I've only raced the Gear West Du once before, way back in 2008. Back then I started in one of the later waves and was happy to simply finish in one piece. This year I'd be lining up front and center in the first wave and competing for a podium spot. This year's expected lineup was insane. I'd need to bring my A game just to get into the top 5.
The Pre-Race Jams
I'm not afraid to admit it, I like loud obnoxious heavy metal. Especially early in the morning in the car on the way to a race. I always thought by the time I hit the ripe old age of 34 I'd have mellowed out and gotten really into Dave Matthews or Jack Johnson or some such sh*t. Turns out that didn't happen. I'm just getting older and angrier.
On the drive out to Orono I busted out one of the all-time classics, Sepultura's 1993 masterpiece Chaos A.D. If I had a time machine one of my first stops back in time would be to see Max Cavalera-fronted Chaos-era Sepultura. I'm really pissed I never got to see these guys live. But not 10% as pissed as Sepultura apparently was when recording this album, and that's why it's awesome.
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| Listen to this. It's awesome. |
Oh well... cranking it up to 11 at 6AM on the way to a race will have to do.
The Race
As the first wave assembled on the starting line, Patrick Parish mentioned that he hadn't seen David Thompson yet. Come to think of it, I hadn't either. Apparently he was racing somewhere else this weekend. That effectively bumps the rest of us up one spot in the standings before we even started. Nothing against DKT, he's always struck me as a friendly guy the few times we've chatted, but burritos and beer don't buy themselves and David's absence ups my earning potential for this race by dozens of dollars. Money momentum!
Dan Hedgecock mentioned before the race that he intended to take the first run out hard, and his hard in a 5k is my hard in a 200m dash, so I more or less sprinted off the line. I led the race for all of 15 seconds or so when Dan came past me looking way too comfortable for the pace he was running. Somehow I managed to stay in front of Patrick for about a half mile or so, but eventually he cruised by as well. My watch read 5:0x when I hit the first mile marker and they already had a sizable gap on me.
The rest of the first run wasn't too bad. There was standing water everywhere on the trails but it was manageable. I just tried to keep my legs turning over as fast as I could maintain and arrived at T1 in 3rd place maybe 30 seconds back of the two leaders and up about 10 seconds or so on 4th.
T1 was the typical early season near disaster as I took about an eon to figure out my helmet strap, then proceeded to nearly trip and fall at the mount line. My crusty ass flying mount even elicited a few comments from the announcer. One of these days I'll have to actually get serious and practice transitions.
Once I got out onto the road I could see Dan and Patrick off in the distance and had delusions of dropping a monster bike split and leading the race into T2, but those dreams ended as I hit a patch of rough road and heard my water bottle skidding off into the ditch. I thought about going on without it for about a microsecond before I slammed on the brakes for the u-turn. Luckily the bottle was right there on the edge of the road so I didn't waste a ton of time, but as I was turning the bike back to the proper direction and clipping back into the pedals Chad Millner and Brooks Grossinger went flying by, dropping me back to 5th. I figure I lost about 20-30 seconds all told. Not a great way to start the ride. Now I'd have to ride my ass off just to still be in 3rd at T2.
I spent most of the ride with Chad and Brooks dangling out there 10 seconds or so ahead of me. Normally I'd like to think I could close down that gap fairly quickly, but for whatever reason on Sunday I just couldn't get there. I'd surge a little bit and start closing in, but I'd eventually run out of gas and have to rest up a bit and the gap would go right back to where it was. I don't ride with a power meter so I can't quantify it, but it just didn't feel like I could sustain decent wattage. I really emphasized swimming and running over the winter at the expense of cycling and it's definitely showing. The good news is I'm swimming stronger than I ever have and I'm running much faster than last season. The bad news is that I'm nowhere near the bike form I had last summer. The season is young though, so I'm confident I'll get there.
The yo-yo routine continued for about 10 miles or so until Dan Arlandson came flying past me like I wasn't even moving. Crap balls... now I'm sitting in 6th. Dan flying by woke me up a bit, so after dropping back and resting up a bit I kicked it up a notch to go for the re-pass. That stuck for about a mile or so until Dan passed again, and this time I couldn't hang and watched him slowly recede into the distance. Luckily in all of this back and forth with Dan we had caught up to Chad and Brooks, so after I got around them I was sitting in 4th, maybe 10 seconds back from Dan.
By this time we were only a few miles out of T2. Chad passed me a couple miles out and I was in no mood to contest it. By this time it was clear we were all coming into T2 together and the final podium spot would be decided on the run. A quick look back right before entering transition confirmed that not only was Brooks right there, but Devon Palmer had joined us as well. So it would be 5 of us hitting the 2nd run at the same time. This was going to hurt.
We came out of T2 in the same order we went in. Arlandson about 10 seconds ahead, then Chad with me right on his heels. I'm not sure where Brooks and Devon were because I didn't dare look back this early in the run.
I took the beginning of the run out super hard, passing Chad right away and coming up alongside Dan within the first quarter mile or so to end up back in 3rd. I stayed on the gas and gradually opened up a gap. Given how lame I felt on the bike it was really surprising that I seemed to be running that well, but I wasn't complaining.
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| About halfway through the second run. |
The course was in way worse shape for the second run than the first. There were a few puddles in the single track section through the woods that I was able to sort of sidestep around during the first run. The second time around, those puddles were 20 feet across and there was no choice but to plow right through. Coming up on the last one I took a big leap right into the center, landed on my left foot, then went on for 3 or 4 more strides before my brain finally registered that something wasn't quite right. So I stopped, looked back, and there was my left shoe sitting squarely in the center of the mudhole. This is a whole new method of multisport fail for me. Launched bottles, botched transitions, wrong turns, bike crashes... I'm a grizzled veteran of all that nonsense. But having a f#$king puddle eat my f#%king shoe. That's a new one.
As I was extracting my shoe from the mudhole I was expecting the rest of the field to come flying past, but luckily I had built up a decent gap by then so it didn't happen. Coming out of the woods Kevin O'Connor was there directing traffic and gave me a few words of encouragement. I just laughed and told him about the shoe incident and he told me that Patrick had also lost a shoe in the same puddle. At least I'm not alone in my inability to properly tighten a shoelace.
By now I just wanted this thing to be over with. Luckily I was pretty well entrenched in 3rd place and could just cruise it in. I was in no condition for a sprint to the line.
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| Damn... that dude on the left is SEXY! |
I'm super happy with 3rd in this race, especially given that it wasn't exactly mistake free on my part. Hedgecock and Parish are on another planet right now. Even with a mistake free ride on my best day I'm still coming in 3rd. Those guys are just too fast on the run for me to hang with in a race like this. It will be fun watching them go at it all summer. I'm just hoping that I'm not so far behind that I miss it.
Gear West Duathlon Results
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