Amy wanted to do her first Olympic distance race this year so we settled on the HITS series which I haven’t done before. Coincidence has it that it happened to be national championship (in Palm Spring CA). Honestly though since they don’t offer any price money I didn’t expect a lot of professional athletes to show up. The previous years result showed 15 people who had a better result than my current Olympic distance PR.
Scenery in the morning before the race start
This race didn’t quite fit into my training schedule, which meant that I wouldn’t go into the race fully tapered. To get at least some recovery in before the race my coach front loaded the training load for the week.
The race strategy was pretty simple: stay aerobic during the swim, push and suffer on the bike (Goal 260-270Watts), run 6:10-6:15min/mile. According to my coach John, I should have enough durability to go all out on the bike and still run well.
Swim:
I lined up in the first row but than got shoved back into 2rd row a couple seconds before the start. I jumped into the water and tried to push, but there were too many people and I was stuck between two swimmers which continuously slapped me in the face. I quickly become oxygen deprived since I couldn’t breath properly. I swam to the right out of the group. It took me about a minute to recover while still swimming, than I started to push again. I dropped that group which wouldn’t let me through, but than had no one to draft off. So I pretty much swam by myself the whole time. I got out of the water after 25:51 (1:43.3/100m) which is a little disappointing for me after all the swim focus.
T1:
I had a quick transition onto the bike. Second fastest T1 of the day.
Bike:
I started pushing myself right away, initially I focused on the watts but soon there after just rode by feeling, slightly underneath my watt target. It is harder to ride by watts than by HR since the watt numbers change more dynamically and are constantly a little above and under the target. I started overtaking people right away and within 15min there were fewer and fewer people to overtake.
Than I closed in on two guys who were filmed by a van. Those two riders were riding together pretty close, sometimes behind the van, sometimes both next to the van. I had no clue what was going on but it didn’t look right to me. I wished that the race would have referees on the course. Than when I got closer the camera van has been riding for a while next to the two riders both of them next to each other taking literately up the whole street. In order to pass them, I had to overtake a car (which was stuck behind them) on the right side between car and curb and than yell at the riders 2x till they would let me pass. And as thanks for that the rider on the left yelled at me: “Fuck off!”. He was blocking me which should have been a penalty in the first place but than also cursing at me. I was astonished by his rude and unsportsmanlike conduct.
I left them behind me and was closing in on the turn around. I started counting and at the turnaround I knew that I was in 6th place. I overtook one more person and than saw Amy already coming towards me. I was amazed that she was that close behind me, after all she started 3min behind me. She screamed at me that I was in 5th position which confirmed my counting.
This was about 35min into the race and I started to feel tired and needed to focus harder to keep the same effort. We than turned into a headwind slight uphill and the mind battle started. I overtook one more rider but than there were no other riders in front of me anymore, or at least not within the next half mile that I could see them. So I had no target to focus on. My watts also indicated that I was slightly lower than planned but it was hard enough to keep the current effort so I couldn’t think of going even harder. With about 15min to go on the bike I started to question if I would be able to run even 1mile with these legs. But I remembered my coach just to trust it and keep pushing. For the rest of the bike ride I tried to ignore the fact that I still had to run except that I focused to get in my nutrition in. During the whole ride I drank about 1l of perform and ate 3 gels. The last one just before the end of the bike so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it on the run.
I finished the 40k bike in 1:05:10 (3rd fastest bike split of the day, only 12sec slower than the fastest time) and was pretty happy with the time.
T2:
I got of the bike and ran into transition and even though my quads were screaming on the bike I was able to run just fine. I put on socks and shoes and off I was. Out of T2 in under 1min. Fastest transition off the day 🙂
Run:
The run started with an uphill where I tried to take it easy but started pushing as soon as I was on the top. I saw another person in front of me. I started to track how much I was behind him. The first time I did it, it was 41 seconds. Only a little later I checked again and it was 35 seconds. So I knew I was closing in on 3rd place. Next check was 18 seconds and then around mile marker 2 I caught up with him. He didn’t even try to hang on with me since the pace difference was too big. Soon there after I saw the first guy already coming towards me from the turn around. He held out his arm and we gave each other a “high five” with encouragement. Than the second guy came towards me, I tried to figure out how much he was ahead of me but forgot at what point I saw him. At the turn around I grabbed a cup of water which I once more managed to get into the wrong through instead of my stomach. So I poured the second half of the cup over my head that at least it would cool me down a little. I knew that it would be hard to catch the 2nd guy and I was suffering at that point. All I focused on was not to get any slower which I did a pretty good job at. With about half a mile to go Amy ran towards me, I signaled her that I was 3rd and she smiled. There was one last uphill which I pushed through and then enjoyed the downhill into the finish. I crossed the finish line in 37:09 (which would be a 10k record for me, but the course was a little short) which was the fastest run split of the day.
Amy and I showing off our awards
Once I crossed the finish line I saw a camera guy walking towards me and a lady trying to hand a medal around my neck. At that moment my stomach decided to rebel and I had to let a mouthful out. The lady made a joke, that I wasn’t ready for the medal yet and the next thing I know is that the camera guy gets a close up on me about 2 feet in front of my face. I felt compelled to say something and rambled about how hot the weather was compared to Seattle. I sure do hope that they don’t use that material 🙂
My coach was right, I was still able to run well even though I pushed myself very hard on the bike. Even though I wouldn’t call it fun, it was a very pleasing experience. I was awarded a nice plaque for the 3rd Overall place.
Amy receiving her first award. With a mouth full of cookie 🙂
To top the day, Amy (to both our surprise) also placed and managed to get 3rd place in her age group. Funny enough she just shoved a cookie into her mouth when they called her name. So in all her award pictures she is chewing/hiding a cookie 🙂 Big congrats to her awesome first Olympic distance race!
Swim file (new! thanks to Garmin 910XT) (not very useful though 🙂 )
Bike HR and Watts (notice the 600Watts spike at the turn around)
Update: I learned that the guy the car was filming was Jimmy Johnson apparently a famous Nascar driver. While I think it is great that some well known people compete in triathlon and maybe raise awareness of the sport, but this can not happen at the expense of other triathletes. I know it is not directly Jimmy Johnson’s fault. Unfortunately, I was not the only one whom had this experience on the race course according to some of the other top finishers I talked to. Note: The guy who screamed after me wasn’t Jimmy Johnson but rather the guy riding next to him.
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