Race Report- Keuka Lake Triathlon 2019

A word about my training lately= _____________. See there are no words to describe my training since there really hasn't been a lot of training lately. For all you kids out there, this is not the most ideal way to prepare for a competition. If one wishes to see results, one must put in the work. Shocker- I know.

Well, fresh off my successes at Ironman Connecticut 70.3(ish) formerly and currently known as Quassy, if I were to be open with you, I wasn't in a great place athletically. I had learned from that race that I was clear to start run training again. I had also learned on that following Monday that I really couldn't walk. Muscle soreness was immediately apparent. Couple that with DOMS and I had a double helping of chaos in my quads and my calves. Of interest, my hamstrings were still as fresh as could be. The discomfort in my legs led to several sleepless nights where I was just battling to lie down without whimpering.

When you match the inability to walk with the inability to sleep, most of your energy is focused on surviving through the day and not get fired from your day job. After the day job is complete, you get to do what you want, which in my case was returning to a drooling vegetable. If only drooling on yourself counted as training.

It wasn't until the next Saturday that I actually felt like I could do something athletically. The major problem with this feeling was that I had a backlog of chores that also didn't get done while drooling and I had the Keuka Lake Triathlon Olympic distance race scheduled for Sunday morning. Honestly, I didn't want to do the Olympic distance race because:

1. I'm still way out of running shape
2. I want to start run training soon and the longer the race, the longer the delay
3. Oly distance races are the devil

I contacted the race director and asked if he wouldn't mind me switching from the Olympic distance to the sprint distance, or halfway to the goal. This is a welcomed request for the RD since the Oly is more expensive than the sprint. They get all my money for half the work. The request was approved.

Race morning arrived and I got to campus early for the Banter; T-minus 30 minutes before they close transition. Most people have already been there for an hour. I sincerely have no idea what they do to pass the time. I went through packet pick-up, bike set-up and placed all of my gear in transition in about 20 minutes. They weren't kicking me out for another 10 minutes and I didn't know what to do with myself. Even worse, the sprint tri gets started about 45 minutes after the Olympic people. There's something special about the 'hurry up and wait' mentality of sport. I flirted chatted with Pants and several other hotties athletes that were racing in the later heats.

My race strategy for today was going to be similar to last week's half-iron. Swim hard. Bike hard. Do something resembling running.

Above is a profile view of my wave. Seriously, I'm the guy in front. I won my heat by over 30 seconds and was 2nd overall in the swim. I got beaten by some high school boy, who edged me by about 15 seconds. He was in the 1st wave of the race to my 2nd wave. Neither of us knew anything about each other.

The HS boy took 2 minutes 28 seconds in transition while I took only 56 seconds. In years past, I been even slower than this kid. My transitions weren't pretty. It was one of the major improvement areas I identified and worked diligently to correct. So I started the bike in 1st place. The data suggests that I passed him on the bike. Weird wording, I know. The kid beat me out of the water by :15, lost transition by about :90. Therefore, I was winning by time. But because he started the race 5 minutes earlier than I, he was physically further down the course than me. He was in front but I was in the lead.  I have no idea who he was when I passed. (Aside: Of course, I knew exactly zero of these stats, including my placement in the race until much, much later. /End Aside 2)

I started the bike not caring where I was in the race. That's because there were a lot of races happening at the same time. The Olympic distance losers racers were in full swing. There was an aquabike race happening. There was a duathlon happening. There was the 1st wave of the sprint tri happening. That means there was a steady stream of people out in front of me all for different reasons.  The only course of action was to hammer the bike.

The bike course is a semi- out and back. You go down this clunky lakefront road. Turn right onto a main highway. Go up a hill, down a hill, turn around and go back up and come back down. You turn off the main highway just shy of the clunky lakefront road. I posted the 2nd fastest bike time of the sprint triathletes. Because of our differing swim skills, I was able to finish the bike 2 minutes ahead of the guy who posted the fastest bike time. Not that there were any spotters or stats-giving people on the course. I was pretty sure that I was near the front. I didn't know that I WAS the front. I have never been here before, being in position to win the race.

The problem with my current skill set was that I had no legs to run on. As recently as 2 days ago, I didn't have enough health to go for a jog. In the prior month, I had only done 1 total run, and that was a 13.1 mile run leg of a race. Sprint triathlons are poorly named in that there is no actual sprinting involved. There is, however, some much harder efforts than all of the other distances. In my visions of the race, I was gunning to hold 8 minute mile paces (<-- not champion-type speeds). I came out of transition giving it my all.

Possibly the best race pic ever taken of me.

What most people don't tell you about taking a hiatus from running is the burn in your lungs when you restart the discipline. Did I take up smoking and not know it? Your alveoli seem to shrink with the lack of effort. So, not only were my legs on fire from trying to outrun my fitness, my lungs were on fire from trying to outrun my fitness. The run was also an out and back with the turn around 1.5 miles away. I clocked the first mile at a 7:29. That was 30 seconds faster than I thought possible. With the sensations emanating from the legs and chest, I didn't think it was sustainable. I made the decision to stay on the throttle until biology forced me to slow/ stop. I hit the turn around and the volunteer in charge of that location wasn't expecting anyone yet. That should have been a pretty good sign. I didn't have the brain capacity/ oxygen to adequately analyze her reaction.

As I headed for home, I was able to see that I was being followed. Some of those athletes were going to turn around, others were going to continue on to the Oly course. Some were duathletes, for unknown reasons. Most were going faster than me. My only option was to work as hard as possible. I got a few pick-me-ups from seeing my most excellent tri-peeps. The Boy was heading out on his Olympic tri bid. One of the guys on my tri club, the Grim Reapers Fitness NorthEast, was closing in fast. Pants, who gave out a high 5, was doing her best to run down Mr. Pants (she almost made it!). My second mile clocked in at a 7:32. Still way speedier than any metric would have predicted.

At mile 2.5 out of 3.1, I got passed. A very tall and very speedy athlete went by as smooth and as graceful as a runner could be. A quick glance down at his calf and I saw that he was in my race but not my age group. Honestly, at this point, I was gunning for an age group win, meaning that I didn't think I was directly competing with this bloke. Even if I was directly competing with him (which I was), there was absolutely no way that I could have ran with him. Perhaps if he was running 3 while I was running 1 mile, I might have had it in me. The Banter tank was nearly depleted. At mile 2.9, I passed the Wife and dogs who were spectating and cheering. I was so happy to see them. Between the pass, the Wife, the doggies, and the prospect of finally being done with this race, I managed to speed up for the last mile which beeped in at a 7:20. I crossed the finisher's line about a minute later.

I went up to the guy who passed me and congratulated him on an excellent run. He outran me by roughly 3 minutes and crossed the line 34 seconds in front of me. He asked me the same question that I wanted to ask him, "Where are we at in the race?" Neither of us had any idea.

A few minutes later, they posted the preliminary results. The tall runner guy was in 1st place over all. The Banter took 2nd! I was sincerely surprised and dumbfounded. The highest I've ever finished overall in a race was 4th place. This was my first time on the overall podium. Ever! My GRFNE teammate took 3rd.

Special shout out to the excellent accomplishments of the mini tri-family:

The Outlaw- 1st place overall (in dominating fashion) in the Oly
The Boy- 12th place overall/ 4th in age group in the Oly
Pants- 22nd place overall/ 4th amongst the womens/ 1st age group 

As I reflect on the race, I'm still relishing in the effort on the day. I executed as well as I could have hoped for. Second place in the swim, second place on the bike, and 23rd place on the run was good enough for 2nd place overall. (Aside 3: The champ was the guy who posted the fastest bike split and the fastest run split. He's the real deal. /End Aside 3) I can't help but wonder how I would have fared if I had been able to do any run training in the past couple of blocks of training. I use those thoughts to fuel the next block. I've started running again.