually dropped me. I couldn't quite settle into a comfortable pace for most of the run. I don't think I over-biked but I kept getting nasty side stitches. I'm usually good at working them out but this time I couldn't get over them. I finished the run in 1:44, a 7:59/mile pace. On any given day, that would be an easy stroll for me so I was disappointed with my run. I found the girl I got chicked by (Sylvie Mullins) and thanked her for the extra motivation. I ended up crossing the finish line in 4:57:58. I ended up 26/100 in my age group and 304th overall.
NUTRITION
My morning nutrition consisted of a Red Bull, full bottle of PowerBar Perform and Base Performance Electrolyte Salt. I also had my usual bagel with peanut butter, banana and drizzled with honey. I don't do anything fancy or complicated with my race day nutrition. Before the swim I had a PowerBar Green Apple gel.
Nearly every single triathlete will also say "don't try anything new on raceday" but I decided to roll the dice and try a 2.5 hour nutrition bottle on the bike. I did this because I only have 2 water bottle cages on my bike. I wanted to reduce my bike weight and not have the 2 bottle setup behind my saddle like I did at 70.3 Racine, instead I just have one cage behind my saddle and one cage on my seat tube. In my nutrition bottle, I had 4 scoops of CarboPro, 3 scoops of PowerBar Perform and 3 scoops of Base Performance Electrolyte Salt. I marked my bottle with a permanent marker indicating where the level needed to be so I can easily pace myself and not drink too slow or fast. This actually worked out really well. The potent mix wasn't hard on my stomach and it was easy to pace my nutrition intake. I also took in 2 PowerBar gels at miles 20 and 40 that I had taped to my top tube.
During the run, I also tried something new...using a flask. I get too annoyed with carrying 2 gels in my back pocket and having to tear them open and get sticky gel all over my hands. Carrying a flask turned out to work really well. I put 2 PowerBar Tangerine Gels in my flask along with some Base salt and water. The tangerine isn't the best tasting stuff in the world but it has 2x caffeine for an extra kick. Carrying a flask turned out to be simple and easy and I'll absolutely do that for any future races.
To be honest, I sort-of just wing it with my nutrition. I've been fairly lucky thus far with no major nutritional issues, but when I step up my training for next year, I'll need to treat my nutrition plan like the 4th discipline of triathlon that it is.
THOUGHTS
Although I didn't hit my overall goal, coming in almost 15 minutes late, I'm still overall satisfied with my performance. The swim was very decent, the bike was solid and my run could've been worse. I know it really all came down to my training. My training had some peaks and valleys...nothing too consistent. This winter, I am going to be taking some Computrainer courses as well as putting in some serious gym time to work on getting some more power in my legs. I'm still playing around with some things, but I might be hiring a coach in the Spring. I need more focused training if I want to qualify for 70.3 Worlds (which is the goal for 2014) and I know that an experienced coach will be able to provide me with the focused training I need. I've made some major strides in my performance from this point last year but I know I need to buckle down for next year. Next up on the schedule is Rev. 3 Cedar Point 70.3 then I'm putting the bike and goggles away and focusing on a marathon in the Fall.
I need to thank some people for getting me to where I am today: All our great Wattie Ink sponsors: K-Swiss, PowerBar, ISM Saddles, 454 Tattoo, Blue Seventy, Scott Bikes, FuelBelt and Kask Helmets. I also had some awesome help by Base Performance. All my kick-ass teammates for creating a ton of pressure to get my ass up at 5am to get in the pool and put in some major training sessions. Most importantly I would like to thank my wonderful girlfriend, Lauren. She's put up with so much of my tri-dorkiness, time apart from each other because I was on training rides and me having the ability to fall asleep at night in 30 seconds because I'm so damn tired from working out. She was the most amazing sherpa a guy could ask for and she absolutely contributed to my success. She has been amazing throughout this whole journey and I can't wait to be there for her when she steps up to the longer distance racing that she wants. Any ladies in the 30-34 AG better know that there's a new threat on the horizon!
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