Spudman Tri race report

Yesterday was the Spudman Triathlon in Burley Idaho. My first olympic distance triathlon, and one that was "helped" with the swim being in a river down stream. Shawna and I got into Burley with enough time the night before to get checked in and rack my bike at T1. With the set up for the race, T1 was down stream, with the start, T2 and the finish all being at the same location. After squeezing my bike onto the rack, we went to the hotel to check in and grab a bite to eat (Subway). After a very late dinner we went to my friend Todd's room so we could discuss the schedule for the next day. Todd and I had to figure out when to leave the hotel to get to T1 to drop off our nutrition stuff while Todd's wife and Shawna had to figure when they would leave the hotel to watch us. Once the details were figured out, shawna and I went back to our room to get ready for bed.
         Once in my room, I got all my stuff out and together for the next day. It was at this point that I realized that my nutrition bag was not as I had packed it. I was missing about half of the nutrition that I had packed. The problem was that the kids had found the bag in the pantry earlier that day (while I was at work) and took my box of Gu gels out, and my Tub of Roctane powder. Needless to say, I freaked out! The only saving grace was the fact that there was one Roctane powder single serving pack still in the bag, and that at the last minute I decided to grab my Gu gels from my food locker at work. So I had some nutrition stuff, just not everything that I was anticipating having.  With that "crisis" adverted, it was time to try and get some sleep.
       I slept fairly well once I got to sleep. I tossed and turned until about 145, and then slept until 530 when I woke up. Our start time was 720, and I was going to head out at 610 to get to T1 with getting to the start before 7. But then I couldn't find the swim cap and that pushed the departure time back. Once at T1, it was a mad house with people everywhere. Not a big deal except for the fact that the traffic to get out from T1 to the start was horrible. I ended up parking down the road and walking in. As Todd and I were getting close to the start we heard the announcer say that wave 2 was going to start in one minute. This gave us 11 minutes to get down to T2, prep our shoes, get into our wetsuits and get down to the water. So our warm up was the jogging in flip flops that we had to do just so we could make it in time. At T2, I got my shoes out and the socks in place; placed my Gu gels in position and took my watch off. I grabbed my wet suit and threw it on up to my waist. I quickly stretched out my calfs and hips and made my way toward the water. While jogging to the water I pulled up the rest of my wet suit. Unfortunately, in the haste of getting my suit on while on the move and dodging people, I didn't grab the thicker part of my wet suit and tore a huge hole in my right arm near the elbow. CRAP!!! Well, there was nothing that I could do about that now. I didn't have time to do anything about it. So instead I just griped about it and made my way toward the water. When I hit the water, I was even more frustrated as the water was warm. Very warm. Like so warm that I prob wouldn't have worn my wet suit if I knew how warm the water was. Oh well, it's time to race so lets get this thing on!

The Swim:   Like I said earlier, the swim was downstream in the river. Although there was the current, I really didn't find it to be helpful. With the rush of the morning, I definately didn't get a chance to warm up or stretch like I would have liked. This made the swim a little tougher when my shoulders stiffened up on me about 3-400 yds in. I am still struggling in the open water with sighting and drifting. Once again, I was all over the place in the water. When we started, I was right in the middle up front. A little fight here and there with the other swimmers, but nothing too horrible. I quickly was on the far right of the field and needed to come back to the left. Then I soon found myself so far left I was swimming into the bank of the river! I seriously couldn't win. I also couldn't really get myself into a good rythm. The swim was otherwse uneventful. I don't have any of the split times because they haven't posted them on line, but I'll update it when I get the info.

T1:  T1 went well. I got a little slowed down when I had to go back to where I had left my wet suit bag. I forgot to take it with me and drop it off with the volunteers on my way out. Otherwise the transition went fairly smooth. It's a little slow with having to get the Garmin on my wrist, but otherwise smooth. There was a little hiccup with trying to get out of transition though. There wasn't a huge space to get out onto the road, and then you add all the people who simply stop to click into their pedals and you have a traffic jam. This doens't boad well for me who keeps his shoes clipped in and straps in while on the road.

Bike:   I was curious to see what kind of speed I could put out on the bike with this course being labeled as a fast, flat course. Once I was finally on the road things started to move. It as a little chilly at first, but I dried off quickly. The bike took me a little bit to get into a workable rhythm, and I just tried to not over do it off the start. I got into a rhythm just as the head wind picked up a bit, but I kept my head down and tried to just keep my cadence up high. The one Gu pack that I had taped on my bike started to slip off and I ended up having to hold onto the pack during the ride. There were several people that kept up around me, and eventually we some how turned into a peleton. Drafting was supossed to be prohibitted, but with the lack of race officials on the course the peleton formed. I slipped into the peleton and went for prob about 8 miles or so with the pack. It was the first "group" ride that I had been a part of, and I was amazed at how fast we were moving with the little effort that we were putting out. I had trailed off the back of the peleton right before another turn. It was after the turn that we hit another head wind, and it slowed me down to where I couldn't catch up with the group. I had less than 8 miles to go on the ride at that point and just kept on trucking. With about 5 miles to go, I caught up with Todd, although he didn't know it. Todd is the stronger cyclist between the 2 of us, and once I found him, I kept with in 100yds behind him. It was also around this point that I got a wierd pain developing on the left side of my crotch. It was brutally painful at times, and reminded me of when I went on my ride after Antonio adjusted my seat. There was really nothing that I could do about the pain, moving around on the saddle didn't prove to make it go away. There wasn't much left of the race so I just sucked it up. Coming up toward T2, I wasn't sure how the run was going to go with having the pain down there. As I made the final straight away toward T2, I got out of my shoes and prepped for the dismount. The cramps in my legs started to come on while I was working on getting out of my shoes.

T2:    Heading into T2, the pain was still there and I had a little fumble when I dropped my sunglasses while making my way toward the racks. I racked my bike, threw my socks on and then slipped into my shoes. I also took a few swigs of my electrolyte drink and took some Hammer electrolyte pills as well. I grabbed my Gu gels and stuffed them into the legs of my tri suit while I was heading out of T2. My tri suit has 2 pockets in the back, but they are dead center and very hard to get anything into or out of. I have opted to not use the pockets unless absolutely neccesary. I did stuff a tube into the pocket that had some extra electrolyte pills just in case I started to cramp.

Run:    I was nervous going into this event about the run. My leg was feeling good, but I hadn't run on it in 3 weeks. Even then, I did only 2 short training times (15-20 min ea) on the eliptical at work. Leaving T2, I was feeling like crap. My legs were cramping up on me all over. Little spots here and there, and nothing debilitating, but enough to feel it and know that it sucked. I thought that the 10k was going to be horrible, and it would have been if the cramps stayed. I just stuck to my guns and never stopped. Yeah the cramps slowed me down, but it wasn't going to let them win. About a mile into the run, the cramps had pretty much worked their way out and I started getting into a good rhythm. I never pushed myself to the brink on the run, instead I was just focusing on keeping good form and having a good mid foot strike. My only complaint on the run was the lack of aid stations. They had a station right out of T2, at mile 1, mile 3 and mile 5. The upside was that there were many places to cool off. Burley fire had 2 seperate brush rigs with water spraying into the street to run through. There was also several houses that had turned a garden hose on with a sprinkler for you to run through as well. This was a nice relief from the climbing heat as the day wore on. The Garmin said that my ave pace was 7:40-ish, and I was happy about that. I felt good and strong on the run, like I could have gone forever at that pace. I had a Gu gel just before the mile 3 marker, so I was able to get some water to rinse it down. I stopped to a walk at every aid station to get the fluid and thank the volunteers. One cup of water for my mouth, and one on my head. Then off to the run I would go. Im seriously considering taking my Camelbak Delaney pack on the runs with me for fluids. This would make me faster as I wouldn't have to stop for the water. I'm used to taking it with me on the long runs outside of the races, and there is no reason why I couldn't take it with me during the race. The 10 extra seconds that it would take to put it on would easily out weigh the time savings from the aid stations. At the mile 5 mark, I took the last of the electrolyte pills just to be safe. I was feeling good and didn't want that last mile and a quater to be a suck-fest. I feel that the run is my strength between the 3 disciplines, and it shows. During the run, there was only 7 people that passed me, guys who were in the next older age group and were putting out a really good pace. This is oppossed to the ton of people that I passed while on the run. While running, it was just one after the other that was being passed.
           With about 3/4 mile to go, I passed a runner who had to stop because his shoe became untied. That sucks! For him at least; but it also enforced the reason why I spent the $15 for the Xtenex laces for my shoes. The last 200m had a semi steep down hill on grass and it did make me a little nervous with my leg. Up to that point, my leg had been feeling great, and I didn't want to take a spill or get injured in the last 200m of the race. Fortunatly I came through without incident and made it out to the flat land of the finish and crossed over the line in 2:27.  I got my medal, greeted Shawna and got some pics. About 10 min or so later, Todd crossed the line to finish his first Olympic distance triathlon too.

I still don't have the splits, or what my final placing was, but it was a great race, and a great intro into the Olympic distance triathlon. I am now looking forward to the Emmett Olympic distance race in 2 weeks. I'm anticipating a slightly slower bike for that course with no peleton to help me out, and I'm hoping to be able to find a better rhythm on the swim. The run will be faster as I intend to push myself harder on that run than on the Spudman.