American Triple T Ohio Race Report Part Two

Sprint Triathlon on Friday evening 

Racers entering the water

 

We went in the water two by two about 3-5 seconds apart.  We were supposed to start in race number order which meant I was actually starting next to my good friend Paul Schon who is also from St. Louis.  We happened to be assigned race numbers 183 and 184 respectively out of approximately 550 racers who had signed up given our half ironman personal records are within a minute of each other.  We had submitted our personal record half ironman finish times when signing up for the race months ago.  Paul is a multiple ironman finisher and also owns a triathlon coaching business so I knew he would be ahead of me on the swim in no time.  I let him go and just tried to focus on walking through the shallow water as far as possible until I would actually have to, you know...SWIM.  Why? Because, well, I really don't like to do that very much since I am so very slow in the water.  So, I tried to proceed with haste but wasn't sprinting or anything to keep my heart rate down as my feet landed on the mushy muddy bottom of the lake.  I walked out as far as I could, probably 50 meters, until the water was at my neck.  Ok--it was time to bite the bullet and start swimming, which I did.

To wear a wetsuit or not???

 

I should mention at this point that I noticed something ominous--the water temperature was COLD.....or so I thought.  I remember seeing a race information chart at the check in site which listed the water temperature at 73 degrees which was the main factor influencing the no wetsuit decision.  However, that reported 73 degree temperature seemed absurd to me.  I would guess the water temperature was between 64-68 at most.  I later read several other blog reports from the race that estimated the water temperature was approximately 60-61 degrees and in retrospect I wouldn't disagree.  It felt truly cold to me and I really couldn't get comfortable in the water at all.  I think it was a combination of a colder temperature I wasn't expecting and the fact that at such a short distance I had people flying over the top of me trying to finish fast.  I tried to move into a less well traveled lane but given how short the course actually was there really wasn't a whole lot of room to find that wasn't being utilized by someone else.  I stopped a few times to sight the next buoy and was run over each time by someone from behind.  Of course, even when swimming full steam ahead folks were hitting my legs, back, arms etc. so basically it was one uncomfortable swim.  I finally reached a shallow enough point where I could stand up at around 230 meters and proceeded to slow walk the last section to the ramp out of the water.  Thank goodness the swim was over!  On to the bike. 

I had a rudimentary idea of where the 5 mile bike course would take us since it stayed entirely within the contours of the state park where the transition area was located and actually passed by most of the racers parked cars too.  However, I learned from friends that there was a long hill on the far side of the course that I hadn't seen, or obviously ridden yet.  I jumped on the bike and was off.  Finally a bit of a break with not having to take off a cumbersome wetsuit.  The first two miles I knew already and it went fast since that section was relatively flat.  We then hit a mammoth hill that just kept winding upward.  I dropped into the small chain ring on front and quickly assumed granny gear mentality; slow but steady progress.  The leaders were coming back down the hill FAST in the opposite lane.  The road kept going up and up on a windy road that seemingly wouldn't let us know when the end was near and I was trying to move quickly but not go into oxygen debt since I didn't know how much climbing was left.  I think the climb up the hill took around six or seven minutes until we finally crested the top.  However, instead of turning immediately around we had to keep going on a relatively flat section for about another mile or so.  Once I made the turn around it was time to fly since it was either flat or downhill to the finish.  I tried to go down as fast as possible while staying in control since crashing seemed a distinct possibility if you weren’t paying 100% attention.  I am pretty sure I was either high 30's or low 40 mph on the bike coming down the hill but I was using my brakes quite a bit to avoid going out of control.  I think I passed a whopping two guys in total.  There was too much traffic on the road and I didn't want to risk crashing in the first of four races so I was fairly conservative coming down.  I flew into transition, dropped off the bike, changed shoes and was off on the run. 


Now, at the time of the race the sun was out in full force but the night before it had rained and this one mile run course was a soupfest of standing water underneath a layer of grass that was quickly turning to mud due to all the racers plowing over it.  Thus, we were sinking into the muck with each stride and not getting any lift from the ground at all.  I tried to focus on running outside the beaten down pathways and then on passing a few guys and did so, but I couldn't really get comfortable on the run since there were just a few little hilly risers to break up my rhythm.  It was too short and I kept expecting the turn around to pop up any second but it seemed like it was taking forever to arrive.  We finally turned around near the entrance to the fire road that we would travel down four more times over the course of the weekend.  On the way back to the finish I just wanted a hard effort without trying to out sprint anyone.  I crossed the finish line in just over 30 minutes, pleased to have worked hard but not overtaxed given that I expected the races to become increasingly difficult as the weekend progressed.

Our legs and shoes after running in the muck for a mile.

Post race the organizers had set up a spread of food including bananas, pretzels as well as water and soda plus a bunch of other food that didn’t really appeal to me.  I grabbed some of the food and discussed the race with friends before decamping the transition area to go back to the car and finally check in to our hotel in Portsmouth which was about a 20 minute drive from the race site.  Although I can't remember if I shared this tidbit with anyone at the time, my overwhelming thought about the race after the fact was that the 250 meter swim was much harder than I was expecting.  As we were driving back to the hotel I had serious doubts about whether I could go from what I felt was a tough 250 meter course on Friday to swimming a 1500 meter the following morning.  I figured I would find out one way or the other though very soon and it would do me no good to dwell on it overnight so I put it out of my mind.  My final time for the sprint race was 30:18 and that translated into 72nd place in my division of about 91 racers and 291st out of 387 total racers. I didn’t really pay much attention to my standings at the time, although the race organizers were posting results at the race site shortly after the conclusion of the first sprint race. I did quickly glance for my name and was just happy I wasn’t dead last.

Paul posing with a friend