Buffalo Triathlon

It's Monday evening, I feel like I just lost a fight, and I can barely breathe.  That can only mean that the Minnesota tri season is now in full swing.  I'm apparently virulently allergic to whatever that green scuz is that grows in our lake water, because every time I do a local race with an open water swim I get completely knocked on my ass for a day or two afterward.  Good times.

Buffalo has always been one of my favorite local races.  It's one of the bigger races in the area in terms of attendance (~1,500 between the sprint and Olympic distance races), and it seems like whenever you get that many people together for an event you get a critical mass of energy that the smaller races just can't quite duplicate.  Despite the large field they still manage to run the event smoothly and keep the entry fee reasonable.  Basically, you get the "big race" vibe (tons of spectators, great organization, prize money, etc.), without the big race bullshit (high entry fees, mandatory day-before packet pickup, long lines for everything, etc.).

Buffalo always imports a big name pro to headline the elite field.  This year it was Chris Legh, winner of multiple Ironman and 70.3 races.  One of the coolest things about triathlon is that it affords regular schmucks like me the opportunity to race head to head against guys who have their own Gatorade commercial.  There aren't too many sports where that holds true.  If I were to show up at a Vikings game, throw a helmet on and run out onto the field, I imagine I'd end up getting my ass kicked and tossed in jail.

Obviously, absent a mechanical or something really weird, Chris would be well off the front.  Looking at the rest of the names on the start list I expected the remaining two podium spots to be fought out between me, Sam Janicki and Jon Balabuck.

The Pre-Race Jams

On Sunday I went with Reroute to Remain by In Flames for the drive out to Buffalo.  If you don't like In Flames, you probably shouldn't tell me, because I'd be liable to light a guitar on fire and break it on your face, and then I'd have to go to prison, and you'd have a burned up broken face.  Not cool.

In Flames We Trust.

The Race

I'm pretty sure I was the last person in the elite wave to check in.  Of course all of the racks were jammed full by that point.  There was however a sliver of space open on Chris Legh's reserved rack right next to bike in/out, and he was nice enough to let me weasel in there.  Lesson learned -- show up late, get the best spot.  Suck it, early birds.

After an abbreviated warm up jog I maneuvered into my wetsuit and made my way down to the lake.  I got about 5 minutes of easy swimming in before I had to get into the start corral.  The swim start was weird.  They announced one minute to go, and then nothing at all until they blew the horn.  Usually they would give a 10 second warning or something.  I was caught completely unprepared.  According to my wife I was looking up on shore when the horn blew.

Not surprisingly, being that I was pointed the wrong direction when the horn blew, my start sucked balls.  I took a couple solid kicks to the face in the middle of the scrum, had a few nice big gulps of Lake Buffalo, and just churned my arms and legs like a maniac for a minute or two.  By the time I finally settled down and started sighting, I found myself a good 30 yards off to the right of the buoy line all by myself.  Not solid.

Once I got myself back on course the swim was pretty uneventful.  I managed to latch onto some dude's feet and basically rode him all the way to the end.  It was really easy sitting back there, but the couple times I did try to go around, I'd redline for 20-30 seconds and only manage to get even with the guy who was pulling me, so I'd drop back and get on his feet again. I got out of the water a couple ticks under 20 minutes, which is decent for me.  I could've got out of the draft, worked my ass off and maybe come in 15-20 seconds faster, but the net result for my race likely would've been pretty lousy had I chosen to go that route.  Overall I'll give myself a D- for the first 200 meters and a B+ for the other 1300 or so.

T1 at Buffalo feels like a neverending uphill deathmarch.  That transition area is huge.  This was my maiden voyage in my new wetsuit, but it came off without incident and then it was on to the bike.  I did see Sam running out the bike exit as I was approaching my rack, which was encouraging.  He beat me by 30 seconds in a 500yd race at a masters swim meet back in January, so I was expecting to be at least a minute behind at T1.  But if I'm seeing him in T1 I know I'm only 30 seconds or so back at worst.

The race almost went completely off the rails about 30 seconds into the bike.  I was reaching down to strap into my left shoe and took my eyes off the road for a second.  I rode into a manhole cover which was slightly below flush with the pavement and was treated to the not-so-awesome sound of my water bottle skidding down the road for the second race in a row.  Being that there wasn't a cloud in the sky and I was already thirsty and hot as hell, I had no choice but to stop and pick it up.  Spotting the field 20-30 seconds at the start of the bike portion of every race is no way to go through life.  To make matters worse, there was a group of 4 guys coming up behind me that I had to sit there and wait for before I could safely get myself back out onto the road and moving.  Craptacular.

Artist's rendition of me stopped on the course picking my bottle up off the ground.

Once I finally got going again the bike went pretty well.  The course is slightly long (41K), but it's just about dead flat and there's enough space on most of the turns to take them full speed.  I reeled in a few guys on the first loop and ran into the mother of all traffic jams on the second.  The course was new this year and was a two loop affair for the Olympic distance competitors with the sprint folks doing one.  By the time the Olympic race hit the second loop, the entire sprint race was out there.  It was actually kind of fun.  Almost like weaving through backed up city traffic except it was bikes instead of buses and SUV's.

I finally caught up to Sam and Jon with about 5 miles or so to go and went around for the pass.  I could tell going by that it just wasn't Sam's day.  He looked like he was in some serious pain for the pace he was riding and didn't really contest the pass at all.  I later found out that he was hanging tough just a handful of seconds back from Legh on the first loop when his legs cramped up.  A couple salt tabs and a few more miles in the legs and the days of my old ass riding away from Sam should be just about over.    

Jon passed me once with 2-3 miles to go, but I went for the re-pass as soon as I had dropped back and we came into T2 together.  I had a blazing transition by my standards and got out about 10 seconds up on him.  My bike split was 59:10, which works out to 25.9mph.  I would have easily been 26+ had I not made that unscheduled pitstop for the bottle.  Not that they hand out prizes for bike splits or anything, but big round numbers are cool.  Still, that's an encouraging split given that I haven't felt super strong on the bike this season.  I'll give myself an F- for the first mile and a solid A- for the remaining 24.

Jon's 10K PR is several minutes faster than mine, so I had but one card to play at this point:  go kamikaze pace out of T2 and hope like hell I catch lightning in a bottle and hang on.  This worked out great for the first half of the run as I was sitting on a 30-40 second lead at the first turnaround and was predictably a disaster for the second half as he gradually reeled me back in as I faded.  He passed me for the final time with about 1.5 miles to go and that was it.  I was in survival mode by then and was damn happy to still be on the podium at all.  If I'm going to get passed by anybody in the final miles of a race, it may as well be Jon on account of the fact that he may be the nicest guy on the planet.

I didn't catch any mile splits on the run, but I'm guessing it would've been something really ridiculous like 5:15 for the first mile fading to 6:10 for the last.  That's every bit as unpleasant as it sounds.  Still, the 35:37 I clocked is the fastest I've ever covered this course by nearly a minute, so I cant complain too much.  I'll give myself an A for effort, and a B- for execution.

When I got to the finish line I was very surprised to see 1:56:xx on the clock.  I barely got my goggles on in time for the swim start, so I paid no attention to starting my watch.  I had no idea what my overall time was at any point during the race and was expecting something much closer to 2-flat at the finish.  I'll happily take a 1:56, especially given that I left a few seconds out there on the bike.

Next up is a few days of unintentional tapering (AKA business trip) followed by another Olympic distance bloodbath at Trinona.