Jerseyman - Saturday, May 9th...
This is by the most frustrating race I have ever done. The entire race seemed to get worse and worse and I seriously considered just walking off the course about 3 times. But, I'm glad I didn't because it definitely taught me a few things about having some grit and just sucking things up. It's funny because I always expect racing to hurt but this hurt in a completely different way. In the end, though, I know I'd rather things go badly early in the year than during an A-priority race.
The swim was frustrating because I got stuck behind a bunch of guys and just couldn't get around them. My fault for being unconfident and queueing up at the back of the pack. Will seed myself closer to the front next time.
T1 sucked. I left my shoes on my pedals and rushed my bike out of the transition area. But, once I got going, I just couldn't get my feet in my shoes. I've never had trouble with this... but then again, I've practiced a huge amount with my Shimano shoes. I had a new pair of Bontragers and had done ZERO practice transitions with them. Stupid, stupid, stupid....
I couldn't get moving on the bike... just didn't feel like I had any power in the early miles. I think part of this was due to having cold legs from the water. But, the main factor was definitely that I spent ZERO time on my P2 since my Ironman last September. After logging so so so many miles this winter on my Soloist, it was really hard to adjust back into TT position. Should've expected that.... Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Just as I started to get some power into my legs, we started hitting turn after turn. The bike course was loopy and you could never really get moving. You'd get up to 22mph and then have to slow to 10mph.
[I look a lot faster/better/happier in this picture than I actually was.]
Finally, with 4 miles left in what was a very piss-poor bike, the unthinkable happened. My spare tube on my rear bottle cage came loose--oddly enough, I had commented the night before the race that it looked precariously positioned--and it feel into my rear wheel. In a split second, the tube ground itself into my rear cassette, locked my free wheel and I got bucked from my bike. Thank God I was riding uphill or I would've definitely killed myself.
Already frustrated, I nearly went Normann Stadler on my bike. Realizing that there was no sag truck, I sat down on the side of the road and started to fix things. I spent 15 minutes cleaning out my cassette... it took all my strength to get the tube unjammed. All the while, I had to sit and watch tonnes of people overtake my position. Finally, I got things all worked out and my wheel back on. Of course, I go to mount my bike and can't clip in. As much as I love Speedplays, they don't work well with mud. And I had just spent 15 minutes in the mud fixing my wheel. After wasting another minute try to clip in, I had to sit down and clean out my cleats. There goes another 5 minutes.
I finally got going again and headed for transition. My spirits were broken.... this was a horrible start to the season. As I came into T2, I saw all the other SBR guys miles out into the run. I was excited to see them doing so well (I put three of them in the top 10) but was bummed to be so far back.
As I started the run, I had zero motivation. I basically wanted to quit... pack it in. The race just didn't matter anymore. But, I figured for respect of the race and for myself, I needed to wrap it up. The run was uneventful.... humid and unpleasant but uneventful.
I came in at 5:32... I had been aiming for 5-flat...
I'm bummed that it went so badly (and that so much of the mayhem was preventable if I'd just trained with my race gear even a little bit.... and had fixed that damn tube). But it was a good learning experience. And, as I said, better now than in Arizona.
The only uplifting part was that I somehow managed to come 1st M18-24... by a margin of 10 minutes. Goes to prove that I need to enjoy this category for the entire six months I have left!
Anyway, hope that this is a helpful tale for y'all. I'd like to think of myself as a fairly experienced triathlete at this point, so all of my amateur mistakes were.... well.... amateur. Race just like you train. Don't try anything new. And, above all, don't throw your bike into the road even if you're really, really angry... We don't get free replacements like Normann Stadler.
