USAT Age Group Nationals race report
Background
I raced this race in Burlington last year, going 2:16, finishing in the top half of my AG.
Swim 27:5x
Bike 1:05:xx
Run: 41:xx
Bike was averaging 213 watts. I only know this, because my LYC was flashing "data" the entire ride, which means it's not actually recording it for later download, so I have no further analysis. I was surprised it was that low (target was 230-240), but there was a lot of downhill, 32+mph stuff in the 2nd half of the ride.
Top 18 in each age group qualify to go to Worlds. To go to Worlds, I would have needed to go 2:08. The race was on the same course in 2012. Looking myself in the mirror, I thought "self, you can do this. Your swim was $h!t, you can easily get 4 minutes there (if not 5) simply by learning how to swim and the swimming more than 2x per month. Your bike can get better, maybe 1-2 minutes. And, if you can keep yourself from getting hurt, your run can still improve, maybe 1-2 minutes." I did NOT think I was kidding myself, I legit thought this was within reach with a good year of training.
Got in a funk after Philly Marathon (for obvious reasons), didn't train at all in December, hadn't biked hard at all since Aug/Sept by the start of JanOS, so I had a lot of building to do. Goal was to get to an FTP of 280 (which would give me some buffer), or at least 260 (which would be the razor's edge), as well as a Vdot of 58. Two and a half months into the OS, I was making progress. And then, life happened. I have been travelling basically 3+ weeks per month ever since, limiting my bike time during the week, and leaving me feeling very guilty about being gone so much so not making it up with a ton of stuff on the weekend. By late April, I pulled the plug on the goals, and started a run re-build with the PAP folks (see Linda Patch's thread) on May 1, leaving me doing zero running all of May, and slowly building back. I've basically done zero running with intensity for the race, and tried to 'crash train' on the bike the last 6 weeks, where I had a little time at home and some vacation to put into a ton of threshold intervals.
Cool thing was that I had a major swim breakthrough, setting OW pr's on my regular 1/2 mile distance by over 90s, so I still held out hope that I could reach my swim goals.
Race day
4:45 wake up, 2 raspberry pop-tarts and one bolthouse chocolate protein smoothie. Get to race site just after 5 (wife and kids are frickin' amazing being willing to get up and go so early to cheer on dad!). Parked super close to transition for $10 (I SWEAR the sign said it would be $5 when we checked the previous day!). Set up transition, chilled, got the wetsuit on, had a gel, and headed to the start.
Swim: 28:05
At the start, you line up by wave (each wave is an AG, so mine was about 140 males 35-39). We were the third wave to start. You get down to the dock with 13 minutes to the start, and can jump in and warm up. 6 minutes before the start, the previous wave goes off, and you get herded over to the start. There's some chop, but nothing too bad. Felt pretty warm, ready to go. 3-2-1, horn goes off, and I'm at it. For the first 2-300 yards, I felt pretty good, getting in a rhythm, and the leaders were getting out ahead, but not taking off like they usually do. Hey, this feels pretty good to not totally suck at swimming! Well, it wasn't to last. About 700 yards in, the rollers started. No joke, 4-foot waves were rolling into the harbor. Along with chop, coming from all directions. I saw dudes hanging on to kayaks, hanging on to buoys, just treading water looking around for the next buoy. It was nearly impossible to sight, and it was easy to get disoriented. A few strokes I went to take water, only to find none there! Bottom line, conditions sucked! I thought I was dealing with it well, but in retrospect, there were a lot of people who dealt with it better than I did. Can't really explain this one, other than to say I guess my newfound swim speed & confidence didn't translate when the going got rough. But, I wasn't aware of this, as I didn't wear a watch for overall time this time. Just wanted to race.
Bike: 1:07:xx
I think not wearing a watch is a blessing and a curse. Blessing: Stuff that's beyond your control is less likely to throw you off your game. Curse: if you need a whip, you might not know it. Somewhat slower T1 (though T1 was much longer this year...) I was off on the bike with a few others from my AG. I was moving through them and the earlier waves pretty well, sticking to my power goal of 220-230 (probably slightly aggressive, but what the heck, it's Nationals!). Bike was damned windy, much more so than I remembered from last year. Basically, nobody passed me and I passed a few people, but not a ton. I kinda figured I was in no-man's-land, too far back from the dudes who were going to go top-10, but not far enough back to be mixing it up with the 50th percentile group. As it turns out, I figured wrong... Post race analysis had my power average almost identical to last year, no idea how it compared from a VI or NP perspective, though I felt like I was able to bike harder for longer this year.
Run: 43:xx
This, I'm damned proud of. Last year, I ran a 41:xx on a few months of 30-40 mile weeks with a ton of intensity, and was in the best damn run shape of my life. This year, I was about 90 seconds slower on less than half the volume and none of the intensity. I'm still building back my endurance now that I'm running properly, but when I do finally get to add some real volume and intensity, I'm excited to see what I've got. From a race perspective, I think I passed about 8 guys, and was passed by 5. With 0.2 miles to go, I had a guy in my AG come up on my shoulder, moving well. I decided there was no way I was letting him go so close to the finish line. For about 0.15 mi, I ran 6:05's shoulder to shoulder with him, and he just pulled away going in to the finish chute (I was spent!!!).
Overall: 2:23:xx, 7 minutes slower than last year
At the finish line, I knew I was slower than last year, and I'd expected it with the swim conditions, wind, and run being slower. My wife, kids, and cousin were there to greet me, and each told me they thought I'd been somewhere in the 30th place (give-or-take), which I thought was frickin amazing. Well, that was not to be. They have a results tent, where you can go immediately and they give you a print-out of your results. I was CRUSHED to see myself in 80th place out of 167 (later adjusted to ~77th place out of 130 who actually started, including penalties). Finishing below top-half had never, ever crossed my mind as a possibility. Guess it should have, but it left me really torn over how to feel about the race.
Takeaways
At the end of the day, I felt a few things.
1) the field was much deeper this year (this sentiment was echoed by many others, both in the Oly and Sprint the next day). Don't know if more people wanted a shot at London than New Zealand, or if more people looked at last year's results and said "hey, I could do pretty well there". Either way, it was tougher
2) conditions were tougher. No matter how much I try to beat myself up over not handling the swim as well as some others (there were still some fast times!), I just can't do it. My swimming is really coming along, I just didn't have the chance to show it.
3) I was way, way less trained than last year. This was a conscious decision, I knew what it meant when I stepped up to do what I've been doing in Europe for much of the last few months, and so it's no surprise that I'm not carrying the fitness into this race I'd wanted to a year ago.
So, it was an experience. And I got off of both the bike and run feeling like I really didn't have more to give. So, I'll take it.
Epilogue
My son had a horrible sore throat and fever that afternoon, and my wife took him to urgent care, assuming strep. Turns out it took 5.5 hours to tell her he didn't have it. Fortunately, he started to turn the corner on Monday and is all better now! And, no surprise, I'm typing this report from Germany!
There were a few other EN'ers racing, including Daniela Williams (so good to meet you, to introduce you to my daughter of the same name, and to learn to pronounce your name "Danielle"!) and Kevin Mepham (rocking the terrific EN-logo'ed front wheel!), as well as former EN'er Joe Priore (who's had another little one added to the family about 10 months ago!). I got a picture with Daniela, which I'll post this weekend after I get home.
And once again, I can't thank my family enough, both for putting up with a Burlington vacation, getting up at the crack of dawn to cheer me on, and then being so supportive when I needed a nap that afternoon! Had to go to the Ben and Jerrry's factory after all of that! Guess it wasn't so bad!
Comments
Some of can only dream of being that fast even if fully trained and with ideal conditions...
Mike - key quote:
"...I got off of both the bike and run feeling like I really didn't have more to give." And that's the purest definition of a successful race. You did what you could with what you had, and can sleep well at night (assuming you're not jet lagged!)