Bonkers Sprint Triathlon (Bloomington) - Race Report

Sue Reynolds ●  Race Report

May 16, 2015

482 meter (0.3 mile) swim  /  13 mile bike  /  3.1 mile run

Temperature:  62^o F  /  Rain immediately prior to race  /  Wind:  9 mph

OFFICIAL RACE STATS

SWIM 10:14.5 1:52 / 100 meters Overall Rank:  12 / 35  (33%ile) Female Rank:  1 / 8 T1 3:56.6 Overall Rank:  15 / 25  (43%ile) Female Rank:  4 / 8 BIKE 50:39.0 15.4 mph Overall Rank:  12 / 35 (33%ile) Female Rank:  1/ 8 T2  1:49.2 Overall Rank:  8 / 35 (23%ile) Female Rank:  1 / 8 RUN 34:19.6 11:04 min/mile Overall Rank 25 / 35 (71%ile) Female Rank  3 / 8 OVERALL 1:40:43.21 Overall Rank  19 / 35 = 54%ile Female Rank:  1 / 8 Division Rank:  1 / 2

PRE-RACE WEEK

The bike on this race included one 14% hill and four 10% hills.  

Two weeks prior to the race, I rode the bike course and had a near fall on the steepest hill.  I just didn't have enough experience with steep hills and being out of the saddle.  When the bike started to fall to the left from a lack of forward momentum and then to the right as I over-corrected, it scared me - big time.  With my shoes clipped to my pedals, I couldn't just step off the bike.  I had two choices:  Go up the hill or fall down.

I made it up the hill, but over the next few days, I kept having moments of doubt.  What was a 61-year-old woman doing climbing a 14% hill on a bike with her feet locked to the pedals?  I wrote my coach and he said that 1) he knew I could do it, 2) the competitor in him wanted me to go for it, and 3) the coach in him agreed that maybe the risks outweighed the benefits.  He took the race off my schedule.  I was so bummed.

I called my coach, asked if he would ride the course with me, and told him I would totally work around his schedule.  I explained that while I wanted his coaching with me to be instructional, this time it was purely "babysitting."  I was afraid of the hills and I just wanted someone to be there.  He really went the extra mile and agreed to squeeze me in between two other clients.  This time, I knew how to get out of the saddle and I was prepared mentally to tackle those hills.  I made it up all of the hills (with a lot of effort), but no wobbling tires.  Race was back on!  I still was scared, but I was confident enough to be comfortable with shutting down my mind when the fears popped in.

For some totally strange reason that I can't explain, I did not have meltdowns during pre-race week.  Maybe because I spent time working with my coach.  Maybe because I am becoming more familiar with racing.  Maybe because unlike previous races, I was only going into this race to conquer the hills (not to compete).

Two days before the race, my coach sent this message, "You are a competitor, Sue.  Bring that on race day.  Don't let the layout of this course keep you from pushing yourself and competing."  Those words came back to me big time during the race.  I decided to hold back a little on the swim and a lot on the first half of the bike (where most of the big hills were).  Then, if everything went well, I would compete on the rest.

Lessons Learned:

1.  Get the race plan and have race discussion with coach at least two weeks prior to the race so if there are unexpected features to the course (e.g. 14% hills), you have time to practice them in workouts prior to the race.

RACE MORNING

What a disaster!  

There were three races today (half, olympic, sprint) and my race was last.  I had an hour and a half to kill between the start of the half and my race.  I figured that I'd watch the half start, set up transition, and then warm up.  However, once I got there, I realized that wasn't going to work because the athletes who were competing in the half would be coming into transition after their swim.  So I quickly set up everything in transition prior to the half and then exited to watch the half start.  All of a sudden, I realized that I had not done a bike warm-up and I could not get to my bike.

My run warm-up was fine.  I ran for 5 minutes with three 15-second builds.

Swim warm-up was fine too.   I loved being in open water (first time this season).  The water was a cool 62 degrees but not too bad.  In fact, with my wet suit on, it was lovely.  Swam about 300 meters with some builds.  Practiced sighting as I swam.  Practiced running down the beach and diving into the water.  Then I got out.  But the race was going to be late starting, so I got back in the water and swam some more easy distance.  I had an opportunity to watch my coach warm-up in the water prior to his half which was helpful.  He swam slowly but then sprinted for a few seconds, then swam slowly again.  I did some of that too.

I also got to see my coach stretch on land prior to swimming.  He has told me a million times about stretching but seeing him doing it was different.  I copied what he did immediately before the start.  And . . . I liked how I felt as I stretched.  It was kind of like a mental preparation as well as a physical preparation.

With about one minute to go, I realized that I had not eaten my 15-minute-to-race-start nutrition.  Oh brother.  I started chewing Energy Blasts as fast as I could.  I think I got four in me and some water prior to the start.  

Questions:

1.  When there are multiple races and I need to have my things in transition 90 minutes or longer prior to my race.  Do I warm up on bike that early?

2.  How far ahead can I do the bike and run warm-ups.

Lessons Learned

1. Switch 15-minutes-pre-race nutrition to gels. 

SWIM

We gathered on the beach and then ran through a start arch into the water. I still feel self-conscious about going to the front.  I started about a fourth of the way back.  Mistake.  The people in front of me seemed to want to walk into the water.  I ran past several and did a racing dive from standing.  Got a little water in my goggles.  Oh well.

I worked on drafting this week and I got to watch my coach draft in the half swim.  That was so cool.  He found a swimmer who was about his speed and just stuck to his feet for a while.  Then, he broke the draft.  I think he was faster than the guy, but it might have been that the guy was swimming off course.  It was a beautiful thing to watch.

Immediately, I was drafting behind someone who kicked.  That is such a cool sensation. The bubbles make it feel like you're swimming through air.  Totally cool to be sucked in behind he guy I was drafting behind.  I thought it was weird to keep tapping his toes - but that's what my coach taught me to do.  He ended up being too fast for me to stick with, but I felt like I had the benefit of that draft for quite a while after he pulled away from me.  I think someone started drafting me.  I could feel his hands on my toes!  On the way back, I found myself behind someone and drafted there for a while too until he went off course.

At another point, a guy was shoulder to shoulder (and rib to rib) with me as we approached the turnaround buoy.  I didn't think I could draft because I was too far forward and I didn't want to pull back.  Our elbows kept hitting each other.  He wasn't backing down and neither did I.  I just kept telling myself to swim my race.  Another thing I learned this week was how to go around a buoy using a backstroke stroke.  I reached the turn-around buoy and did a backstroke turn around the buoy.  All of a sudden, the guy was on my toes.  Cool!

On the way back, I had a decision to make.  The buoys were not in a straight line.  The swimmers were on the left of the buoys which were in a curve that arched away from the swimmers.  You could either follow the arch of the buoys (longer distance) or swim directly to the exit (shorter distance).  The race director said he'd like everyone to swim kind of close to the buoys.  I watched the half and Olympic races and no one swam anywhere near the buoys.  So except for one time when a boat was in the way, I swam directly to the exit and forgot the buoys.  I noted that everyone else did too.

In the second half everyone spread out and I began focusing on technique.  I noted that I was kicking and stopped.  My wetsuit kept my legs at water level and I wanted to save my legs for the bike.  As I got closer to the swim exit, I started mentally running through transition.  I usually kick a lot immediately prior to exiting the swim to get blood flowing, but didn't this time to save my legs.

I hit the lake bottom with my fingers and stood up running.  I was the first female out of the lake.  I didn't know that at the time, but I did know that most of the racers were behind me.  That felt pretty cool.  It was cool also to hear people cheer as I came out of the water.  I've never experienced that before.  I wonder if that was because I was the first female.

T1

I had anticipated that the run from the lake to T1 would be hard (uphill), but it was a breeze. Except, I forgot to take off my wetsuit!  Luckily, I remembered toward the end of the run to T1.  I didn't know if it would be faster to slow my run pace and get it off prior to transition - or if I should keep my pace up and then just stand there in T1 and take it off.  I decided to slow my run.  And then . . . I forgot to tuck my Garmin watch under the sleeve and it got wrapped up in the sleeve as I tried to take my arm out.  The last time that happened, I had to put my wetsuit back on before I could get the watch out of the sleeve.  Luckily, at the last minute, I pulled hard and the arm came out.

When I got to my area in transition, I bent over to push down my wet suit and when I stood back up, I got a little dizzy. I took one of my legs out of the wetsuit and lost my balance.  I've not had that sensation before during a triathlon.  I had watched my coach's transition earlier in the day and noted that he was purposeful but calm and collected.  I decided to slow down a tad.  I still did what needed to be done but wasn't in a rush to do it.  I was really scared that I'd be too dizzy to get on the bike, but thankfully, it passed.    

I didn't have any trouble getting my feet out of the wetsuit.  Based on the lessons learned from my last race, I had rolled up my shortie socks.  I also noted during my coach's transition that he leaves his heal on the ground and just lifts his toe to put the front of the sock on and then slips the heel on.  I had been lifting my entire foot off the ground and trying to balance on one foot while putting my sock on.  I copied what my coach did.  Much, much better.

Again, it seemed that I was running with my bike way too soon.  My body was running with my bike but my brain is still back in transition.  The run out of tranisition took me up a curb and down a grass chute.  I watched my coach do this earlier.  He gracefully picked up his bike as he ran up the curb.  I did too (although probably not as gracefully).  He pushed his bike in front of him in the grass.  I did too.  At one point, he had to hold onto the handle bars and as I ran, I found out why.  There was a big right-to-left slope across the bike-out chute at that point.

Once to the road, I got on my bike, clipped in with my left foot and took off.  I had a little trouble clipping in my right foot.  Earlier, I watched my coach step on the bike and swing a leg over.  He ran in his shoes so he must have clipped in with one foot and then pushed off.  I think I can learn to do that.

Lessons:

1.  On the bike mount, learn how to clip in with one foot and then push off.

BIKE



I was nervous as I started the bike.  Immediately, the route started the first of the 10% climbs as we rode away from the lake.  I was relieved to see people in front of me struggling and encouraged when I passed one of them.  I was totally surprised when I made it up the hill without coming off the saddle.  I thought to myself, “This is what adrenaline does.”  My HR was high and I feared that the adrenaline was making me push too hard. 

The next challenge was a 10% short downhill.  It had been raining right up to the start of the race and the roads were wet.  I had never ridden on wet pavement before (except for one joy ride on level ground).  I had no idea how my bike would respond when I applied the brakes on that hill.  The night before I read everything I could find online about biking in rain and breaking on hills in wet conditions.  I was scared that my brakes, even if fully applied wouldn’t slow me down on the 10-14% declines.  While setting up in transition, I found a friend who manages a local bike shop and asked him to please assure me that my brakes would stop me on the hills.  He did.  But there I was at the top of the hill about to find out.

The thing with biking is that everything happens so fast that you really don’t have time to think about what you are doing.  You just react.  As I rode the decline, I was going 45 mph and approaching a turn.  Rather than all the things I read on the Internet, it was instinct that told me to apply the brakes gently (back break first, then front brake), and then increase the pressure slowly.  The brakes worked.  I slowed.  Everything was fine.

As I rounded the gentle turn, I saw the hill that I have nicknamed THE WALL.  Seriously, it looked like the road went straight up.  As I approached, I saw that my biggest fear was in front of me.  A biker was struggling to get up the hill and I was going to have to either slow down or negotiate around him.  I didn’t think I could slow down without falling over, so I chose to go around.  He was wobbling all over the place.  Then he jumped off his bike and was standing there in the middle of the lane.  I yelled, “LEFT!” as soon as I saw him dismount and thankfully, he got out of the way and I didin’t have to slow down.  I pedaled very, very slowly past him.  That ordeal took me about 2/3 of the way up the hill and I was thankful for the distraction.  Knowing that I was pedaling up the hill when this young stud-man had to walk was entirely motivating.  It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was on a much better bike with a 11-27 cassette added specifically for that hill. 

I was jubilant at the top of the hill and said out loud, “Thank you Bike!  I am SO proud of you!”

The next part of the course was rolling hills – nothing too bad.  I spent the entire time in my areobars.  I also didn’t push to hard because the next hill was steep and very, very long.  It was the hill that everyone (even the guys doing the half) were talking about.  There was one corner on the way to the hill.  Having read that wet gravel is especially slippery, I was extremely conservative in the six corners on the course.

As I rode over the dam just prior to THE WALL, I rested my legs.  I noted that the vultures that are normally on the top of the dam house were lining the road.  There were at least 100 of the ugly little buzzards.

Around the corner after the dam, down a little hill, across a little flat, and then BAM.  There it is.  Another hill that looks like it is straight up.  And again, a rider on the hill going slower than me.  Knowing that being seated conserved my energy, I stayed seated as long as possible.  About halfway up, I stood.  After a while, my front tire started wobbling a bit.  I told myself to focus on keeping that tire straight.  My coach had talked to me about making the hill less steep by traversing it.  But I feared that if I started turning my front tire, I would be totally out of control.  I reminded myself, “You are just climbing stairs.  No big deal.”  I willed myself to keep up the cadence, and I told myself, “This is an OPPORTUNITY to show what you are made of.”  I made it.  Woohoo!

The next challenge was the turnaround.  I found out the night before that the turnaround would be at a place where the road was just one lane (not one lane both ways, just one lane).  I had practiced turning around but always with two lanes.  I really didn’t know if I could do it.  My plan if it looked too narrow to turn around was to unclip, swivel my bike, and then re-clip.  The road was crazy narrow but I decided to go for it.

I had envisioned the volunteers being two adults, but they were two young boys.  I warned them, “I don’t know if I can turn around!”  I rode a few feet beyond the turn around, got as far to the right as I could and then started my turn.  Immediately, I knew I was in trouble.  Thank goodness there was grass on the other side of the road.  As I road in the grass (which was think, unmowed and lumpy), I said, “I’m IN the grass!”  Then I said with probably a just bit of panic in my voice, “PEDAL LEGS!  PEDAL LEGS!”  I completed the turn, got back on the pavement, and the two boys started cheering, “Good job!  You did it!”  That was a nice surprise.  Thank you, boys!

Again, I am jubilant.  I just nailed the hill that everyone was afraid of.  Two more climbs are coming but they are not scary, just hard.  I have no doubt I can climb those two hills.

So now, I am going down the LONG 10% hill on wet pavement and my mood is as high as a kite.  The pavement is wet but now I am confident.  Got up to 30 mph, pressed my knees into the frame like my coach told me to do and rode out the decent.  I passed a couple of people struggling to get uphill and I was just soooo happy, I shouted, “Wheeeeee!” as I sped downhill.  Then I felt bad immediately because probably the last thing they wanted to hear as they climbed the hill was someone being happy.  I hoped they didn’t think I was making light of their struggle.  It was just so exhilarating to go so fast on that precision machine on which I was sitting.  I couldn’t contain myself.

Per my plan, on the way back, I tried to push a bit.  I started paying attention to my watts and tried to keep my watts up on the downhills.  I had been eating Shot Bloks every ten minutes and drinking water mixed with Gatorade.  Ugh.  The Gatorade made my mouth feel spongy.  I hated it.  On the other hand, the thing that made it feel better was more liquid.  I drank a ton more than I normally do, so maybe this is a good thing.

I was catching a biker in front of me and started calculating where I would catch him.  Sure enough, it was the last hill.  He was going up pretty strongly, but I was going faster.  I didn’t want to slow down, but also didn’t want to go faster.  Luckily, he didn’t hear me (my plan) so he didn’t speed up until I was on top of him and said, “Left.”  At that point, I could see his cadence quicken, but I still had one gear to go down, switched gears and went past him.

There was a police officer as I rounded the final corner into the park.  Still high as a kite, I yelled, “I mastered the hills!!!!!  Woohoooo!” He just cracked up with a HUGE smile.  That was fun.

I took the last big hill to the lake with no brakes.  After the last little climb, I took off my shoes while on my bike in preparation for dismount and put my feet on top of them.  As usual, I came to the dismount line fast and swung my right leg over the saddle.  I stood on the left pedal for a few seconds while braking – but I hit the front brake too hard and the back tire popped up.  Oops!  I jumped off my bike going a little faster than I wanted to be going and had to run fast into the grassy chute to transition. 

Lessons

1.  Use water + Gatorade for the bike because it makes you drink more.

2.  The tendency will be to brake harder than normal with your left hand when dismounting.  Focus on braking with your right hand.

T2

T2 was quick.  As I ran through T1 pushing my bike with my right hand, I raised my left hand in celebration (still high as a kite) and yelled, “Woohoo!  Mastered the hills!”  The photos my husband took shows everyone laughing.  Ha!   My socks were wet from the run through the grass but I did not change them.  Slipped on my shoes, grabbed my water bottle and race belt and took off.  I couldn’t have been stopped for more than 6 seconds.  As I ran out, my husband said, “You are first female in on the bike!”  WHAT!?  Could that be true?  I thought about it.  I knew I had a good swim and was among the first 10 or so out of the water.  Only a few people passed me on the bike and none of them were female.  Wow.  How far ahead was I?  Could I hang on in the run?  What fun!

RUN

The run was also on the hills.  The course was basically a little decline, BIG hill, little flat – turn around – little flat, BIG decline, little hill. 

I felt GREAT  as I started the run.  Maybe I was still high from mastering those hills, but I just felt really strong.  I remember thinking what a great job my coach had done with me.  I started out by collecting myself.  I got into an easy rhythm with my cadence, checked my form (lean forward, head up, quick foot plants), and just got centered.  Then, I checked my watch.  It wasn’t working.  I turned my watch off and then restarted it in run mode.  That worked.  Then I settled into getting the job done.  That kind of sounds silly, but that was kind of my approach to the day.  I came to get a job done.

I wasn’t sure how to approach this course with such a long climb.  On past short climbs (rolling hills) the goal was to keep my HR down on the climbs.  I figured this would be the same.  I shortened my stride but not my cadence as the grade started to go up.   Twice, men in their 30’s passed me and then started walking up the hill.  I thought that might be a different strategy – run fast and then walk to lower your HR.  But I thought that would make my HR go through the roof so I just kept at my steady cadence and little steps.  I was pleased to get to the top of the hill without walking. 

After giving my HR a little time to settle down from the climb, I tried to pick up my pace and focused on leaning forward.  I couldn’t find the turnaround marking when I drove the run on the way to race so I wasn’t sure how far I had to go.  Since I had to restart my watch, I knew that mileage was off.  So I told myself the turnaround was much farther than I knew it was and told myself to mentally prepare to go that far prior to the turn.  There’s nothing more demoralizing than thinking you have X distance to go, getting there, and then learning you have to go farther.  

I didn’t see any other females.  Then, right before the turn around, a young girl (in her 20’s) whizzed past me.  She had to have been doing 9 minute miles or better.  She was flying.  So ok, maybe I was second.

I knew there was at least one other female in my age group.  I met her prior to the race and recognized her name as being one of the ranked women in Indiana.  She told me she was a cross country runner in high school so I figured she’d pass me in the run.  I noted the time on my watch when I hit the turnaround and then started looking for her.  I knew that the remainder of the race would be downhill (except for two slight climbs at the end) so I started to push my cadence a little while the grade was not as steep.

I didn’t see the woman in my age group for quite a while and wondered if maybe she was in front of me.  Then I saw her.  She was five minutes behind me.  I suspected that she was running pretty fast and imagined that she would have a chance to catch me since my run is pretty slow.  During run tests at the end, my coach always plays a game with me.  He starts running behind me and says, “I’m going to catch you.  I’m going to catch you!” as he pushes me to run faster to the finish.  I kept imaging that my coach was behind me urging me to run faster.

Usually, my race plan has me running all out on the last half mile and on downhills, I usually try to lean forward and pick up my cadence.  But, this time the last half mile was on a 10% decline.  To be safe, I had to put on the brakes as I ran down the hill.  So I ran upright and landed on my heals with each step.  That motion jarred my body with each step as I raced down the hill, and I feared my knees would hurt but they did not.  But after a while, I got a familiar pain under my lower ribs.  After the Carmel race three weeks earlier, I asked the doctor about it and he wasn’t sure what it was but wasn’t concerned because as soon as stop running, the pain disappears.  I ran with one hand pushing on my abdomen  to help with the pain.  No way was I going to walk.  No way.  I remembered talking with Mark Allen about the intrinsic beauty found in pushing one's body.  I thought about Mark Allen racing through pain by taking his mind somewhere else and that’s what I tried to do.  When I got to the bottom of the hill and started the final climb, the pain suddenly went away.  It must have been from my jarring run on the downhill.  

Finish Chute

I couldn’t remember if there was one climb after the downhill or several.  I started thinking about how nice it would be to just collapse on the grass immediately following the finish line.  I know I’m supposed to keep walking at the finish, but I just found great comfort in thinking about how sweet it would be to just collapse at the finish line.  But . . . I knew that if I collapsed, everyone would freak out so I doubted that I would allow myself to do that, but I really, really wanted to – and savored the thought as I ran.  

I came to the top of the first climb and surprise!  There was the finish chute.  Holy toot!  I thought I’d be able to see it coming in the distance, but the hill had blocked my view and all of a sudden, there it was.  People at the start of the finish chute were cheering and I turned left and could see the finish arch.  I turned up the pace to sprint across the line. 

And then, suddenly, there was a young man racing by me.  I already had the speed turned up as high as I thought possible, but I found another gear and tried to keep up with him.  But I couldn’t.  He finished 5 seconds ahead of me.  

Lessons Learned

1.  Make sure you have an individualized race plan for unique courses so there is no guessing about strategy on the course.

FINAL THOUGHTS

When I finished this race (and wrote everything up to this point), I was ecstatic about the results.  Two days later, I’m not so sure.

I am pleased that I achieved the objective – learning how to bike up and down steep hills and to building confidence about my ability to ride steep hills.  I am pleased that I got in a good workout.  I am pleased that instead of walking away from this race, I went back to the hills for more practice.  The race was an opportunity to show what I am made of, and I think I did that.

But I still don’t know how to answer the question, “How did you do?”  When I was entering races just to complete the distance, I could say, “I finished!  Woohoo!”  But when I’m trying to determine if I did well with regard to going fast at a distance I know I can do, I don’t know what metric to use. 

Time:  Time doesn’t work because the courses are always difference so you can’t compare one race to another.

Personal Record:  I could be pleased with my swim pace of 1:52 per 100 m.  That’s a PR for open water in a wetsuit.  But . . . after the Carmel race where I did a PR in all three events, my coach said that from his perspective PR’s aren’t based on time.  Rather, they are based on effort and how you feel about the race.

Place:  I could be pleased with my place.  I was the first female in bike, first female in swim, first in my age group, and  second female overall.  But . . . there were only eight females total, so those accomplishments are shallow.

Overall Place (men & woman, all ages):  I could be pleased with my overall pace.  I was 19^th out of 43 participants.  This is the first time that I have been in the top half.