Last Blast before Moo

A couple weekends back I did an Olympic distance race, Emmett's "Most Excellent" Triathlon. This race is hosted by the local tri-club I belong to here in Boise (The Boise Aeros). My buddy, Ken Runyan (who was actually a very fast runner back in his day so it's not just a clever last name), directs this race and did a fantastic job as did all the Aeros out there supporting. I've heard many good things about this race and the timing seemed fitting as the intensity of my workouts seem to be in full force these days. I had a very soft half-iron in Bend so I really wanted to come into this with some pain on the brain.

This is another point-2-point race, which is the only kind of racing I've done all year. It's going to be strange in Madison biking to the same place I started. Anyways, we start out at Black Canyon Reservoir, which is about 30-mins from my house. Nice close race this time. It's a beautiful little area back there, but surprisingly the water is rather dark (or black). It's not dirty, just has that dark color from the rocks/minerals in the water. So the sense of knowing where the field is during the swim should be a bit more acute. This race also has more familiar faces so it was nice to have that this year. Not being at Tri-Shark, where I know just about everyone, this race helped sooth my tri-stranger-pain.

I have to say, it's been awhile since I've prepped up for an Olympic distance race. My habits are in tune to go long-long-long so I think I made my race week prep a bit overcomplicated. I didn't come into this race rested (actually sleep deprived), but I put in my normal prep time with a full day's rest two days out (typical stuff). I just didn't have the strategy figured out and made some dumb mistakes during the race. Sort of goes with not racing as much this year too, I suppose.

The swim kicks off to a good start. Two strokes into my race I take a full-force heel to the face, totally knocking my goggles off. Damn, that was quick and what a nice star-gazing session it was for a few seconds! Whoof! I got my lid reattached and goggles back on, did a quick blood/tooth check, all is good so I got clear and into a groove. The goggles continued to fill up so I had to finally stop, empty them out and adjust the swim cap. When it was all said and done the swim went pretty well despite having to stop those couple times.

My transitions have sucked this year. I can't say it enough, SUCKED to the nth! I had a heck of time getting out of my wetsuit (need some spray) and getting that point-2-point gear bag packed was awfully slow. Ken was standing there taking pictures, asking if I was planning to read a book. Man, I'm supposed to be good at this stuff and that was embarrassing. On the way out Kate yells out that my nutrition had fallen out of my back pocket. Looking back, I can't see where it dropped so now I'm stuck with the just the fluids. I have a gel waiting for me in T2 so we'll see if that's enough, but SCREW ME DUDE....too much freakin drama!

The bike course is surprisingly flat with some gentle rollers and one short-steep hill. If you know the course and can hammer then breaking an hour is certainly in the cards if you can back it up w/ a run. I hadn't ridden the course so I kept a steady groove since I really wanted to run a hard 10K and finish strong. I was redlining for the first couple of miles and eventually got my heart down so a bit more warm-up on the bike would have helped. I ended up swapping places w/ a couple guys during the ride and a couple caught me near the end. I wasn't hammering too hard so that was fine, coming in around 1:02 for the 25-mile ride.

Quick Summary

The second transition went a little better, but still some big room for improvements. I guess it's time to start practicing transitions again. I thought I had those down about 5-years ago. Blame it on age, laziness, your mom, I don't know. When I got into the run I felt pretty good, but not awesome. I figured it would take a mile then I could put my head down and run. Well, it never happened. I never could get enough air in my lungs and let enough C02 out. It guess it was just one of those days...again! I was also found myself in no-man's land during the run. The PROs and some elites were ahead of me and everyone else was behind so I was pretty much out there alone with the people from the Sprint race and no one to push me. Not trying to make up excuses, but it didn't help during my time of badness. On the second lap of the course I was cooked. I probably stopped three or four times to get my lungs back and it ended up being the worst 10K of my life (PW!). The finish came and I ended up 18th out of the 216 and 3rd in my age group. So I actually won $10 for that effort, but could have really given 1st place a run if my run would have cooperated. I was around six minutes slower than my typical 10K if that says anything. DANG IT (said w/ Star Wars Robot Chicken voice)!

So I've got some things to think about and do until Moo. I had my last big week of training (hell of a ride last Saturday) and now into a good taper. I've had a rough go with sleep these last few weeks, but that's coming around again. I'm sure that had a lot to do with my sub-par race performance, but I'll own it and happily take a good HTFU slap to the head.

So with some positive mantras....

Harden the fck up, Drew.
Harden the fck up, Drew.
Harden the fck up, Drew.
Harden the fck up, Drew.....SSSSSSSSLAP!

OK, enough for now. Time for bed.