I typically write my race report prior to my races, and then edit them after I finish. That’s what I did for this race. I thought it would be fun to not just edit it, but to highlight my edits and show how the actual race compared to my pre-race race report. Tomorrow’s blog will be done this way.
I’ve actually been a little nervous prior to this race. That’s unusual for me. When I first started racing I had more race day jitters, but I also had more expectations. For the last few years my expectations have been minimal, but my training has gone so well recently that I’ve started to think about what is possible at Santa Rosa. My swim has been going really well and so I seeded myself at the back of the first group going out to the water. This is the first departure from my race report. When I arrived in transition on race morning, they announced that the water temperature had dropped to 74.4 degrees, which meant it was a wetsuit swim. The problem was that I hadn’t brought my wetsuit. At first this activated my OCD and I couldn’t help but to obsess as to why I hadn’t brought my wetsuit. So, I decided to walk down to the water and just chill. I sat down and meditated. I also reminded myself that this was an opportunity to practice swimming with my swimskin in a race. I used the porta-potty a few times, completing what I’d started yesterday. I actually started feeling a little cold, and was shivering a bit. Instead of starting at the back of the first group, I seeded myself at the back of the second group. as I walked on the ramp, I was excited, and I knew that the first thing I needed to do was focus on my form. When I reached a point deep enough in the water to do a dolphin start, I put my arms in front of my head reached out and dolphin into the water in a streamlined fashion. The first strokes were going to be critical, because I needed to make sure I locked into the right form. Key elements of my focus included making sure I was raising each arm during recovery, slapping down at the water to assure my rotation. I also knew that I needed to focus and I needed my effort to be solidly consistent. At the same time I didn’t want to go too hard because going too hard, especially at the beginning, it’s not the most comfortable thing to do. I put my head down, made sure my arms were reaching out and kept checking on different elements of my stroke. I’ve actually been watching some videos as well as some swimming on television and realize the points to check on my stroke, for instance, when one hand is out in front moving forward the other hand would be at the end of my pull at my side, sort of in a Superman position. The one additional thing that I did was to focus on my arm turnover. Watching the pros go out, I’d somehow realized what their arm turnover looked like. For the first 300 yards, I’d guess that my arm turnover was closer to 33 strokes per minute, rather than the 27 that I usually do when I’m swimming comfortably. Before I knew it I was at the first right turn and settled into a strong and steady stroke. I focused on maintaining my form and at the same time maintaining my effort. In the past races my swim has become something that I just try to do easy, this time I wanted to feel the effort the whole time, without going into the Red zone. I was able to draft at times, but didn’t put much energy into trying to draft. Actually, I managed to draft off another swimmer from about 400 yards to 1300 yards before I lost them at the turn back. Before I knew it I was now making the next turn and then the next one to head back towards the finish. I knew I was having a good swim, and I used that feeling to maintain my effort and energy. As I came into the finish of the swim I kicked a little more in order to make sure my legs were ready because the next part of my race was something I had been looking forward to.
My swim time was 37:41, putting me 15th in my age group (the winner of my age group swam 33:43, my time put me within 3-4 minutes of all but two of the guys in my AG, I think that I’d probably have swam close to that with a wetsuit, but I might have overheated, so there’s no need to overthink this.
Coming out of the water I unzipped my swimskin, headed forward got onto the carpet and started running up the steep hill to the transition area. I’ve been preparing for this part of the race with recent running intensity that included 1 mile uphill efforts. So, the climb didn’t bother me at all, and I ran up the climb, passing numerous people for a change during transition. I decided to power walk the steep parts of the climb, but as it flattened out at the top, got back to running. It certainly wasn’t easy and I was definitely breathing hard as I made my way into transition and grabbed my transition bag. I got a short break, sitting down to change into my bike gear. I put on my cycling socks, my cycling shoes, got them cinched up, then put on my headband, my sunglasses and my helmet, making sure I cinched up the fit on the helmet, put on my visor and then my cycling gloves. The gloves seem to take extra time, prolonging my transition a bit. I put my swimskin Into the bag, got up, headed towards my bike and handed the bag off to the volunteers, headed towards my bike. I was excited.
Transition #1 took me 8:27 (the winner of my age group took 6:23)
I’m now about to embark on the second part of the race that I’ve been looking forward to. I move quickly to the mounting area, get on my bike and clip in. I’ve made sure that I have my bike in a low gear so that I can easily spin up the short hill, before crossing over the lake and recovering from both the swim and the run up the hill to transition on the three-mile descent. Since you’re not allowed to be your aero bars on the descent, it really makes for an opportunity to be comfortable and to recover. Fortunately my position out of my aerobars is fairly aggressive and makes for good aerodynamics, which certainly helps me as I descend. This is where I departed significantly from my pre-race report. Literally about 1 minute into the bike, just before crossing over the bridge and getting to the descent, I hit a bump, and my Torhans aero hydration system (clamped between my aero bars), popped out of place and fell to the ground. I immediately hit my brakes and stopped. About 100 feet behind me, a spectator picked up the pieces of my hydration system and brought it to me. I reattached it (I had to put the straw back in, and reclamp the system, unfortunately, I probably reclamped it to a spot that pretty much guaranteed that it would pop off again with minimal jostling.) and got going, having lost at least a couple of minutes. I began the descent, realizing that I needed to hold my hydration system in place, but hit another bump and it came loose, forcing me to stop again at the side of the road to clamp it on again. I continued the descent, unfortunately, having to scrub speed while assuring that my hydration system didn’t pop off again. It was actually a bit frightening, holding on to the bottle with one hand and having my other hand on the brake. This also wasn’t the best thing for my mental state, it did take a lot of energy. It also stressed my neck and arms. I considered dumping my hydration system, but the thought of wasting a $100 plus item, and missing out on the nutrition and hydration that I needed caused me to hold on to the bottle. I did manage to take in some fluids (and a gel) and when I get to the bottom of the descent, make the turn and now start on the first climb of the day, which was only about a little more than a mile.
I’m not the best climber. In fact, I’m typically passed by a number of riders. It was my goal to go relatively hard on the first climb while not exploding. For a change I wasn’t being passed right and left on the climb, and while I was passed a few riders, I was smart enough not to go completely into the red this early in the race. Furthermore, I always know I will generally catch most people who passed me on the climb during the descents and the flat parts of course. Before I knew it, the climb was over and I was on the rolling generally downhill Santa Rosa bike course. This is where I’m truly in my glory looking for opportunities to flatten the rolling hills and to maintain my speed. It’s important to stay in my arrow position the whole time. And that was my other focus. I felt really good on the bike, knowing the day was going to get hot I focused on staying hydrated, (the point that about 20 miles in I needed to pee, this didn’t happen, in fact, I never needed to pee on the bike, which I used one of the downhill sections to pee on the bike, something I’d improved upon at IronMan Boulder.) Unfortunately, this really didn’t go as planned. I was holding onto my aero bottle for dear life, as this course has more bumps than Carter has pills. I intermittently pushed, and alternated that with just focusing on keeping my aero bottle attached. In fact, I finally figured out where to clamp it on the aero bars and it finally seemed to hold. Before I knew it Chalk Hill was in my sight and (I also attacked this last remaining significant climb, was again feeling good while paying attention to not pushing too hard.) I actually chose not to push up Chalk Hill, but instead just went up comfortably, and I’d say that 20-30 people passed me. However, within 3-4 miles, I’d caught them all!
While coming down from Chalk Hill, I was thinking about the fact that I was having a (great bike ride and I wanted to maintain it to the finish.) decent bike ride despite everything that had happened. And I really did want to finish the bike strongly. The other thing that I was really happy with was that I had planned on making sure that I got on the wheel of any faster cyclist who passed me for the requisite 15 to 20 seconds that I was allowed to be there, and then slowing down a bit to get into the legal draft zone for as long as I could hold that. I felt going into this race that doing that regularly could add improve my bike time by as much as five minutes which, considering my goals for this race could be significant. So, as faster cyclist‘s passed me, I picked up my effort, got on their wheel, followed them for a short period of time, let them move ahead seven bike lanes and then try to hold out as long as I could until the next person came by. The most interesting thing about this, was as the race went on, I found myself not only holding onto these cyclists, but actually passing them. In fact, one of the guys who passed me around mile 45 started the swim 10 minutes after me, swam a similar time, and we traded places over the next few miles before I passed him for the last time. It turned out that he biked 2:43, which really makes me wonder if that would have been my bike time if not for all the craziness of my aero hydration system. As I came into town I hit the long straightaway, put my head down to maintain my aero position and focused on finishing strong. I passed a bunch people in the final 15 miles, and very few passed me. I sat up a couple times to stretch, let up my efforts ever so slightly and before I knew it I was getting off my bike and walking up to the rack in transition area. I always hate running or walking in my bike shoes, but I didn’t really care because I was excited to get on with the run. This was going to be what I’ve been waiting for.
Bike split 2:53:38 (11th in my age group (winner of age group biked 2:43:10, I was within 10 minutes of all but one guy in my age group, and considering what happened to me, I should have been right up there.)
When I drove up to Santa Rosa two days ago I intermittently turned the heat all the way up in my car. I haven’t been doing that in the prior week, but I figured that even short bursts of heat would help me acclimate for a hot day on the run. I made my way to the bike rack put my bike in the rack (stopped for about a minute to pee) and then went and grabbed my run bag, sat down, took off my bike shoes and socks put on my socks and my running shoes, my race belt and my hat put my helmet away put my bike shoes away and then took my bag back to the rack and got moving out onto the run course.
Transition 5:56 (winner of age group 4:03)
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