In the complex sport of triathlon "things happen"

SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2010

Grand Haven, Michigan, July 11, 2010

I arose at 3 a.m. Chicago time/4 a.m. Michigan time and drove 1:45 from our July rental home in Union Pier, MI, to Grand Haven, MI. That was early! Finding a parking spot took a bit, but unlike when I raced a half in Grand Haven six years ago I was well organized, my bike was tuned and cleaned and I was ready to race with all my gear. I picked up my packet (bless those races that allow same day packet pick up), got body marked, set up my area, stripped down to my tri suit, used the porta potty, and gathered my wetsuit, goggles, cap and a spare pair of running shoes. The first hurdles of triathlon - getting to the race with the right gear and getting set up well and in time - were passed.

I joined the long line of racers trekking the half mile or so to the large rocks along the beach where the Grand River meets Lake Michigan. Nice setting in the morning sun. I found a big rock I could sit on, put my running shoes atop it and pulled my wetsuit halfway on (always a time-consumer with my tight suit). Then I walked/jogged to the beach's edge and 0.9 miles to the swim start south of the breakwater on the beach. The course talk was underway and I had less time before the start than I would have liked. I finished putting on my wetsuit and had a fellow racer zip me up. The next hurdles of triathlon - getting to the start in time ready to race - were passed, but barely.

I discovered a long-time Glen Ellyn tri friend, Cheryl Scigousky, was there with her friend Tony. Cheryl was using the race as a sharpener for Ironman Lake Placid. She asked me about the course, having missed all of the course talk. I helped sort out the swim route and told what I knew about the bike course - mostly flat, rougher pavement and some hills near transition - and run course - flat, much along the river, some trail I thought. She lamented that she and Tony had no idea how far it was from the beach to transition and did not know to park shoes at the rocks...

30 seconds, 10 seconds and we were off. We all waded through the surf and we ran until it got deeper and then swam. Oops, most of us had been drawn right to start and the yellow start buoy was to our left. There was a huge crunch at the buoy. I "shared the space" with many of my fellow competitors - but no harm, no foul, we worked our way around the buoy in close contact but without any problem. The low sun was on our right as we swam north, parallel to the beach. The water was 75 degrees or so - perfect - but the chop was coming over my left shoulder and made for tough sighting. I am very confident in open water, having swum in it since I was very young, but it was a bit challenging to see white and yellow caps (Olympic male and female swimmers) all over the place. There were vertical buoys lining the right edge of the swim area, which helped. I felt strong - not fast, I am rarely fast in the water - but after a good length of time the pier got closer, as did the lighthouse, and despite having to navigate between fellow swimmers trying to drive me off course we were coming up to the end of the swim. I sighted the ending yellow buoy, worked patiently to get parallel to it (while it appeared to me that other swimmers cut to the shore before the buoy, something a kayaker confirmed after the race) and turned in and swam closer to the beach. I stood in deep enough water that standing was not hard and ran in, peeling off my wetsuit and enjoying the cheers of spectators as I hit the beach. My watch said 31 and change. Yet another hurdle of triathlon was passed – a successful swim at my target time.

I initiated bridging the “non-standard” part of this race – the exceptional distance between the water and my bike – by running up the beach back to the rocks. At the rocks there was a spectator sitting in front of my shoes. "Excuse me, but I need to be THERE" I said, pointing at my shoes. She moved a foot to the right so I could sit next to her. That was not what I expected - I wanted her to move out - but OK, I can cope. I sat, rubbing the sand off of my feet. Slowly it dawned on her that maybe more people than her daughter were racing. Perhaps my elbows and feet pressing on her sent a message. She stood and resettled a rock away. I focused on the end game of removing my wetsuit – always a slow operation for me - and putting on my shoes, grabbed my sandy wetsuit and began the run along the river back to transition. I felt as though I were running in slow motion and when I peeked at my heart rate it was only in the 130s, which confirmed my lethargic pace. Valuable time was passing… Finally I was up the hill from the river and running through the Y parking lot and then through the entrance to transition and along the trees – 1, 2, 3, 4 to the rack ending at the sign, my rack, with my bike right on the aisle. Good position, Lee! My feet were still very sandy, so I had to sit in the grass and take more time to remove the sand and then I pulled on my socks, shoes, helmet, glasses and race number belt, grabbed my gel and salt tablets, took my bike off the rack and jogged the rest of the way down the aisle through the bike exit and up the hill to the mount line in front of the Y. I had navigated T1 successfully, but certainly not as fast as I’d like.

The beginning of the ride was a bit technical: on rougher pavement along the beach, sharp uphill left turn away from the beach and then more hills and turns. I had no problem with this, but my seemingly lethargic pace continued over from the transition run. I was passed by maybe a dozen riders in the first 20 minutes, some obviously strong but others more average. This was not the usual situation for me: I tend to take no prisoners on the bike. As we rode south out of town on mostly straight and flat Lakeshore, it slowly dawned on me that “Damn it, this is a race, Lee, not a ride!” Perhaps not having done a tri in almost 11 months was the cause; I really am not sure why I was so laid back. Whatever the cause, my ire with myself over not really racing brimmed up. Riding 18 mph on the flat even with some headwind just did not cut it. I’ve averaged 22 in a half before and certainly ought to be riding at 20 mph average or higher. My “self talk” hit home. I pushed harder, my heart rate zipped up into the 140s/150s, and my speed lifted on the flat to 21 the wind. That’s better! I started picking off riders – in fact I don’t remember any more riders passing me that I did not re-pass in the nearly one hour left of the ride. Best yet, riding hard, on the edge, is something I enjoy so much. It’s rock and roll, it’s hitting it, it’s hard breathing, it’s good pain, it’s rhythm, it’s grace in coming up on a rider and through simple body motion swinging out and back in with a “nice riding” comment tossed in. This was fun, something I have missed by not racing!

Before the turnaround we turned right, then left on another road and up a long hill. I grabbed a gel and took a moment to regroup and focus on how I would attack the back half of the ride. I probably had blown my chance at my 20 mph average target, but no matter, I would go for it on the way back. I did not care how it might affect my running later. After turning around at the cone in the road and navigating back to Lakeshore, I lit it up. More fun! At times I was seeing 24, 25, 26 on the flat, and was averaging 22 in this segment until the ending hills and turns. I was taking many of the smaller hills on the way back in top gear, using my momentum and staying in my bars, sailing past other riders who were sitting up and even standing. When we turned in toward the lake and hit the bigger hills I had to gear down and even stand (in my big ring), but I did not have the problem of the rider in the aero helmet with the fine bike who had missed a shift to the small ring and was walking up the steepest hill, swearing at himself and fiddling with his chain off and on. I tactfully did not say “nice riding” but instead said “that sucks!” as I cranked past him. After the sharp right onto the beach road, I again raised my speed in a last effort to up my average, passing a few more riders on the way into transition. Good bike? Check! Great bike? Nope. Need to hit it all the way next race.

At the line I dismounted and jogged my bike into transition, hit my watch, ran on to my rack (by the sign, my marker), racked the bike, pulled off my helmet and bike shoes, pulled on my running shoes, grabbed my hat, pulled my race number to the front and took off out of transition. It felt OK in terms of efficiency, but my time shows it was hardly a fast transition for me. I need to find that “flow” I used to have that resulted in better transitions.

I had a little trouble starting the run, not because of sluggishness (the adrenaline was certainly flowing now) but because of carelessness. Last year at the Chicago Triple my tri suit pocket had developed a hole in one side - the stitching came loose. (For those keeping score on my tri clothing issues, this is the replacement Profile suit I got at the last minute on race morning last year at the Steelhead 70.3 from Emmanuel Millett of Aquaman Wetsuits when the zipper on my previous DeSoto tri suit failed.) As I started running I felt my two gels and plastic bag of salt tablets shift – from the pocket down, well, into my crotch. I am sure I looked like a fool trying to run down the hill from the line digging through the inside of my rear pocket deeper into my suit, trying to fish out my unwelcome baggage. I finally had to stop and focus on getting it out. At that point the question was carry or what? Ditching the stuff was not a good idea because it could lead to a DQ. Then it dawned on me that I could tuck the items under my race number belt. Problem solved. I hurriedly tucked the gels and plastic bag in and started running…and immediately the plastic bag fell to the ground. Oops. A runner behind nicely scooped it up, I tucked it in better and off I went. Yep, that’s a typical triathlon for me: “Things happen.” Next time I’ll be sure my suit pocket is sewn so at least the “stuff in the crotch” “things” won’t happen again.

So then I focused on a good run. It was hot and humid but I was acclimatized and had been doing long runs, short runs and track workouts in similar or worse weather. I went into my racing mindset, focusing on keeping a good pace while picking off runners ahead of me. We ran along the riverfront on concrete and boardwalk for the first mile or so. It was hot and I was sweating, so I made sure to grab Gatorade at the first water stop. The next segment was on roads with little shade. But I was maintaining roughly a 9 minutes per mile pace, which was my target. All race I had been playing in my head how I could come in under three hours. Normally I would expect to be well under that time, but the very long run from the beach added so much time for me that sub 3 hours was a real challenge. My lackadaisical bike start did not help, either. It now came down to the run and would be very close, requiring a run at 9 minute per mile pace if not a little faster.

Around the 2 mile mark I worked past a woman who was running well, probably the toughest pass I had made yet. I said “nice running!” and she answered “You, too. It’s getting hot.” Indeed it was, but I was maintaining pace and my heart rate was firmly stuck at 154, which was just where it needed to be for this run. Soon enough we came to the turnaround point and started back. We retraced part of the roads and eventually the woman who was running well worked past me. Well, well, she is a gamer, I thought. I considered trying to pick it up and hang on, but thought better of it when I considered that I still had about three miles left and given the weather I could cramp and/or blow up if I pushed too hard. A goal had been to “race smart” and this was not a time do otherwise, so I let her go, though the gap opened only very slowly and she remained well in my sights ahead as we continued to pass other runners.

We turned off the pavement onto gravel that soon became single track. The transition from road to single track brought back good memories of the run course at the inaugural High Cliff Half Ironman in Wisconsin that I did in 2005, I think; that was my fastest longer tri run ever and I won my age group partly on the basis of that run, but that was on a cooler day, for sure. The heat coming off the vegetation reminded me of running among the grape vines at La Crema in Sonoma when I did the Vineman Ironman race 13 years ago. That was a hotter day like this one, but less humid – then it cooled as the sun got low, a benefit we would not experience today.

The trail turned and we went through some trees, out of them and then took more turns and we were back into trees for a bit. I was looking for a mile marker to judge my progress but none appeared. Hmmm, where are we? Going out, from the placement of marks on the road I judged that we should be emerging from the trail back onto the road. We had just crossed the road but that was not where I had expected us to turn on to it. Then the trail took us back into woods, where we confronted a forked intersection and a choice of direction, with no marks or signs to indicate which way to go. My directional instincts (usually good) told me that we needed to go right to get back to the river, but the woman who was running well had turned left so I followed her. Next thing I knew she was running back at me and the guy whom I had recently passed and was now following me. “It doesn’t look like that’s the way to go,” she said. So we all retraced and took the right fork, following it to a point where it approached the river and then would have taken us back the direction we had come, clearly not correct. Ok, so we were we were off course. Damn! We huddled and determined we should go farther the other way. We did that, with the woman who was running well leading. We got lucky, eventually spotting a bridge with runners going across it on the road that we somehow had not connected with. The three of us ran across a meadow and up a hill to the road at the bridge and rejoined the race, not happy that we somehow had missed a mark. (My supposition is that despite it not looking familiar the point where we had crossed the road was where we should have turned onto it. We missed the sign or mark and with no other runners around at that point had not realized that we should get off the trail there.) We failed to clear the “staying on course” hurdle of triathlon.

I mused that our diversion could have shortened the run, but of course it did not. I found myself passing runners I had already passed earlier in the race, and explaining that “Yes, it’s me again. We got lost! Keep it up!” This certainly was not going to help the cause of a sub three hour race!

The woman who was running well again slowly opened a gap while my heart rate stayed pegged at 154, which continued to yield my target pace. I was again passing more runners as we worked back to the final riverfront segment. While this final mile was where in many races I would try to pick it up, it was not to be on this day. Maintaining was enough of a challenge. I sweated my way back along the river and then up the hill past the Y toward the finish line. As I approached the line a woman came barreling past me. No sprint for this boy. I happily crossed as the announcer spoke my name and home town. Job done! My watch said 3:04, with most of the overage past 3:00 accounted for by our creative extension of the run.

After the race I hydrated and ate a free hamburger. I checked the results board and noted in the partial results that one guy in my age group had done the distance in 2:40 – damn good for 60 years old, I thought. But second place was still possible. I packed up my stuff and walked it back to my car, loaded the car and changed, and then walked back to the race site for the awards ceremony.

I again checked the result board and more finishers were posted. The second guy in my age group was shown at just seconds over three hours. Damn! Well, I had taken third, and the run detour seemed to be less than the four minutes separating us, so I could not charge all the different to the navigational error.

I sat in the shade among my fellow racers while the race winners were announced. Cheryl was first woman overall at 2:30. Wow, she really is ready to race Placid, I thought, as she accepted her trophy and was photographed. I congratulated her and then waited as the Olympic age group awards were announced. The woman who was running well turned out to be Mary Smith and she won her 50-54 age group with a time of 2:58. Good for her! I went over and we talked about our creative run. She figured we had lost three minutes – about what I thought – said she wished the course marking had been more apparent or that a race marshal had been posted at the point we veered off and she apologized for leading us astray. I would not hear this and said I needed to be responsible for my run and it was not her fault. We both were happy that our places did not change because of the error.

I recognized that had I not been lulled in the first part of the bike and/or had I been a little quicker in transition and had not gone off course, I would have been second and under three hours.

Then they announced my age group’s awards. Every awards recipient up to this point had been present – which you will know is not the usual case if you have sat through as many such ceremonies as I have. But for my group both number one and number two were no-shows. I bounded up to get my bronze medal and jokingly asked the sponsor/racer handing out the awards, “What the heck is wrong with my age group? I’m really happy to get this!”

Lessons Learned (I hope):

Allow even more time to get to the starting line.

Eat a gel sooner rather than later after the swim leg to counter any early flatness.

Work on being faster in transition.

Go hard from the start on the bike – don’t get lulled by the more technical parts of the course.

Tend to gear needing attention, don’t ignore it, as I did my tri suit pocket.

Don’t just use the runner ahead to navigate the course. Know the run course before you start and be aware of signs and marks.