First, my apologies for making both of you wait for yet
another eloquently crafted blog post about yet another triathlon! I know you
struggled with the anticipation, for that I am sorry.
On to the race…
Bear Lake is a small local triathlon that the Cross
Country Cycle Triathlon Team uses as a “team” race. Essentially, we all try to
make this the race we do, so that we can socialize and share stories about our
training and racing. Some of us take the race lightly, others very seriously,
and a few just sandbag because that’s what they do best. One of the guys on the
team is a photographer, as is his wife, and they made this video of the race. I
won’t spoil it at all, but watch it. It’s awesome. HERE. They also own Absolute Photography, a team sponsor. Thanks guys!
The swim:
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I had high hopes for getting out into the overall lead on
the swim and maintaining if for as long as possible throughout the rest of the
race. Timmy had similar plans. After the first buoy (and swimming in knee deep
water for the first hundred meters), I was drafting comfortably off of Tim, and
we already had a gap into 3rd place. Either Tim put the hammer down
here, or I was dead from playing water polo all weekend, but he gapped me by 10
seconds or so. By the time he hit the beach, he had at least 15 seconds on me.
But when I took a quick glance behind, it looked like we had cleared the next
racer by a decent margin. At Bear Lake, part of your swim time is a quarter
mile of running, uphill, to T1. I narrowed the gap on Tim to a few seconds,
likely at the cost of a few more seconds on the run. But it was clear we were
both taking it easy as to not burn our legs out.
T1:
SLOW. It’s clear that I need practice in this, but T
times aren’t quite as key at the 70.3 distance. I’ll have to practice before
IMWI, as I’ll need those precious minutes if I hope to qualify for world’s.
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The bike:
The course is relatively flat with the exception of the
Blockhouse hill. This was a pretty fast ride with the exception of having to
climb up both sides, right at the turnaround. After the hill, everything seemed
pretty easy. I could tell that all of my training has been focused on longer
course races as the amount of power I could push on the pedals wasn’t very
much. Not that I was going slow, but I didn’t have the sprint speed needed for
a 12.4mi bike leg. I found myself stuck between gears, not enough power to turn
the next gear up, but a very high cadence in the gear I was in. Not ideal, but
again, with no speedwork, I was happy with where I was. Strava/Garmin file
here.
T2:
SLOW. I’ll have to practice before IMWI, as I’ll need
those precious minutes if I hope to qualify for world’s.
The run:
I took off out of T2, having lost another 15 seconds. Tim
was just ahead of me. Much to my disappointment, I was just ahead of two guys
who were going to drop 18-minute 5ks. At about mile 1, my right shoe came
untied and I lost what time I had gained on Tim and the other race leaders. The
rest was nice though, and having caught my breath, I took off again in pursuit.
I passed the 60 year-old super-biker who crushed us, and made sure to give him props.
I hope to be that fast when I’m his age. After I finally caught up to Tim, I
was hopeful that he and I could close down the gap on the super-runners that
had passed us. After what seemed like a long conversation, but realistically
was just a few grunted words, Tim told me it was all me. I told him to put his
head down and go, hoping he’d come with me. I tried to put the hammer down and
close the gap. After a few hundred yards of going full speed, I looked up and
saw that the gap had grown. Remembering that I dropped down for the sprint so
that I wouldn’t need as long of a recovery time, I shut it down and let Tim
come back up to me. We kept the pace up, and decided with a few hundred yards
to go that we’d sort it out in a sprint finish. We were neck and neck when we
hit the final straight, but the few seconds of recovery while I waited for him
to catch up must have been my saving grace. If you haven’t watched the race
video, you should. Strava/Garmin file here.
The results:
4th overall, 1st in the 25-29 age
group. 1:07:31. Results are here.
Keep dreaming...
