This past weekend was the inaugural Giant Eagle Tri in Columbus, OH. They offered 30k prize money to the Pro's which was paid out to the top 7 athletes. I was excited to race an Olympic distance race which I haven't done since Rev3 Knoxville in May. I also decided to make it a short travel weekend like I did for Muncie 70.3 since this race is so close to Lexington.
I just chilled out Friday here in Lex instead of driving up 2 days early. Saturday I woke up and did a little shake out run before hitting the road to Columbus. I practiced my aero position on the way up and made it to Columbus in record time.
Once at the park, I picked up my packet, chatted with our team director, then hopped in the water for a little swim. It was crazy warm and super shallow but no big deal. I grabbed a little lunch at Panera, came back for the Pro meeting, then headed to my homestay's house. I stayed with Dan Wesley who just opened up a Retul bike fit shop in Columbus and he and his wife were super nice and helpful and I was very grateful to be able to stay at their house. If you life in that area and need a bike fit, check it out. www.triformancesbr.com
After some light conversations and a little dinner, I was off to bed. Unfortunately, it didn't mean I was going to sleep. I had one of those nights where you are wide awake and you can't do anything about. It may have been the 3 large teas I had at Panera for lunch, but I just could not fall asleep. After managing a few hours of sleep, I woke up at 4 to get my usual pre race breakfast down. With the unique set up of a point-to-point triathlon, I had to drive to the finish line/T2 area to park and then take the shuttle up to T1 which was roughly 15 miles away. After a late departure and a very slow drive, the shuttle made it to T1 at about 6:15 only leaving me 45 minutes to do ALL of my usual pre race stuff including bathroom, prep bike/nutrition, body marking, pick up chip, pump up tires, check in swim bag gear, swim warmup, etc, etc, etc.
Anyways, I made it and at 7am we were off. They had to change the swim to a 2 loop swim due to the small swim area in the lake. We only had about a 50 yard swim to the first turn buoy but there were only 20 - 25 of us so I figured it wouldn't be too horrible. When we hit that buoy, it was nothing like an ITU swim and I didn't have anyone grab my head and push me under which was nice. The bad part was I was on the feet of several super swimmers and I didn't need to be there. After swimming a 200 yard PR (I'm guessing), I maxed out and was in trouble. The next turn buoy was roughly 250 - 300 meters into the swim and I had already lost contact of the lead pack. Luckily, when we made our 3rd left turn, it was in about 2.5 - 3.5 ft of water so I started to dolphin dive to try and catch back up. I did 10 - 20 dolphin dives and caught back up to the group as they were all still swimming. Unfortunately, all of those dives spiked my HR once again and I did not stay in that pack for long. The 2nd lap was just about the same and I came out of the water just over 18 minutes with several guys in my sights. I had a good T1 and was off on my bike.
It took a few miles for me to get my HR down from the swim and for my legs to come around, but after about 5 miles I felt fine. I pushed roughly 320 watts and tried to keep it in that range. I figured I would be able to go a little harder but that just wasn't in the cards. I focused on staying in the aero position and not wasting too much energy by spiking my wattage out of turns or by pushing a little too hard on hills. I believe this helped as I caught 4 guys in the first 10 miles and then another guy at around the 20th mile. I wasn't sure what place I was in or how far back I was but I just kept pushing. Here is the Garmin file for my ride.
I came off the bike, had a great T2 (missed the fastest T2 by 1 second) and took off on the run. I heard the announcer say that I was rounding out the top 5 so I figured there had to be a few guys close, but I wasn't sure.
I was wearing my Garmin 310XT for the first time in a race so that I would "pace" myself a little better as opposed to just taking off and then holding on for dear life like I usually do. I could see someone up the road but there was also a 2k walk / 5k run going on at the same time and when I caught that person, it was someone who was doing the 5k run (walk). So as I saw more people, I just figured it was all people in the 5k, but I did see 1 guy who looked like he was wearing a tri suit and I was barely gaining ground on him so I pushed to catch him. I was right, and right at about the 5k mark, I caught him. I was now in 4th and could actually see 3rd just up the road. I kept pushing and gained a few seconds per kilometer on him but the wheels started to fall off with about a mile to go. My HR jumped up a few beats higher and I was slowing down. I never got that close to 3rd place and I crossed the finish line in 4th. This was equal to my best placing at a Pro race and I was very pleased with my effort. Here's my Garmin file for the run.
After the race, I got my award then headed back to my homestay's to clean up then hit the road. Once I was ready to leave, I figured it had been too good of a day so I figured I would back into a sewage drain and give myself a flat tire. I have never changed a flat before (on my car) and this happened to be right in front of my homestay's house. Dan came out and happily gave me a hand. Luckily, this happened where it did as I did not have a jack and he did. We put my spare on and I was on my way at the max speed of 50 mph (I only drove 60 - 65 the whole way back). So, I got back in Lexington about 1.5 hours later than I had planned but I did make it back so I wasn't worried about it.
Next up, Steelhead 70.3 and then.....
Thanks for reading.
Tony
No comments:
Post a Comment