S: 6,232 yds - 1hr 29min
B: 50.46 mi - 2hr 40min
R: 20.57 mi - 2hr 32min
Total: 6hr 41min
I can’t remember the last time I was under 8-10
hours in a week, so that must mean one thing: taper time for a big
race! On Wednesday afternoon, Auburn triathletes Jacob Shults and Jay McCurdy picked me up in Birmingham and we started to make our trek up to
De Moines, IA for the Hy-Vee Triathlon 5150 U.S. Championship.
Wedneday’s plan was to drive 5 hours up to Jay’s parents’ house in Dyer,
TN. We made it there at around 9pm and quickly hit the beds in prep
for a long drive the next day.
On
Thursday, we awoke to excellent weather and went on a rather enjoyable
20 minute run around the farm before enjoying a home-cooked meal of
pancakes. Jay’s parents live on a 900 acre
farm, so it really was a pretty cool run on gravel roads and through
some fields. Jay’s dad would be joining us for the trip, so we piled
into a Yukon and began the 10 hour drive to De Moines. Basically, it was 10 hours of this:
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| "Iowa" |
The drive went
by without a hitch. Jay and his dad are both experts in the field of agriculture, so it was interesting to hear them talk about all kinds of things. I also enjoyed picking Jay's brain on everything there is to talk about regarding training and nutrition; he's been pretty successful as a triathlete so it was interesting to hear his thoughts on all kinds of things. Before we could arrive in Iowa though, Jacob and I managed to put a pretty decent dent in this pile of cookies:
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| Yummy cookies! |
After enjoying some French pressed coffee on Friday morning, we kitted up and rolled out on the bikes for a preview of the course. After wandering our way all over downtown De Moines, we finally made it to the race site and did a couple of efforts at pace before wandering back to the hotel. The rest of the day consisted of laying in bed and resting before heading down to a cool Italian place for lunch. That afternoon, I checked-in/got my race packet and then went for a swim at a local YMCA and knocked out a quick run before a steak dinner at a local brewery and an early bedtime.
Saturday...the day before the race. After sleeping in, we arose and enjoyed some more French pressed coffee and a good breakfast. The original plan was to go ride some more of the bike course, but after some discussion the plan changed to "lay low" until lunch. After lunch we drove the bike course to get a good feel for the turns, road quality, where the rollers were, where the sketchy railroad tracks were, etc, etc. Jay and Jacob had a mandatory meeting/check-in that afternoon since they were in the elite amateur field, so after that we headed down to the race site to get a quick swim, bike, and run in before checking in bikes. Dinner was soon to follow, and then it was back to the hotel room for a good night's sleep.
Jay and Jacob's wave went off at 6:45am and I was to follow 10 minutes behind them. After waking up at 4am, breakfast was in order before heading down to the race site. The race was a 1500m swim, 40k bike, and a 10k run. Here's how it happened:
Swim - 23:34
The wetsuit legal swim was a wave start for all the male 15-29 year olds, there must have been around 60-70 of us. I lined up on the right side of the beach on the front row, thinking that it would be slightly less congested and that I could get a smooth start. The horn went on and we were off. There’s really only 2 words to describe the first 200 meters of the swim: UTTER CHAOS. I was smacking people and kicking people, but was getting smacked and kick equally as much. We were not able to warm up in the lake before the race, so my arms immediately felt super tight, likely magnified by the fact that I wear my full sleeve wetsuit maybe 2-3 times per year. After a couple hundred meters, things started to thin out and I found some good pairs of feet and got into somewhat of a rhythm. It seemed like I was a little better than middle of the pack, but it was hard to tell with all the chaos. The swim was a counter clockwise rectangle. On the return trip back to T1 (which happened to be due east into the sun), the sun was just creeping above the tree line. It was literally impossible to see anything. Since the race was a wave start, I was still swimming around quite a few people so I was just trying to keep the same line that they were. It was definitely a situation of “the blind leading the blind”, but I figured that out of the 10-15 people around me at least some of them were going in a straight line. Finally, I reached the beach and hopped out of the water to run up into T1, anxious to get on my bike and start reeling some people in.
T1 - 1:55
T1 was quite a long run. We headed up the beach and into the largest transition area that I’ve ever seen. After finally making it to my bike I ripped of my wetsuit, slipped on my wetsuit and busted my butt on the ground, got my helmet on, and started running out of transition. After hopping on my bike, I was off.
Bike - 59:06
The plan for the bike was
to be aggressive, as this would be the best chance to make up lost time from
the swim. As I pulled out onto the main
road, my heart was beating out of my chest and I could see that it was close to 190 bpm. Crap...let’s make
that come down a little bit. After a
couple minutes of gradually settling into the effort, I started to feel a little
bit better. I immediately started to
reel in some of the guys in my wave.
There was a fair amount of people on the course (elite men, elite
women, guys in my wave that beat me in the swim), so I was able get a decent
amount of legal drafting or “slingshotting” while passing people. After passing a chunk of good swimmer/average
bikers in the first 5 miles, I found myself in no-man’s land for the next
couple of miles. It was here that I
really concentrated on keeping a high sustained effort. At mile 8 or so, I started to catch up with
some of the faster bikers in my wave. At
this point, I was passed by a guy who seemed to be going slightly faster than
me. For the remainder of the race we
traded positions a handful of times, but I mostly let him pull me along at a
legal distance which certainly helped out.
During the last few miles of the bike, I caught up with another group of
guys in my wave. At this point I let
them lead me into T2 as I was not sacrificing really any speed by backing off
the power...so I just sat in legally and let my heart calm down a bit before starting the run
T2 - 1:06
No mistakes here, just a quick run in and a long run all the way out of transition to start the 10k run.
Run - 38:58
I came out of T2 right behind a group of 4 guys. Since I warmed up before the race on the first ¾ mile of the run course, I knew exactly what to expect for the first part; a slight incline over a bridge and then a 1 mile out and back. I tried picking it up to reel in the group in front of me, but after only clicking off the first mile in 6:25 my quads were really starting to tighten up. I was semi-scared that they might seize up, but I kept pressing on and it eventually subsided. At the turnaround approximately 1.5 miles into the race I could see that the group of 4 guys had put some time into me. From there I was pretty much by myself. Miles 2-3 ticked off in 6:15 and 6:08, and I was really starting to get in a groove. It’s hard to describe, but the feeling was a sense of euphoric bliss; it was amazing. My quads started to seize up again, but after another couple of minutes the tightness subsided. As I turned to cross over the bridge, mile 4 clicked by in 6:11. The next mile or so was along the river with some slight inclines before turning to cross over the river and head towards the state capitol. Mile 5 was a 6:10 and at this point I was really hurting but figured that one can do just about anything for only 7-8 more minutes. The course directed us away from the state capitol on a slight downhill before turning around for a super tough last ¾ mile on a slight uphill and then the last quarter mile was a steep uphill before finally entering the blue carpet towards the finish line. Mile 6 went by in 6:11 and then it was a sprint to the line to grab every possible second. I crossed the line with nothing left and collapsed while trying to catch my breath.
Total - 2:04:38 (42nd overall, 13th non-elite, 3rd AG)
All in all, I think that this was probably my best execution of an Olympic distance race yet. With Hy-Vee giving out large sums of money and it being such a well-known race, the competition was pretty stiff. It was good to see how I stacked up against the elite amateur field, many of whom are either going to have their elite card soon or are simply choosing not to get it. I still think that I can swim faster (Brian says I’m going to reek of chlorine this winter), but I was pleased with how the bike played out and I felt like the run was one of my better performance ever. It was a good learning experience and a major confidence booster. Next up is the Coastal Triathlon next weekend, and I may or may not have a half ironman or two planned for later this fall!
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| Final day of the road trip: coffee on the farm in Dyer, TN |
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