This was my first time racing this course, and my first Olympic in a couple of years, so I was a little unsure of what to expect. It poured rain the day before, and actually washed out part of the bike course for the Sprint and they turned it into an Aquathon. Rained on and off on the 45min drive from the in-laws to the race site and then drizzled and spit a little while setting up transition. Luckily the rain decided that it had had enough and held off for the actual race.
Just grabbed a bagel on the way up to the race site and ate about half of it, sipped on Gatorade and popped a gel before the race start.
Got out for a 20min ride before the race start and that helped loosen the muscles up a bit. Also did a quick 1km run out of transition just to see what the run course looked like. I was late getting into my wetsuit after standing in line for a spot at the porta potties so I only got to swim for a couple of min, but this seemed to be enough.
Swim:
As soon as I put my face in the water I realized this swim was going to be a bit different. I couldn’t even see my hand. I guess all the rain had stirred up the silt in the river bed and made the water ultra murky. You were basically blind underwater. But on a plus, the river was super calm.
I’d never done a timed start before and they were sending everyone off in 5sec intervals based on your race number. I was 78, and got to go off reasonably early – although I thought I had a little more time and almost missed my spot.
The swim was uneventful with very little traffic to deal with since it was a time trial start. I passed a few swimmers, and got passed by others. I actually ended up at the back of a small pack on the way back which was nice since I got to draft (never happens) but it broke up after a couple of minutes and I was on my own again.
Either the distance measured was short or the current really helped in one direction, because this was a fast swim for me – and it seems for most people.
T1
I just give away time in transition. Couldn’t get the wetsuit off my ankles, then put on my helmet and realized it wasn’t fitting right. The Gel!!! Left a gel in my helmet to put in my trisuit and instead wore it on my head….off came the helmet, readjusted, and I clumsily finished up and left T1.
Bike
This was a good ride, but I was hoping for a little more. Power was a little below where I hoped, and speed was as well.
As I ran out of transition I was right behind a guy I recognized from my AG who I had raced just a couple of weeks earlier, he’d passed me on the bike and I then passed him back on the run. But this time he was already ahead of me on the bike, so I decided I wanted to try and keep him in sight. That lasted for about 2km and I didn’t see him again until the run.
The road conditions were wet and a bit mucky in areas from all the rain, but there were plenty of dry patches and for the most part the road conditions were pretty good. The first 5km was fairly flat, but then it just turned into constant rolling hills. I was only out of the saddle a couple of times, but even when seated you had to put out a decent effort on some of these.
I didn’t pass too many people and I think this was partly because of the TT swim start, plus I started closer to the front. I passed one guy in my AG about 7km in, but then he passed me back a couple of km later, and then I passed him again and made the comment that it looked like we’d be doing this all day – sure enough, that’s what happened. I’m not sure if it was just his style of riding or he was trying to drop me, but he’d put in a surge and get 200M ahead, but after a couple of minutes I’d go by him again as he seemed to have to recover from the harder effort. Either way, we stayed in sight of each other and traded positions at least 10 times over the course of the race.
The one disappointment on this ride was I developed a side stitch around km 15. I’m prone to these and while they don’t impact me on the bike, they have ruined a lot of runs afterwards. I was hoping that sticking with water was the answer, but it didn’t seem to be. I think I consciously held back just a bit on the bike as a result.
T2
This was a decent transition. I had left a plastic bag over the shoes just in case it rained, but nothing really slowed me down. Wished good luck to the guy I battled against on the bike, and off I went.
Run
I wanted to put in a solid run, and the stitch on the bike was stressing me a bit. First km was pretty painful from the stitch and I got passed by a couple of people, and then it started to work itself out through km 2 & 3.
I managed to pass back one of the guys who went by me, and stayed within about 50M of the other one till passing him just after the turnaround. But I also got passed by a duathlete and a 21 y/o girl who was flying. I looked her up afterwards and her race time crushed me by 8min, she was impressive.
Once I had my run legs back all I thought about was catching the uber biker from my AG (I didn’t know he’d actually put 5min into me on the bike). Based on run times from a couple of weeks ago I thought I could catch him. Finally saw him going the other direction close to the turnaround, but I was 3min down with 5km to go. I never did close the gap and he ran far better this race than the last one.
The rest of the run was uneventful. I picked up a couple of spots in my AG, and just focused on trying to run as close to a 4:05min pace as I could, but wasn’t beating myself up if my pace slowed a bit.
The last km was more uphill, and at this point the quads were starting to complain a little. But I paced the run pretty well overall and had a solid finish.
Post race
Stood around, got to hang out with some other RF athletes, did a bit of light stretching and got the after race food. That’s about it.
I liked this race. It was my first time doing one of the MSC races, and while a bit smaller than what I’m used to this may have been because of the weather. Overall I liked it and will hopefully be back next year.
Total Time = 2h 23m 3s
Overall Rank = 28/221
Age Group = 40-44
Age Group Rank = 3/21
