Couple's Tri Race Report

   It was a great day to be a triathlete at the Couple's Triathlon yesterday. It has been about 2 months since my last race, which was the Rookie, and the old nerves started to kick in before the start. Actually they started to kick in the night before the start. It took an hour of tossing and turning on the bed in the house with a failing air-conditioning. I ended up with a solid 6 hours of sleep though and even little Oskar let me sleep all through the night. My family was in town to watch the race. Mom and Dad were at a hotel up north, my brother Carl was sound asleep (hopefully) on the couch and my other brother Michael and Sharon were snoozing away in the bedroom. The 5 a.m alarm sounded and we were up.

  I had packed all of my race gear the night before, or so I had thought. I drank a little bit of coffee and I wanted to eat something substantial since I had about 3 1/2 hours until we started the race but the butterflies in my stomach would only allow a nice smoothie to enter. I packed a granola bar just in case. My brother Mike was my teammate for the Couple's Tri so we loaded the bikes and took his car to the race leaving our support crew behind to meet up with later. It only took us 15 minutes to get to the race so we had about an hour to set up our transition area before it closed at 7:30.

  After getting body marked with our bib numbers we entered the transition area to find a parking spot for our bikes. We circumnavigated the entire area looking for the bike rack for our division and then we finally stopped and asked for directions. Mike and I were classified in the "Sibling" division. A very nice race volunteer told us our bike rack was on the first row of the transition area and all the way at the end near the bike entrance/exit. I knew the location would be very easy to find during the race and we racked our bikes next to a brother/sister team who had tied a "Finding Nemo" balloon in between their bikes. At some point  during the time we got out of the car and parked our bikes I realized I had forgotten my water bottle. I had brought water and Gatorade but no bottle to put it in for the race. I called Emily since she was leading our support crew and she graciously turned the caravan around and headed back to the house to grab an extra bottle. Crisis averted....or was it?
  Em and the family showed up before we were kicked out of transition with the water bottle. The only problem was the bottle had the wrong lid. Oh well I could still make it work. We left transition and then had to wait an hour and 20 minutes for our wave to start. The sibling division was the last one to get the green light. They had a pre-race group yoga session to warm up. A lot of participants did this. My brother and I did not. Carl pointed to the yogis and said, "Those are the ones that are warming up," then pointed to those like my brother Mike and I and said, "Those are the ones that are going to cramp up." Haha I loved it. The National Anthem started and this is where I will insert my only "Real" complaint about the race itself. Whoever is the DJ for these events needs to turn OFF the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the singing of the National Anthem. I know my parents are very patriotic and I could feel my fathers blood pressure rising because of this. So if there are any race organizers out there please turn OFF the music for the National Anthem.
  After the music debacle the race started and continued without a hitch for all I knew. My friends Craig and Scooby were off in the first wave of Friends/Male division. I got to cheer for those two and see them exit the water. Craig looked happy as he trotted up to transition and Scooby looked happy....well let's just say he looked happy to get out of the water. That guy swam ONCE to train for this race.
Can you believe it? After they passed us we just waited around for about a half hour for our start. I hate waiting. My father came down and was chit chatting with me about the race and for some reason this is when I started to finally calm down. I guess he has a very soothing effect because I finally chilled out. Our wave was lining up so we got in line with all of the other siblings. My friend and swim coach Barton showed up just in time to wish us luck. I told him I was going to get into the water with a crashing Cannon Ball entrance but I chickened out at the last second. The starting horn sounded, I turned to Mike and told him Good Luck and then we were off.
   The swim was 800 meters. We started in the very middle of the group which turned out fine. I ran into the girl in front of me for a couple of strokes but other than that I cleared the main bulk of the wave with no problems. I felt very relaxed and didn't have a panic moment at all. Later Barton would tell me that he could tell I would do well in the race based on how relaxed my swim stroke looked. I definitely trust his assessment based on how long he has been swimming and coaching. When you are swimming it is hard to know just how good or bad you are doing compared to everyone else. I felt so relaxed I thought that I might be going too slow but Barton also told me that in our wave there were a handful of fast swimmers and then the main clump. I was at the head of the main clump. I am happy with that except that now that I think about it, all those slackers behind me were drafting off of me.

  I got out of the water, pulled off my swim cap, waved to my mom, and jogged up to transition. I felt really good at this point. I found my bike with no problems and proceeded to put on my shoes, socks, helmet, shirt and race bib with Amy's mantra repeating in my head, "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast." I grabbed my bike and jogged halfway to the exit before I realized I fogot my sunglasses. I turned around and went back for them while laughing at myself.  When I finally was leaving the transition area I accidentally picked up some sort of wire in my back wheel that took a few extra seconds to remove. I had it in my hands but didn't want to just throw it back on the ground where someone else could get caught up in it so I handed it to one of the volunteers. There was a definite pause of her looking at me wondering why was I giving her a piece of metal and me pleading with my eyes to please take it. She took it then I was gone in a flash. I mounted the bike  past the clusterbleep clump and quickly got out of there. As I was exiting the park a guy ahead of me was struggling to get into his pedals and kept veering to the left. I yelled, " On your left" a couple of times but it was the third time when I screamed, "ON YOUR LEFT!!!!" that really got his attention. As soon as I cleared him I grabbed the water bottle and tried to get a drink. This is where having the wrong lid really made the difference. I accidentally pulled the lid off with my teeth.  I lost about a third of my Gatorade/Water mix. I hope nobody slipped on it. I got the lid back on a figured out a method of still using the bottle while keeping the lid still on. After that it was time to haul ass on the bike. Nobody passed me and I ended being 4th fastest in my division on the bike. The hills weren't as hard as I thought they would be except for one short but steep one that is located directly after a 90 degree turn which breaks your momentum. I was a very courteous competitor and I told everybody I passed, "Good Job." Although someone (she who will not be named) has just pointed out that if they got passed and the person that was doing passing was also telling them "Good Job" they might be a little annoyed at that.
  When I was finishing the bike I heard my name and turned and saw my roommates father Dale, who had come out to watch the race. He is preparing for his first race and wanted to watch a triathlon and see how it went. Apparently he discovered my parents when he heard my mother yelling my name into the phone as she was talking to my father. Ha, what are the odds? I have known Dale for many years but for some reason I kept wanting to call him Steve. I don't know if it was because I was tired, or the heat or what but I decided that Steve was not his name (that's my roommates and his son's name) so I just said "HEY!" a couple of times. Speaking of the heat it was a least 90 degrees when I got off the bike to start my run. Transition went well with no further hitches. I ran out the transition area feeling good but also knowing the heat and humidity were going to kill my run. I accepted this early on in the run and tried to relax and not worry about it.
  The run course is off road and with the recent rains it made it very muddy in some places. I run in the Nike Free with zip laces. There were more than a couple of moments that I felt my shoe starting to slip into the clutches of the mud but luckily for me they stayed on my feet. I am not going to lie the run was hard. I have been doing a lot of brick workouts to combat the feeling of running after the bike but the heat just ruined it for me. I ended up with a 9 minute mile pace. That is 2 minutes per mile slower than the pace I have been using for training. I can blame the heat, humidity, hills, or mud if I want to but I won't. Okay maybe I will blame the conditions a little.
  A guy barely passed by me with about a 100 yards to go but he clearly didn't know that I have one helluva kick at the end of my runs. I hit the turbo button with about 40 yards to go, not quite the turbo I was expecting, and edged past him near the finish line. It was a good race and I had lots of fun. I stayed around and cheered on my brother who had a fun race too but like me he was ready for the free beer at the end.
  Knowing what I know now, if I could change yesterdays race I would have pushed the swim and bike a lot more. I definitely sandbagged the swim to make sure it went well and I know I could have cut a couple of minutes on the bike. The run couldn't have been helped. Thank You everybody who came out to help, cheer us on and those who are reading this. It is very appreciated. All of the kind words of support and encouragement really mean a lot so don't stop just yet. I still have 4 more races. Next race is Jack's Generic Tri on 8/01/10.