Race Report - Columbus International Triathlon

Or, "Charlie Brown vs. City Hall"

They say you can't fight city hall. But you can surely race it! Mayor of Columbus Mike Coleman was on hand for the 2009 Columbus International Triathlon, though he was doing the sprint version. I had officially decided to do this race all of 18 hours beforehand, so it was a little bit of a last minute decision. My PR in the olympic distance triathlon seemed like an easy target, given than I had only raced that distance once, and it was Implode-In-The-Heat-Fest '08 with its 13 minute miles on the run.

Disclaimer: I have done very very little training since Ironman. Intentionally. So when I got this race in my mind, I had time to do all of 1800 meters of swimming, 30 minutes of biking, and about 16 minutes of running. Yes, my entire cumulative training plan was shorter than the actual race. I'm pretty sure that's a good plan, right?

Sunday dawned cool and overcast, with none of the rain from the day before. Perfect! I got on over to the race site, got set up and settled in, and found out that the water was even wetsuit legal! This race is a time trial start (one person every couple seconds), and I also found out that it would start in reverse numerical order. Since I signed up so late, I was going to be about the 15th person into the water. Lots of clear water for me, but no draft, and no one to help me sight.

As we all walked down from transition to the lake, I pulled up my wetsuit zipper, which came up quite easily. And suddenly, I was holding the zipper pull in my hand. Not just the string, the actual part that zips up the wetsuit. Well, that can't be good. Remember how I was 15th in line? I didn't have time to get back to transition and ditch the wetsuit now. I had a couple people try to fix it, but in the end I just stuffed the broken off piece up my sleeve, velcroed the collar, and decided to just go with my open-backed wetsuit. That can't have been good for my aerodynamics. :) Also not good? My decision in goggles. I wore shaded goggles, and they were WAY too dark for me. I had a very tough time seeing the buoys (no fault of the race, they were big, bright, and orange), and combined with my questionable sighting in general, I think I added some significant distance.

If the first loop was fairly smooth, the second loop was anything but. The olympic distance swimmers started first, but by the time I started the second loop, all the sprint distance folks were in. It became a minefield of people doing breaststroke, backstroke, or just treading water. I literally took more hard contact in that half mile than I did in the entire Ironman swim. I made it through, and came out no worse for the wear. My only real time goal for an individual event was to crack 30 minutes in the swim. My time? 30:38. Gosh darn it, that was actually 36 seconds SLOWER than my first olympic race, and I'm a much stronger swimmer now. I'm 100% sure that with a zipped up suit and better sighting I could have shaved off 39 seconds or more. Next time, Gadget.

Swim: 30:38 (72/172)

Transition for this race is split into two parts: the run from the swim to the transition area, and transition itself. That's nice, because it's a long run and includes a nice steep grassy hill that I ended up walking because my heart rate was still high. My little run there was slow, but then...THEN! AN RESPECTABLE T1! Not blazing fast, but this is big news for me. I wore my tri suit under my wetsuit, which helped, and the new socks from my race kit went on no problem with wet feet. My T1 was 81st out of 172, which if I'm not mistaken is officially above average. :)

Swim-to-T1 Run: 1:53
T1: 2:03

The bike course was 5 (!) loops of a 5-ish mile course. Half of it is actually on a major freeway in town, which has the right lane and berm shut down. Definitely a nice fast course! A little congested in the first few laps though, with the sprint and olympic races going on at the same time and only one lane to race in at times. I started off well, doing each lap in about 15 minutes, or about 20 mph. Somewhere in lap 3 or so, I started really feeling some fatigue. Shocking given all my training, I know. :) I held it together as best as I could, and finished out at an 18.7 average, though it was 19 on my bike computer. Much better than the 17.1 I averaged in the Deer Creek race last year, in any case, and 18.7 would equal my best bike average in any triathlon.

Bike: 1:19:39 (18.7 mph, 119/172)

There's no T2 column in the results, so I'm not quite sure what happened there. I do know that I had another pretty smooth, and therefore out of character, transition, though.

T2: ?

I knew from the very start of the run that it wouldn't be pretty. I had a stitch in my side coming out of transition, and not a whole lot of giddy-up in the legs. I skipped the water stop at the beginning of the run and headed around the lake for the first 1.2 miles. I did hit the next water stop, and walked it to get a gel down and some gatorade given my cramping issues. In retrospect, I probably should have taken a salt tab or two during the race, but didn't think it was hot enough to need it at the time. Once the gel was in, it was onward, up over an overpass, and out to the turnaround. Though I was tired, I was able to hold things together pretty well, and only walked a few steps during a couple aid stations to get fluids in. Ironman kind of spoiled me in that regard - 10 seconds here and there are a little more important in a shorter race! By the last mile of the run, my legs were pretty much toast, but my only goal other than the 30 minute swim (grr) was to never "give up" on my race. That one I succeeded at - though my legs told me to walk, I never did, and cruised in at a slow-but-still-a-run pace. Either the mile markers were off, or I ran a strange race, because my mile splits were something like 9:47, 8:30, 9:30,
8:40, etc. Weird. Anyhow, I was neither especially happy nor disappointed with the run, it was pretty much what I expected given the IM legs and lack of training. And it was 17 minutes faster than last year. :)

Run: 59:04 (9:32 average, 120/172)

Overall: 2:53:16 (22/23 Age Group, 119/170 Overall)

My goals going in were:

1. Set a new PR (3:19:20 previous, check!)
2. Break 3 hours (check!)
3. Swim under 30 minutes (no, I'm not easily letting this one go)
4. Don't walk any of the run outside an aid station (check!)

Unexpected extra credit: Good transitions!

So it was a success in that regard. I was surprised at how low I placed in my age group - must have been a fast field, and all the beginners must have been doing the sprint tri. Even the one guy I beat was only 7 seconds back....that's right, every single person in my age group was under 3 hours! Go 30-34 men! (But maybe not so fast next time, k?) It sort of makes me want to do another one, because I think there are probably 10+ minutes there for the taking just by actually training. On the other hand, there's a big gap between where I am now and what I'd need to do to be remotely competitive at this distance, and just finishing doesn't have quite the sense of accomplishment for me as longer races. So I'll give that section an incomplete, but chalk up a successful race personally and a fun day out there, the most important part!

Where's Dave?

Okay, so I've been away since the race. So what's been up?

Nothing!

Seriously. I've just been enjoying a couple weeks of cookouts, nice weather, and not dragging myself out to train. But I do have a possibility for a next goal in mind...

In the meantime, happy summer! Sorry, Canadian friends, we're going All-American on this one. :)