Lone Star sprint tri, race report
1769 days agoGo hard, then go home.
The idea of going over my entire weekend in one post is too daunting; I’m going to instead post separate reports for the two races. This one will be short(er), because the race was so hard and intense I barely remember any of it. That said, it will still be really self involved, so if that kind of thing turns you off … well, what the hell are you reading my blog for? It’s always like that.
The theme of this race report, the next day’s race report, and this entire season so far has been staying positive. I have worked really hard on doing my best to control things that I can control, and not worrying about things I can’t control.
Pre-race
I flew to Houston straight from Colorado Springs on Friday afternoon. The flight was a bit delayed
and I eventually got to the race site around 9pm. Went for a run and decided I felt awesome. Built my bike (with my snazzy awesome new SRM powermeter, more on this later) and decided I would ride it in the morning. Too late to go out looking for dinner. Ate five powerbars, went to sleep.
Race morning
I set the hotel room alarm clock, my cell phone alarm clock, and had a wake up call all at 5am. Just to be sure. There is no coffee to be found in the hotel so I drove out looking for a Starbucks, but they were all closed, so I slipped in to what I thought was a 24 hour grocery store to buy some red bull and a bagel. After five minutes of wandering around looking for a cashier, decided I didn’t have time to wait. I left way too much money to pay for two cans of red bull and a couple bagels, along with a note, and drove back to the race site with plenty of time still to warm up.
A bit of a run, with strides, and a bit of a bike ride. A few minutes into the bike ride, the battery in my new SRM died (remember how I said there would be more on this later? here it is. emphasis on moron). Damn. I have grown somewhat utterly dependant on my power meter as a pacing tool over the past two years. So I decided, with what felt like my new superpower of positive thinking, that it wouldn’t be a problem since the race was so short. Onward. Slithered into my wetsuit for the first time in six months and jogged over to the start area to warm up. Only … they wouldn’t let us in the water. Again, I really depend on having a good swim warmup. But rather than freak out – what could I possibly do about it? – I decided that stretching and arm swings were plenty and that I would do just fine.
Finally: the actual race.
I was in the third wave, so I had some chance to see how the start unfolded. They got us into the water and started us with a toy siren so we could get down to the important business of beating the crap out of each other for the first few hundred meters. I haven’t experienced this much since turning pro (that could be because the pros are a little less testosterone-crazed at the beginning of a race, or also because I just can’t keep up) so it was nice to be back in the mix. No one hit me all that hard, but people were swimming a range of erratic directions and paces which made it an interesting time in the water. I was out of the water in eight or nine minutes, or something, just about fifth in my wave. I had a decent transition and scored a great opportunity to do a flying cyclocross mount out of the transition area, passing two people in the process. The bike was uneventful but very hard. I threw up in my mouth a little near the four mile mark but managed to pass one more person. I got within striking distance of the guy who I was pretty sure was first from our wave, but couldn’t get any closer. He beat me into transition by a little more than twenty seconds.
I am awesome at changing my shoes and I made up three seconds in transition.
The run was agony. I felt like I was running as hard as I possibly could, but who knows these things? These shorter races are contested in a pace band which is no longer familiar. I do know I could not possibly have gone any faster right then, and that’s what matters for the race. I split the three miles in a shade over sixteen minutes, which, if it was accurate, was good but not great for me. I also got within nine seconds of my rabbit but could not reel him in.
Post Race
More or less immediately after I finished it began to pour rain. There had been big, ominous clouds overhead all morning, and a few minutes after I finished they dropped all of their rain all at once. I got back to my hotel room as fast as I could and got warm and dry, feeling pretty bad for the 500+ people who were still out on the course.
It eventually turned out – once the wave times had been sorted out – that the guy who I couldn’t reel in was the overall winner and I was second, nine seconds back. He won the race on the swim, where he put 21 seconds into me. I brought back a handful of seconds on the bike and another handful on the run. I was ecstatic to have finished second, since my only goal for the race was to be in the top eight so I could requalify for my pro license, but finishing second is a strangely bitter pill to swallow. You hear about it and you read about it. You think it doesn’t make any sense, they should be happy to have done so well, you certainly won’t feel that way if it ever happens to you, etc etc etc. But then it does, and you do, and you feel like an idiot for feeling that way, but there it is. 90% of me feels happy about the race and excited to have done so well, and 10% of me wonders if I could have worked a little harder, gone a little faster, been a little quicker.
OK, now what?
I had another race to get ready for! A longer, tougher, hopefully drier race that I decided I really wanted to win.
