Florida 70.3

Viva Las Vegas


I actually qualified for the 70.3 World Championship in Las Vegas last year by winning my age group in New Orleans, but I ended up skipping 70.3 worlds to race Best of the US. That worked out alright, so no real regrets, but I was still somewhat bummed at missing out on Vegas.

So this year as soon as I found out the BOUS race was moving to spring of 2013, I immediately started looking for a 70.3 race to qualify at. I pretty quickly settled on the Florida 70.3 for the simple reason that it was the only race that fit into my schedule. Tiffany also decided that she and Michael would make the trip as well and we'd spend a few days after the race bumming around Florida family vacation style.

The Pre-Race Jams


It turns out sharing a hotel room with a 10 month old baby is not a solid strategy for a good nights sleep, so when my alarm went off at 4AM on race morning I felt like absolute crap. I knew I had to bring out the big guns to turn this situation around, so I cranked up Imperium by Machine Head and stuck that shit on repeat for the half-hour ride from the hotel to the race site.

This song is like an owner's manual for life. It makes me feel like I can wake up, eat a bowl of broken glass and nails for breakfast, run on over to NASA and punt a rocket into orbit. Going hard for 4+ hours in the Florida heat and humidity is nothing...


On to the race...


Swim 

Unfortunately I was in the 15th of 18 waves, which meant I had a solid hour and a half to kill between transition closing and my actual start. I spent most of that time pacing up and down the shoreline watching the 1500 or so people who got to start ahead of me go through the swim. At a boat launch ramp about 20 yards from where we entered the water I saw this lovely sign: 

One silver lining for getting stuck in a late wave... by the time I get in the alligators should already be full. The water was in the mid-80's and super gross. My non-scientific guess is that it was about 50% water, 30% mud and 20% alligator poop. Finally my wave was up, they lined us up in knee deep "water", fired an air horn and we were off. I took a front and center spot on the line and jumped out to a pretty decent start. After the initial washing machine cleared a couple hundred meters out it looked like there was one guy from my wave well off the front already, then a small pack of a half-dozen or so being led by me. I just kept going rather than falling back into the pack to draft since we were already getting mixed up with stragglers from earlier waves so I figured holding a draft would be next to impossible in all that traffic anyway. 

The rest of the swim was spent weaving around traffic and absorbing occasional frog kicks to the kidneys from random breaststrokers. I never saw another cap from my wave after the first turn buoy. My watch showed 29:30 at the swim exit. I was pretty disappointed with that time, but looking at the results I was 3rd in my AG and either 1st or 2nd in my wave (there were 2 waves of M35-39, I was in the 2nd) depending on what happened to the guy who jumped out to the lead at the start so it couldn't have been as lousy as the time would seem to indicate. I'll have to wait until I do a swim where I'm not changing course and/or running into somebody every other stroke to get an honest assessment of my 2012 open water swimming ability. At least I wasn't eaten by a gator.

T1

T1 was my 2nd worst transition ever (my #1 worst transition ever is the 2009 Liberty half, where I had to sit down and bandage a bunch of blisters on my feet before setting off on the bike). I kicked it off by running right past my rack and getting lost, then temporarily forgetting my race number while I scanned up and down the rows looking for my bike. Once I finally found my bike I threw my helmet on, grabbed the bike off the rack and ran a few steps before realizing I forgot to put my race belt on. For some reason WTC requires that a number be worn on the bike, so not wanting to risk a silly penalty I laid the bike down on the ground and did an about face to return to my rack to retrieve my race belt. I'm sure all of this only cost me 30 seconds or so, but it felt like an eternity. It's always demoralizing to piss away time like that so early into what I know is going to be a tough race.

Bike 

I started out the bike in full hammer mode since I figured I was off pace from a slower than expected swim and an epic fail transition. There was a pretty good tailwind the first half and I was holding in the 28mph range while yelling my throat raw at people to move to the right. The roads were pretty narrow with no shoulders for the most part so there was very little room to navigate around slower riders. And of course pretty much nobody was riding to the right like they're supposed to. There aren't enough motorcycles in Sturgis to properly enforce the position rules in the AG waves at a WTC race. 

There was also quite a bit of auto traffic as the roads were open. I lost maybe a minute or two having to wait behind cars as they waited for a safe spot to pass the line of bikes in front of them. Somewhere around mile 30 the terrain started to undulate a bit and we lost our tailwind so the bike started to get much more difficult. Luckily I had already moved up through most of the field at that point so my lungs and throat got a break from the yelling at least. I ended up jumping off the bike with a 2:12:08 split, which was pretty much in the center of the 2:10 - 2:15 I was expecting. I had no idea where I was relative to the rest of my AG or the amateur race as a whole, but I figured I couldn't be in too bad of shape since I wasn't passed the entire ride. I also felt like I did a decent job pacing myself and setting myself up for a good run.  

T2 

T2 was brisk, except for the few seconds I always give away putting on socks. New goal for this season: HTFU and complete a half-iron race without socks... skin of my feet be damned. 

Run 

The run course was extremely challenging. It was 3 loops through the residential streets around the lake with two sizeable hills in the first mile and a half. I was hoping to run right on 6:00/mi pace and nailed it the first loop and was actually feeling pretty decent. The wheels started coming off about midway through the second loop. At around mile 6 I noticed that I had stopped sweating and was starting to shiver a bit, which generally means I'm getting to the point of being dangerously dehydrated. Not wanting to risk a trip to the med tent I decided to do something I haven't done in a race since 2007... walk. From mile 7 onward I briefly walked at every aid station while I guzzled down whatever liquid I could get my hands on. The walk breaks were only about 10-20 seconds each and I was keeping ~6:30 pace between aid stations, so I wasn't losing a ton of time, but it was still pretty demoralizing. I thought for sure I was throwing away the AG win and possibly even a Vegas qualifier.

Because of the chaotic nature of a late wave start and the 3 loop run course I never really had a good idea where I was relative to the rest of the field. I didn't see a single soul from my AG during the 1st lap, which I now know was because I was already at the front, but at the time I thought there had to be at least a couple guys from the previous wave out there in front of me. I passed a handful of 35-39 guys during the 2nd lap, but they were clearly running much slower and I was pretty sure they were a lap behind.  At around mile 8 a 30-34 guy went past me running very strong. He started either 5 or 10 minutes behind me depending on which wave he was in, so crunching some numbers in my head I quickly came to the conclusion that if he was also on lap 2 he was on sub-4 pace and it was basically hopeless for me and if he was still on lap 1 then he was on 4:20-ish pace and as long as I kept putting one foot in front of the other I had nothing to worry about. Either way it made no sense risking a complete blowup trying to go with him so I let him go.

About halfway through the third lap I spotted a couple 35-39 guys up ahead of me who looked strong enough to conceivably be on the 3rd lap as well. I put on as much of a surge as I could to pass them. I wanted to get well ahead by the next aid station because I was still planning on walking through it in order to get more fluids in. It worked as their footsteps faded into the distance and I never saw them again. Looking at the results I'm pretty sure they were on lap 2 anyway.


At about mile 12 I saw the 30-34 guy who passed me back on lap 2 and he became my new target as I tried to lift my pace again. I was still aware that because of the wave start I was either 10 minutes up or down on him, but at that point I no longer cared. It was a point of pride. This guy passed me like I wasn't even moving earlier and now it looks like he's struggling and I need to return the favor. I caught up to about 20 yards back of him when he reached the turnoff for the finish chute... and kept going for another lap. I guess I was 10 minutes up on him after all. I gave myself a mental fist bump, turned into the finish chute and high fived a few kids as I jogged it in for a 4:11:51.


Immediately after my chip was removed I went straight to a nearby picnic table and bent over it dry heaving. Three different EMT's approached me and asked if I needed to go to the med tent but I managed to convince them all that this was standard behavior for me after a half-iron race and avoided the IV needle. It was however a little disconcerting that nothing at all was coming up given that I had managed to take in two full cups of water and/or sports drink at the previous five aid stations. After the dry heaves stopped I went straight to the post-race food tent and guzzled four cans of Coke and two of Sprite and started to feel somewhat normal again.

I wandered around the finish line for area for a while looking to see if results were posted anywhere, but they were nowhere to be found so I resigned myself to sitting on the ground in the food tent until transition finally reopened and I could get to my phone to check the results online. I ran into Jeff Fleig from LaCrosse, who I had previously met last summer at TriStar Minnesota and we sat there comparing notes from our races for a bit. It's always nice to run into a familiar face when you're 1,000 miles from home.

Once they finally reopened transition and I was able to get the results I was blown away that my 4:11:51 was good enough for 11th overall and first amateur. I was pretty confident that I had my Vegas spot sewn up, but I figured that with all the walking I did that someone out there had to have managed better. Some days it really is all about the bike I guess.

After heading out for some nutritious recovery chow at a nearby McDonalds, I reported to the Vegas signup table credit card in hand and claimed my spot, fully intent on actually attending this year. Mission accomplished.

World Turtle Day


Did you know that May 23rd was World Turtle Day? No?!?!? Get with the program.

Most people finding themselves with a few spare days in central Florida with a small child would choose to go to Disney and proceed to drain their wallet for the privilege of spending hours and hours standing in line. Well, most people are chumps. We chose to go the full-on nerd route, first taking little Mikey over to the Kennedy Space Center and then down to the Keys where we were visited the Turtle Hospital, a facility that rescues and rehabs sick or injured sea turtles for eventual release. Yep, that picture below is me wearing a turtle shirt, holding my kid who is also wearing a turtle shirt, standing in front of a building filled with sea turtles (bonus nerdery... the picture was taken by my wife who was also wearing a turtle shirt). Keepin' it awesome in 2012.

Duathlon Nationals

Still Alive

Wow... it's been a solid six months since I've updated my craptacular blog. I'm sure my one or two loyal readers (hi mom!) are very disappointed. Truth is I've been on my grind. If I want to get any training done these days it has to happen in the early morning, so setting the alarm for 5AM has become completely standard.  Between work, training, and trying to keep my kid alive and my wife sane there isn't room for much else. My master plan of regularly posting original content in order to build up a loyal following who I can then proceed to spam with Adsense and affiliate links so I can eventually generate enough revenue to go to the liquor store and buy a 40oz is way behind schedule. I'll try to do better.

Since it worked out so well last time, Patrick Parish and I decided we'd take our show on the road yet again. This time for Duathlon Nationals in Tuscon.

In Duct Tape We Trust

Ever since I forked over my credit card at the luggage counter on the way out to my first fly-in race back in 2010, I've had the dream of cobbling together my own bike boxes and outwitting those greedy bastards.  About a half dozen trips and several hundred dollars in bike fees later I finally got off of my ass to do something about it.  

This trip was the maiden voyage of my DIY ghetto bike boxes.  They're made out of corrugated plastic held together by canvas straps and several hundred feet of duct tape.  The good news is that the bike got there and back without damage, the boxes held up just fine to the rigors of air travel, they actually fit through the x-ray machines so there's less chance the TSA will open them, and they're much easier to carry and get into/out of a car than a traditional bike box.  The bad news is that I only avoided the fee on one leg of the trip.  I can make the frame box substantially smaller by removing the crank, so I'll make that adjustment for the next trip and see how it goes.

The Pre-Race Ridiculousness

For some reason USAT insists on having a mandatory day-before packet pickup and bike check-in for this race.  Since Tucson is about a 2 hour drive from Phoenix you either have to take a really early flight out that morning or head out two days before the race and deal with an extra night away from home.  Since the extra night away from home is not a viable option I went with the really early flight.  I hopped out of bed at 4:30 on Friday morning, said a prayer for my sketchy looking homemade bike boxes as I tossed them in the trunk of the car and headed off to the airport for a 6:15 scheduled departure.

As I was walking across the skyway from the parking ramp to the terminal I noticed an unusually large number of people outside the terminal on the sidewalk.  As I attempted to enter the terminal I found out why... TSA was not letting anyone in.  About every five minutes or so they pushed everyone back farther until we were eventually all back out in the middle of the parking ramp.  After about an hour or so the bomb squad truck rolls up and some guy gets out in the full-on bomb suit just like something out of a movie and heads into the terminal.

Eventually the bomb suit guy comes back outside, gets in the truck and rolls off, but for some reason it's a solid 30 minutes before we get the all clear to go back inside.  It turns out some numbnuts checked a bag with some sort of homemade water filter that looked like a pipe bomb when they x-rayed it.  By now it's about an hour and a half past our scheduled departure time.

When they finally give the all clear I hustle back inside as fast as I can and end up 2nd in line at the Southwest counter.  I say another silent prayer for my plastic and duct tape handiwork and get in the now hour-long line for security screening.  The whole time I'm in line I'm checking the status of my flight on my phone and the departure time keeps getting pushed farther and farther back.  When I clear security I head over to my gate and see the board is displaying no info for my flight at all.  It turns out they sent the thing out about a half hour after TSA declared the bomb scare over.  I can only guess that the plane had approximately zero passengers on board since the vast majority of us had no chance to clear security in that time.  They must've really needed that plane in Phoenix or something.

Luckily I was able to get rerouted onto a flight to St. Louis with a connection to Phoenix that got me in around noon.  Patrick was not so lucky.  He was supposed to be on the same flight, but it took him several hours to get through the luggage check and security lines and he wouldn't be landing in Phoenix until 8PM.

Once I hit the ground I hopped in the rental car and headed toward Tucson with a quick stop at the In-N-Out Burger drive-thru for some pre-race fuel.  Upon arrival in Tucson I threw my bike together like a NASCAR pit stop and made it to packet pickup and bike check-in with about a microsecond to spare. For some reason the packet pickup only went until 4PM. Seriously guys, if you're going to insist on this day-before crap at least extend it into the early evening.  It would make life much easier for people coming from out of town.

I could've had it much worse however. By the time Patrick finally makes it to the hotel I've already been asleep for a couple hours.  

The Pre-Race Jams

In honor of my recent entry into the M35-39 age group, here's an appropriately titled blast from the past:

The Race

Between the time zone change, the travel freakout the day before and general pre-race nervousness both Patrick and I are wide awake by 5AM.  Patrick had negotiated a race morning packet pick up due to the airport drama, so he left for the race site pretty early.  Our wave wasn't going until 8:15, so I sat there and watched TV for a couple hours before I headed out.

Once I arrived I quickly aired up my tires, set up my transition and emptied an entire spray can of sunscreen onto my pasty white midwestern skin.  We actually got pretty lucky with the weather.  It was in the high-70's/low-80's with light winds while we were racing.  It could've easily been much, much hotter and windier.

After a more than likely inadequate warm-up jog I got in the start corral the moment they called my wave.  The start line was extremely narrow and I wanted to stake out a spot on the front row so I wouldn't have to worry about getting boxed in by anyone else.

Right from the gun some maniac takes off at full on kamikaze suicide pace, a couple other guys try to follow, and 1/4mi in I'm sitting in 5th or 6th.  Strangely enough, Patrick is not one of the guys in front of me.  That should've been a giant red flag that I'm probably not pacing this run very intelligently.  At about 1/2mi Patrick finally pulls around.  I hit the first mile marker at 4:55 and I'm somewhere around 7th position nowhere near the leaders.  Assuming that marker was in the right place I think that's my new mile PR.  Even if it wasn't in the right place that opening mile was still damn fast.

Mile 2 is significantly downhill and I clock a 5:13, getting passed by 3 more guys in the process, which is pretty standard for me since I hate running downhill and seem to really suck at it compared to most of the guys I try to race with.  Of course, what goes down must come up, and we soon make the turn to climb back toward transition.  I manage to pass a bunch of guys on the uphill and come into transition 5th in my wave.

I got through transition quickly and headed out onto the bike course still in 5th.  The bike course is a 2-loop out and back with constant rolling hills.  The 50+ wave went out 15 minutes ahead of us, so there was a constant stream of traffic to pass.  Because of all the traffic I never had that great of an idea of where the rest of the guys from my wave were, so I just did my best to keep hammering away.  I made my way around the one and only guy from my wave I ever came into contact with at about mile 9, putting me in 4th.

Shortly after making the turnaround to start the 2nd lap I had one of the scarier moments of my racing life.  Heading into a turn I'm rapidly approaching one of the guys from the earlier wave and screaming "ON YOUR LEFT!" at the top of my lungs.  He seems to have heard me and looks to be setting up for a wide turn so I start to take the inside line, still shouting at him for good measure.  Well, it turns out he must have interpreted "on your left" as "move to the left", because as soon as I get up next to him, he drifts over to me and we rub shoulders.  Since I have more momentum I continue to pull ahead, and eventually his front wheel touches my back wheel and down he goes.  Luckily there were two police officers working that intersection as well as a couple dozen spectators, so figuring that my stopping would serve no purpose I rode on.

The whole rest of the loop I'm replaying that incident in my head and praying that the guy isn't seriously messed up. I breathe a giant sigh of relief when I ride back through that corner ~15 minutes later and there are no body or bike parts on the ground and no ambulance on the scene. I would've felt like the world's biggest scumbag for riding off had that guy been seriously hurt. I jogged out to that intersection after the race and talked to one of the cops. He said the guy had some road rash, but was otherwise OK, refused any medical attention and left the scene under his own power.  Everything happened so quickly I don't know what else I really could have done, but I still feel pretty shitty for being one half of an encounter that probably ruined someone's day.

I get through transition without any hiccups and head out onto the run course in 4th place, about 20 seconds back of the guy in 3rd.  I manage the first mile in 5:15 this time around and look to be closing the gap a bit to 3rd, but I start to lose ground again as we head down the hill. I develop a wicked side stitch on the way down the hill, which is odd. It's been several years since that has happened.  Did I mention I hate running downhill?  Luckily the side stitch clears up toward the bottom and I try to maintain some type of reasonable form for the last push back up the hill.  By now I'm in pretty rough shape and just ready to be done.  

I enter the finish chute a few steps behind one of the 60+ guys from the first wave.  Deciding that a finish line sprint with a guy who started 15 minutes ahead of me is ridiculous (and truthfully, a little afraid that I wouldn't even win said sprint), I set up shop about 10 yards behind him and cruise the last couple hundred meters, crossing the line in 4th.

When I cross the line I give Patrick (who finished 2nd overall, only a handful of seconds behind a guy who finished 2nd in the pro wave at last years Duathlon Nationals) a high five and and proceed to dry heave over a fence while Patrick is being interviewed.

Since the awards ceremony is at 6PM back at the host hotel we don't stick around long and collect our belongings as soon as the transition area is reopened.  We head back to the hotel and to get cleaned up before a post-race refuel at In-N-Out.

This whole time we're still under the impression that we're 2nd and 4th overall. After returning to the hotel I get on the computer and check to see if the official results are posted.  It turns out that I've been upgraded to 3rd overall since the guy who crossed the line in 3rd managed to somehow accumulate 6 minutes worth of penalties.  And since the overall winner is Canadian, he's not eligible for the US championship (apparently he was racing in a one-man "open" division).  That makes Patrick the US champ and me the runner up!

Minnesota was well represented at the awards ceremony, as not only were Patrick and I on the overall podium and winners of our respective age groups, but Bob Powers and Ben Ewers won their age groups as well.  

So the first race of 2012 is over and done with.  Patrick and I both brought home national championship jerseys and a hell of a lot of stories to tell (although most of them have more to do with the fake bomb scare than the race). I'll take that to kick off the season anytime.

Soma Triathlon

I always swore up and down that I'd never become one of those people.  You know, the ones who spam up the internets with a bazillion pictures of their kid(s). But oh well, screw it... this little dude is too cute to not share.  He must get that from his mom...

Lil' Mikey also loves turtles.

I debated hanging up the Lycra for the season back in September after Best of the US.  Going out on top and all... but that lasted all of a day or two before I found myself spending a good deal of my free time searching for a mid-October half iron race to jump into.  I eventually settled on the weekend of 10/22-10/23, which narrowed my choices down to 70.3 Austin and the Soma Half, in Tempe, AZ.  Soma won out on the basis of logistics.  Fights were way cheaper and it would be much easier to pull off in a 3-day weekend.  Doing Austin on that timeframe would've required flying on Delta, and I'll see them and their $175 each way bike fee in hell.

So... on Saturday morning I packed up the trusty Orbea and made my way to the airport for my flight to Phoenix.

Pipe insulation and zip ties... that's how the cool kids pack their bikes.

I got my favorite seat on the plane (exit row window), a rental car so new it didn't even have a license plate, and the hotel in Tempe let me check in right away when I showed up at 11AM.  To top it all off, when I made it to packet pickup later in the afternoon I was given bib #612... totally appropriate as I'm pretty sure I was the only Minnesota resident in the race.  Everything's comin' up Matt!

The Pre-Race Jams

Progression Through Unlearning by Snapcase.  I'm not even sure how I can adequately describe the awesomeness of this album.  It was released in 1997 (damn I'm getting old) and I'll bet I haven't gone a month since then without listening to it.  And every single time I crank it up it still puts a giant shit-eating grin on my face.  The best hardcore record of all time and it's not even close.

The Race

If you can say one thing about Red Rock Co. (the race organizers), it's that when they publish a schedule they stick to it.  The pro wave went off at 6:30 on the dot and the 34 and under men were told to immediately enter the water for the scheduled 6:32 start.  The degree of difficulty there is that it was an in-water start a solid 100+ meters or so out from where we entered.  As I was about halfway down the stairs leading to the scuzzy green water of Tempe Town Lake I heard the announcer say we had 90 seconds to get to the line.  Holy crap! I'm actually gonna have to hustle a little bit not to miss the start.  The end result is that I made it to the start line at nearly the precise moment the horn blew.

The rest of the swim was pretty uneventful.  The field got strung out extremely quickly, which on one hand was nice because there was little to no contact, but on the other hand sucked because I couldn't find a decent pair of feet to follow and ended up breaking my own water the whole way.  According to the internet, we were supposed to have the sun directly in our eyes on the first leg of the swim making it next to impossible to sight, but the sun didn't crest the surrounding hills until we were very close to the 1st turn buoy, so it wasn't much of an issue.  My watch said 29-flat (official split is 29:32, but the timing mat was at the entrance to transition, not the actual swim exit) when I peeled my wetsuit off on the run up to transition.  A little slower than I was hoping, but swim times seemed fairly slow across the board so I'm reasonably happy with it.

I got through transition without incident and headed out on this adventure...

Just in case you didn't bring your abacus... that's 4 tight u-turns and a whole bunch of other sketchy corners, repeated 3 times.  Not that I'm complaining, it was actually a ton of fun.  During every other half-iron race I've done, I've been bored out of my skull on the bike.  Not this one.  This course commands your full attention if you want to ride fast and still keep it rubber side down.

I figured going in that since there would be 1000+ people on a 3-loop course that it would be wall to wall bikes the entire time.  It was actually pretty lonely the first lap.  I picked off a few of the faster swimming guys from my wave within the first handful of km's (as an aside... I switched my bike computer over to metric a few weeks ago, so it's straight kilometers from here on out), and started working my way up into the pro field.  I wasn't quite sure how to handle that since the pros are subject to slightly different drafting rules and I didn't want to pull a boneheaded move and earn myself or anyone else a cheap penalty.  Do the pros have to stagger off of me when I'm in front?  Would the refs not recognize that I'm in the AG race and penalize me for not following the pro position rules?  No idea on either count.  I just did my best to get way over to the right when I wasn't passing and trusted everyone else to sort it out correctly.  Luckily it was a non-issue and everyone got along just fine. 

Immediately upon passing transition and starting the second lap I was greeted with the endless sea of traffic in front of me that I was expecting from the beginning.  Despite all the traffic my second lap ended up over a minute faster than my first.  The biggest difference was the way I approached the turns.  I took the corners on the first lap very conservatively while on the 2nd and 3rd I was able to carry a quite a bit more speed through as I'd seen it all before.

About halfway through the 2nd loop I passed pro Matthew Russell, who eventually won the race.  He ended up passing me back about a minute later and we continued to battle for the remaining 40K or so of the bike, with the lead changing between us a half dozen or so times.

I hit the entrance to T2 with 2:42:xx showing on my watch, for a 2:10:something bike split.  That was easily the best ride I've ever put together in a long course race.  I beat my own pre-race expectations by a solid 3-4 minutes, outsplit the entire pro field and threw down for 40K with a guy who just went 8:43 (23rd overall) in Kona.  Not much to complain about there!

T2 was a little slow because I opted to put on some socks, but I made it out a handful of seconds behind Russell, who immediately shot off like a rocket on the way to his race-winning 1:17 run.  I was starting to feel the effects of the heat and sun right away and set out at what I thought was a fairly conservative pace, but I hit the first mile marker in 5:46 anyway.  I would pay pretty dearly for that 1st mile enthusiasm later in the run (miles 10-12 were all a super-gross 7:00+).  Proper pacing at this distance is some sort of level 80 wizard magic that I simply don't understand.

Somewhere around mile 9.5 I was passed by the eventual amateur winner, Dan Brienza.  He flew past me like I wasn't even moving.  I was strictly in survival mode by that point so I had nothing in response.  I couldn't do much beyond plodding along at my own pace the rest of the way to the finish.  I finally made it across the line in 4:07:27 and immediately kicked off the end-of-season celebration by spending the next few minutes leaning over a fence puking my guts out.  That makes me 3 for 3 in puking at the finish line of long course races this year.  Party hard!

So with that, the off season officially begins.  My previous best half was a 4:11 at Chisago (and that's more like a 4:14 since the run is ~.4mi short), so 4:07 is a huge personal best at this distance.  And while its great to go out with a massive PR and all, there's still plenty of room for improvement, especially on the swim and the run.  So if you need to get a hold of me this winter, I'll be in the pool or on the trails!

Best of the US!

Mop Basted... No Rubs!

Alright, first things first.  Here's an obligatory cute baby pic, taken at his very first big league ball game:

Awwwwww...

I can't stress enough how great he's been letting us sleep through the night and how awesome my wife is in allowing me to disappear for an entire weekend to prance around in Lycra on the other side of the country.  With the important stuff out of the way, here's a long-winded recap of some race I just did.

I woke up well before sunrise on Friday and headed off to the airport.  Patrick Parish was also racing and we'd be sharing a hotel and rental car to keep costs down.  We met at the gate and made it down to Mobile without incident.

Once there we managed to Tetris two bike bags plus the rest of our luggage into a standard size rental car and hit the road for Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Somewhere along the way we caught sight of a little hole in the wall barbecue joint called Porky's.  I immediately slammed on the brakes and parked the car.

We're not in Minnesota anymore, are we?

I'm still not entirely sure what "Mop basted, no rubs!" actually means, but it made for a damn tasty pulled pork sandwich.  With our southern barbecue fix out of the way we got back on the road and made it the rest of the way to Gulf Shores, home of such classy establishments as the Purple Octopus T-Shirt Factory and Souvenir City.

The shark's mouth is the front door.  Freakin awesome!

But seriously, Gulf Shores is a pretty cool little beach town, and it looks like it would be a great place for a family vacation, but we were here on "business", so we got right down to it, checked into the hotel, built the bikes up and went for a ride.

Later in the afternoon we hit the BOUS packet pickup, where we were greeted with a free buffet of sliders, chicken sandwiches, pasta salad and a bunch of other good stuff.  Trudy really rolls out the red carpet for the BOUS racers.  Very cool.

As I was stepping up to the bar to order a Coke to wash down my sliders, a couple random drinkers looked over at me and said, "Hey Payne, we've got you to win tomorrow!"  What the deuce?!?  How do these randoms know my name?  Then I realized that we were all wearing nametags.  Thanks for the vote of confidence, random afternoon drinkers!


Later that night Patrick and I were loafing around the hotel room flipping through the channels when Billy Madison came on.  Patrick told me if he passed me at any point during the race he planned on yelling "O'Doyle Rules!"  Hmmmm... challenge accepted.


The Race

Our hotel room was only a mile from the race site, so we were able to ride our bikes down to the transition area.  As soon as we arrived we heard the news -- the water temperature had been measured at 74 degrees, so the swim would be wetsuit legal.  This was a shocker since we were told in the pre-race briefing on Friday that the water was 86 degrees.  Apparently the ocean current and a change in wind direction can swing the water temp 12 degrees overnight.  Wild.

Patrick and I actually debated the night before whether or not we should bring our wetsuits down to the race site or just leave them in the room.  We eventually decided on bringing them along on the grounds that we had already hauled them the first 1500 miles, so we may as well haul them the last 1.  It turned out to be the correct choice.

The swim course was a simple point to point layout along the coast.  Start on the beach, swim ~150m out, turn and parallel the shore for ~1200m, then turn back in.  That 1200m stretch looked loooong during the walk down to the start.  Once there I wrangled myself into my wetsuit and spent most of my warmup time figuring out the fastest way to navigate through the shore break out into the relatively smooth waters of the Gulf.

Soon enough we were lined up at the start and sent off.  My practice entrances must have paid off, because I got out into the open water in the lead and I think was 2nd or 3rd around the 1st turn buoy.  However, it wasn't too long before I found myself in my traditional spot -- by myself in no man's land behind the main chase pack.  Since I was on my own, nothing real interesting happened during the rest of the swim.  As I was running up the beach I took a glance at my watch and saw 20:xx, which was a giant confidence boost as I really haven't been swimming all that well lately.  I've put in a ton of pool time since laying a 23 minute turd in the waters of Lake Champlain at AG Nationals a few weeks ago, so it's great to see that it apparently paid off.

T1 was the closest thing to a mistake I had in this race.  My wetsuit got stuck on my timing chip and it took several tries to finally get it off.  I thought I wasted a good 10 seconds at my rack because of that, but looking at the results my T1 time is right in line with everybody else's, so it couldn't have been as bad as it felt at the time.

Once out on the bike I could see the leaders stretched out in front of me and set out to reel them in.  I caught up to Alex Solomon and Ross Hartley relatively quickly, somewhere around mile 4 or so.  I passed James Haycraft at about mile 7 on the course's only "hill", which is actually a bridge over a canal.  At the first turnaround I was in 3rd, about 20 seconds back of Ben Lee, who was maybe 10 seconds or behind Colin Riley.  I saw that I had about a minute on Patrick, which was encouraging, but I'd need at least another minute heading into the run if I was going to avoid the "O'Doyle Rules!" treatment.

We had a decent head/cross wind on the way out to the first turnaround and it looked like I was closing in on Ben and Colin, but once we were sailing back on the tailwind it looked like I was no longer gaining on them and possibly even falling back a bit.  At about mile 15 the course turns off of the beach road and heads inland for a quick 3-mile out and back.  Right after making the turn onto that spur, Ben caught Colin and they both appeared to pick up their pace a little bit as they battled back and forth.  Because of that the gap between me and them started to grow noticeably.  At the second turnaround I was 30 seconds back of the two leaders, and with only 5 or so miles of riding left I had to accept the fact that I wasn't catching them on the bike.  The good news was that it looked like I had my 2 minutes on Patrick.  It was at this point that I first allowed myself to think that maybe O'Doyle didn't rule on this particular day after all.

T2 went without incident and it was out onto the run course.  Ben and Colin were running shoulder to shoulder about 30 seconds in front of me.  I set out at what I determined to be an optimistic but not suicidal pace and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was steadily closing the gap.  I caught them at about mile 2 and surged a little to try to make the pass stick.  I could hear the footsteps of one of them trying to go with me, but those gradually faded and I made it to the turnaround with a 15 or so second advantage.

After the turn I saw that Patrick had worked his way up to 4th and was clearly running faster than anyone else in the field, myself included.  I was keeping a pretty close eye on my watch as we approached and I figured that I had almost exactly one minute on him.  It was going to be extremely close, but holding him off was not out of the question.  This was the first time during the race that I seriously entertained the thought that I might win the thing.  Realizing that I was leading the race and that there was a reasonable chance I could actually hold that lead was a serious shot in the arm and really helped me hold my pace right at the time when things traditionally start to really suck.

I didn't allow myself to look back until the final turn off of the road into the finish chute, about 200m or so from the finish line.  Patrick was right there no more than 100m back and he was gaining fast, so I kicked it in as hard as I could manage.  I took one last look back right before the line, saw that I was indeed going to win and broke the tape with a 12 second advantage.

I'm not normally one for finish line celebrations, but its also not every day I win a race against this level of competition, so I grabbed the finish line banner and hoisted that thing as far above my head as I could reach.

FFFFFFYEAH!

So what do you do with the rest of your day in Gulf Shores after the race is over?  You go watch some damn dolphins jump around, that's what.

Trudy had chartered a boat to take all of the BOUS racers and their families on a dolphin watching cruise.  How cool is that?  The dolphins didn't disappoint either, they seemed to know the routine and swam right up to the boat, surfing on the wake and jumping out of the water.  They looked like they were enjoying themselves even more than we were.

To say I'm happy with how this race turned out would be a massive understatement.  Not only for the obvious reason that I won, but also that I finally managed to bring my best stuff on the swim, bike and run all on the same day.  I really don't feel like I had done that yet this season.  Ultimately finish placing has just as much to do with who shows up as it does with anything I have direct control over.  The races I'm really proud of are the ones where I raced smart, raced hard and finished feeling like I left it all out on the course.  That I couldn't have possibly squeezed another second out of myself given my fitness on that day.  I can say with certainty that the 2011 Best of the U.S. Championship was one of those races for me.

And beyond that the BOUS organization is simply top notch.  For anyone that qualifies for this race in the future and is on the fence as to whether or not to go, give it a shot, you won't be disappointed!

Tristar 111

Damn... I'm seriously tardy on this business.  That's what being a working stiff with a baby at home will do to a guy I guess.  I've actually raced 3 times since my last update:  Turtleman Duathlon, USAT AG Nationals and the brand new Tristar Minnesota race.  I'm gonna start with the Tristar, since that was only a couple days ago and is still relatively fresh in my mind.

The Pre-Race Jams


So how's the new In Flames album Sounds of a Playground Fading?  Silly question dumbass... it rules.  Just like every In Flames album.

In Flames we trust.  Still.

The Race

So for anyone not familiar with the Tristar series, the race consists of a 1K swim, 100K bike and 10K run.  In non-metric terms -- a swim that's little more than a warm-up, serious business on the bike, then a run that's long enough to matter but not so long that it kicks the crap out of you for several days afterward.  In other words, a race that's pretty much tailor made for my strengths.  Sweet.

Waking up and getting ready to leave the house on race morning was weird.  We were required to check in our bikes as well as all of the gear we'd need during T1 and T2 the night before, so my carefully rehearsed packing routine was shot to hell.  I ended up leaving the house with nothing but a plastic bag containing my wetsuit, swim cap, goggles and timing chip.  The entire way there I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something important, but once I got to the race site and looked inside my various transition bags I realized it was all there and relaxed a little.

A couple minutes after I arrived I heard the announcement that the water temp was 77F, meaning that the age groupers could wear wetsuits but the pros could not.  On one hand I was glad because I swim like a turd, but on the other hand, it's not every day that I get to do a race with a legit pro field, and it would be kind of cool to see where I stack up against those guys head to head on a level playing field.  I mean, I know I'm going to get my shit handed to me by guys like Macca and Maik Twelsiek, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be DFL against the entire pro start list either.  At any rate I'd sure as hell make anyone who was going to beat me work for it.  Oh well, whether or not I could've beat some of the pros will have to remain unresolved, because I'm not allowed in their wave and I'm sure as hell not spotting the minute or so I'd lose by going suitless to guys like Alex Hooke and Josh Riff, so on with the suit and into the lineup for the 2nd wave it was.

Because the field was so small, the swim start was probably the least violent of any non-time trial start swim I've ever done.  I jumped on Alex's feet for the first minute or so and was totally busting ass to stay there when I had a rare moment of clarity.  I could either continue busting my ass to try and hold his draft, probably lose him somewhere along the line anyway, then come out of the water totally shelled with 3+ hours of racing still ahead.  Or I could let him go, swim on my own at about 80% effort or so, lose maybe 60-90 seconds, but hit the bike course fresh.  I chose the latter and hit the beach a touch over 15 minutes, which was slower than I was hoping for, but feeling good and ready to hammer it out on the long bike.

T1 was just comically bad.  First I had trouble locating my bag on the rack, then I spent 15-20 seconds standing there scratching my ass looking for my bike.  I'm so accustomed to picking out my bright yellow transition mat when running down the bike rack that I was utterly lost without it.  Instead I'm standing there looking up and down the rack thinking it's the black one with the black wheels, why is it so hard to find!?!  News flash genius... they're pretty much all black with black wheels.  Eventually a volunteer pointed me in the right direction, I found my bike and I was off.

After making the turn out of the park and getting strapped in I saw Alex a good bit up the road ahead of me.  I was hoping I could ride fast enough to catch him by the end of the first loop.  I was also hoping that doing so would keep Josh behind me (I knew I got out of the water in front of him but I had no idea by how much).

By mile 5 or so I had almost caught up to Alex, which was surprising.  I was expecting a much longer chase.  I heard after the race that one of his brakes was rubbing for most of the first loop.  Bummer.

I was surprised as hell when right about the time I caught Alex I looked over to my left and saw Josh pulling around for the pass.  I thought I had way more time on him coming out of the water.  And no sooner had he completed the pass then I hear another bike approaching, look over and see Sean Cooley going by.  Damn.  I was not expecting that much company on the bike.

Of course, I'm not going to take getting passed by two guys lying down, so after dropping back and collecting myself I kicked it up a notch and went for the re-pass.  I rode pretty hard for a couple minutes hoping to put some sort of gap on them, but the second I let off the gas they went right on by again.  It wasn't just Josh leading the charge either.  Sean was riding aggressively as hell and looked perfectly comfortable mixing it up with me and Josh.  It seems like Sean's getting stronger every race and it won't surprise me a bit if he's a serious contender in the big local races next season.

That was basically the pattern for the next 20 miles or so.  I'd get to the front, ride unsustainably hard for a while, then the second I settled back into a more distance-appropriate pace I'd find myself sitting third-wheel again.  The whole time this was going on I was thinking about the Chisago half last year, when Josh and I came into T2 together and he proceeded to absolutely murder me on the run.  Granted, this was going to be a 10K run instead of a half marathon, so I think that tilts it a little toward my favor, but I still figured I needed to come into T2 with a minute-plus lead, so I was going to keep the hammer down until somebody broke.

At one point Josh rode up along side me and said something along the lines of, "You remember what race we're in, right?"  I'm sure I grunted something unintelligible as a reply, but I was thinking: yes, I'm doing the I-don't-want-to-end-up-in-a-foot-race-with-you-so-I'm-going-to-ride-away-from-you-or-die-trying distance.

Somewhere around mile 25 or so the elastic finally snapped and I pulled away.  It was a blast battling it out with those guys, but it was nerve-wracking at the same time.  All in all I was glad to be off on my own.

The rest of the bike was pretty boring.  The only other Tristar racers I saw for the remainder of the ride were Macca, who was soft-pedaling back toward transition after dropping out for some sort of mechanical issue, and pro Chris Boudreaux, who I passed while he was on the side of the road apparently serving a drafting standdown somewhere around mile 55.  My legs were feeling pretty ragged by now from all the action on the first loop and my pace was slowing considerably.  Luckily the ride was coming to an end and there was only a 10k run between me and the finish line.

T2 went considerably better than T1 and I got out onto the run course without incident.  The first thing I noticed on the run was that my legs were absolutely gone.  It felt like my heart rate was under control and I was barely breathing hard, but my legs were just screaming for mercy.  I suppose that makes sense given that I'd just completed the longest bike race of my life.  The only thing I could do now was set off at the fastest pace I could manage and hope for the best.  I was shocked after the race when I saw my run split was 37:33.  I would've bet my bankroll during the run that I was on my way to a 40+ split.  It's always good to be pleasantly surprised by a split like that.  Usually it works the other way around.

When I hit the line I was announced as the first amateur finisher, but it turned out there was another racer who actually crossed the line in front of me, 42 year old Jeff Fleig from LaCrosse.  It turns out he made a wrong turn somewhere out on the bike course and accidentally cut some of the distance.  He reported himself to the officials and ended up taking a DQ.  A tip of the cap to Mr. Fleig for being a stand up guy.   Honesty is refreshing in this day and age.

I capped off the day by recording this interview with Nick from TriJuice (a very cool website BTW) in which I twitch around like a nervous crackhead and accidentally refer to Sean Cooley as his brother Jake.  Sorry guys.  I'm normally not that big of a spaz.  I think.  Hopefully.

Next up is a long weekend of rest and relaxation followed by the Best of the US Championship on September 10th.

Waseca Tri

I've wanted to race the Waseca 1/3-Iron since it's inception, but have never been able to work it into my schedule.  June and July are usually so race-heavy that I need a bit of a mid-season break just for self-preservation.  That break typically falls right around the last week of July/first week of August.  This year, however, my mid-season hiatus was pushed back to early July due to the birth of my son, so instead of being all worn out and dead feeling, I've been chomping at the bit waiting to get out and race.  So late last week I decided I'd finally make the trek down to Waseca and try my hand at the somewhat bizarre 1/3-Iron distance

The Pre-Race Jams

A 7:30AM race start, ~90 minute drive, and the desire to get there a bit earlier than usual because I hadn't pre-registered adds up to a pretty damn early wake up call.  For some reason I had even more trouble waking up on Sunday than usual.  I was stumbling around my house like I was drunk and it seemed like loading the car took twice as long as usual.

I knew I would need some weapons-grade noise to jar myself awake, so I cranked up Speaker of the Dead by Emmure.  This is excessively downtuned, brutally heavy deathcore with all the subtlety and finesse of a sledgehammer to the side of the head.  Just what the doctor ordered.

The Race

Looking at the participant list in the days leading up to the race, I was confident I'd be toeing the line as the prohibitive favorite to win.  However, since this race allows morning-of registration, you really don't know who will be showing up.  This point was driven home on race morning when I saw Kevin O'Connor standing on the starting line.  Sometimes you show up for a workout and a race breaks out.  Game on.

The race started out with a 1 mile wetsuit-legal swim in Clear Lake. Degree of difficulty: Clear Lake is not clear (the visibility is actually down in the 6-7" range) and the water felt way too warm to be wetsuit legal. I'm not sure if an official water temp measurement was taken, and if it was I never heard it, but it felt every bit as warm as the Mississippi did last week at Twin Cities, and the water temp there was 82º.

The swim start was surprisingly rough given the relatively small size of the field.  I lined up next to Kevin hoping to stay on his feet the whole way, but I lost him in the scrum during the first 100m.  I took a couple good kicks to the jaw, swam over a couple guys, and had a few guys swim over me within the first couple minutes.  Good times.  

When things finally sorted out, there was one guy off the front maybe 10 seconds or so, with me and two others (based on the results, I'm guessing John Shelp and one of the relay swimmers) chasing.  I decided to do the smart thing and settled into the draft behind the other two guys.  I stayed there for another 400m or so, but I kept swimming up the other guys' backs, and the guy out front kept pulling away, so I bid my little pack farewell and struck out on my own for the rest of the swim.  I suspected it was Kevin out front who I was chasing, but I couldn't be sure.  I don't think I gained much ground on him once I started swimming solo, but at least I didn't lose any more, so I think I made the right choice.

Heading up the beach into T2 was rough.  I was cooking in my wetsuit, my legs were wobbly and I felt a little dizzy.  I've never been so glad to finish a swim before in my life.  I saw that it was indeed Kevin who I was chasing as he was running out of transition with his bike when I arrived at my rack, so I tried to hustle through transition as fast as possible to keep him in sight.

The first couple miles of the bike were rough.  I was still in a daze from overheating on the swim and my legs felt terrible.  I took it pretty easy for the first few minutes and tried to rehydrate.  After downing about 20oz of fluids I started to come around and could start riding for real.  I quickly picked off a relay biker that had passed me within the first couple miles and caught up to Kevin around mile 4 or so.

I wasn't quite sure going in what the correct pacing strategy should be for this distance.  Is it more like a long Olympic or a short half-iron?  I chose to split the difference and pretend I was racing an Olympic during the bike and a half during the run.  This worked out pretty well as I built up a decent lead heading into T2 and the hot and humid conditions ensured that the run would be a death march regardless of how I paced the bike.

I also had the bright idea of lowering my front end by removing a spacer from underneath the stem as I was giving my bike the traditional pre-race tuneup on Saturday evening.  I hadn't changed a single thing about my bike setup since May 2010, I had no real reason to change anything since I had my best ride of the season at Twin Cities last weekend, and the collective wisdom of the triathlon universe says changing your bike position 12 hours before a race is a terrible idea.  Still, you never really know whether or not something will work until you try, so down the bars went.  The verdict... who knows?  I honestly couldn't even tell the difference.  For some guys, moving something on the bike a few millimeters one way or the other makes all the difference in the world.  I am apparently not one of those guys.

T2 was a little slow since I decided to put socks on for the run, but I made it through without incident and got out onto the run course.  I hit the first mile marker in 5:40 still feeling pretty decent, but the heat and humidity caught up with me in short order as my splits kept creeping upward every subsequent mile.  By the time I got onto the second loop I was hanging on for dear life at around 6:20 pace.  Thankfully I was able to hold that for the remainder of the race.  I had no idea how far back Kevin was, so I was actually running a little scared.

With around 2 miles left to go race director Mark Bongers rode up next to me on a mountain bike and told me I was about 5 minutes up.  After hearing that news I was ready to shut it down and jog the rest of the way, but then I took a look at my watch, crunched a few numbers and realized that if I could just hold pace I'd get in under the course record, so I pushed hard the rest of the way and hit the finish line at 2:37:29, lowering the course record by 56 seconds.

Thanks to Final Stretch for putting on a great race, all of the volunteers for helping us out, and to the people of Waseca for allowing a bunch of Lycra-clad goons to take over your park for a day!

Waseca Triathlon Results

Twin Cities Triathlon

+1

So it turns out I haven't updated this thing in a while.  I think I've got a reasonably decent excuse. This little dude...

Hello world!

was born on July 8th. His name is Michael Bradford Payne. He's been pretty cool thus far. His main interests are eating, sleeping and pooping, with the occasional bout of screaming whenever circumstances compel him to deviate from his preferred routine of eating, sleeping and pooping.

Since things at home are relatively under control I signed myself up for the Twin Cities Triathlon late last week. I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into this one.  My training volume has been down a bit, but what I have been doing has felt relatively strong, and I hadn't raced in 4 weeks, so if nothing else I was going in well rested. My only real goal was to put in a good effort, knock the cobwebs loose and get my mind right to put in some solid training over the next few weeks for AG Nationals and Best of the US.

The Pre-Race Jams


I'm really digging the latest Deftones record Diamond Eyes.  Well, most of it anyway.  Like the last few Deftones albums, ~70% of it is brilliant and the rest puts me to sleep.  But hey, that's what the fast forward button is for.

70% of the time, it works all the time.

The Race


This race has a 1.2mi point-to-point downstream swim in the Mississippi river.  Thanks to all the rain we've been getting lately, the current was ripping along at about 5 knots, and thanks to the heat wave the water was bathtub warm, so no wetsuits.

Since the "beach" we started at was all of about 5 feet wide, we were sent off one-by-one in a time trial format.  I lined up 3rd behind Devon Palmer and stomped my way in.  Then the epic shitshow that was my swim started.

I managed to make it all of about 10m before I felt my timing chip coming loose on my ankle, so I turned over on my back, found the chip (luckily they float) and attempted to re-fasten it. It turns out fastening a velcro strap around your ankle while trying to stay afloat in water that allows for zero visibility is really hard.  It doesn't get easier with practice either, as I found out when my chip came off two more times. My general attitude as this was happening is best summarized below with some totally pro MS-Paint work:

After the chip came off the 3rd time I finally got smart enough to just stuff the thing down the top of my suit. By that time the damage had been done. I was sitting in like 20-somethingth place, and given that I had a head start on all but two of those guys I was really losing ground.

With the chip situation squared away and my head back in the game I managed to swim through most of the pack that passed me during the chip drama. Since there was literally zero visibility there was a ton of contact. Sorry to anyone I may have swam over the top of. I generally try to not do that.

The swim exit looked like a TCMC group workout as I came out right behind Patrick Parish and Brendon O'Flanagan and right in front of Steve Sander.  In "real" time however I was behind all of those guys due to the order of the time trial start.  I wowed (read: confused the hell out of) the assembled spectators with a sweet ninja move where I pulled the chip out of my suit and bent down to swipe it over the mat without breaking stride and sprinted into transition.

T1 was slower than it should've been since I had to strap my chip back on, but it was only a couple extra seconds and I made it out right on the heels of Patrick and Brendon.

Right about the time I finished strapping into my shoes I arrived at the base of the infamous Ohio Street climb. I've done this climb quite a few times over the last couple years, but never on my tri bike, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  It ended up not being too big a deal and I got up pretty comfortably in the saddle with a couple gears to spare.  I passed about a half dozen people on the way up and closed a bit of the gap to Patrick.

Once it flattened out on top I caught up to David Holden and Nick Madrinich, both of whom are extremely fast swimmers.  That was a huge confidence boost.  If I'm catching the super-swimmers at mile 2 than I clearly didn't lose as much time in the water as I feared.  Gotta love that river current.

Once I got out onto Hwy. 13 there was only Patrick and a lead motorcycle in front of me.  This struck me as odd because I expected Devon to be out front (it turns out he was, just so far that I couldn't see him).  After a steep, but thankfully short, climb back out of the river valley on Lexington I caught up to Patrick and went for the pass.  I've raced Patrick a ton over the last few seasons and I knew that if I was going to make that pass stick I would have to ride extremely hard, so I shifted about 2 gears taller than I would normally ride and just mashed the pedals for the next several miles.

A few corners later I took a quick look behind me and didn't see Patrick (or anyone else), and the lead moto was the only thing in front of me.  At this point I thought I was leading the race since I've never heard of a lead moto for 2nd.  I kept pushing hard hoping to build up a good lead over Patrick since I knew he would put significant time into me on the run.  After a scary descent back into the river valley through narrow residential streets I arrived back at transition. Once I got to my rack in T2 I noticed Devon's bike was already there, so I guess I was in 2nd after all.

Running out of T2, the first thing I noticed was that my legs felt really, really heavy. Way worse than they have at the start of the run in any other race I've done this season. I suppose that makes sense given the overly enthusiastic bike pace. It also probably didn't help that the first mile of the run is all uphill. Pre-race all anyone wanted to talk about were the hills on the bike course. Those were nothing compared to the hills on the run course. On the bike you always have the option of coasting a downhill. There's no such thing on the run, where descending is every bit as punishing as ascending.

Once I made it up and over the bridge and back down to Shepard Rd. I finally caught sight of Devon, who looked to have a 2+ minute lead. I was gradually closing in on him and had the gap down to 90 seconds or so when Patrick came flying past me at about mile 2.5. I kept plugging away at my own pace and was sitting in 3rd about 1 minute back from Devon at the turnaround. I also had Illinois-based pro Ryan Guiliano about 90 seconds behind me, and he looked like he was closing fast.

By the time we got back up to the downtown side of the bridge, Devon still had maybe 20 seconds on me.  There's only about 3/4 of a mile left at this point, so I knew it would be tough, but I was still determined to try and catch him. I lengthened my stride on the downhill and pushed as hard as I could, closing the gap to ~10 seconds (my shins are still hating me for this as I write it ~36 hours later). Unfortunately for me, Devon knew I was coming and found a little extra in the last few hundred meters, so the 10 second gap held to the line. Since he started ahead of me the official gap in the results was 8 seconds.

I was awarded my 2nd ever oversized novelty check for my efforts! This was a nice surprise as I was unaware that there were cash prizes when I signed up. Completely unexpected money may be the best kind of money.

I have no idea who or what I was looking at when this was taken.

OHP puts on a hell of a race. The venue was amazing. The bike and run courses are difficult, but not ridiculously so. And swimming in the river is no big deal. In fact, just judging by the fact that I don't feel sick as hell today, I'll take the river over any of the metro area lakes. So if you find yourself on the fence for this on when planning your schedule for next summer, do it!

Twin Cities Triathlon Results