A Trio of Triathlon Race Reports

An update on the racing season winding down. Callaway Gardens Triathlon was Labor Day weekend in Pine Mountain, Georgia. It was a good training day for the SECTC races because it was longer than the sprints I’d been doing. The course was contained in the park, 1000 yard swim, 30k bike, 8k run. It was a wave start so I was pretty excited, my first “real” wave start (I don’t really count the Sports Festival Tri, wave of nine). It was all the males under 40 in the first wave, so most of the big overall competitors would be in with me. The race started a couple minutes late, but the horn went off and away the 40 or so of us went into Robin Lake. It started next to the fountain and went around by the ski pavilion and then turned back toward the swim beach. I was a little worried at first because I got separated from the front pack at the first turn and felt like I was getting passed from all over. Turns out there really wasn’t a true “lead pack,” everybody got really split up after the first turn. My course navigation really started to come together this race, I didn’t have any trouble going straight at the buoys, but I still looked around way too much, didn’t trust myself! I heard the course had been marked short in years past and I think it may have been this year too. It was a no wetsuit swim and they timing mats didn’t work right, so it counted T1 in with the swim time, and even with that I was out in 14:50. I was 7th out of the water, ended up 11th fastest on the day. Transitions also started slimming down a good bit too beginning with this race, I really wish they would have gotten the splits on those. There wasn’t a chance for me to pre-ride the course the day before, so all there was to go on was somewhat conflicting hearsay: some previous racers called it flat and fast, the race map labeled it extremely technical (seven 90-degree turns). It turned out to be the most technical bike course I’ve raced so far, with those seven turns times two laps, plus two tricky short descents on roads just wet enough to be a danger. It wasn’t a great bike for me, I didn’t really get into a rhythm until a lap in, and by then 9 guys had passed me. There was no rule enforcement on the course whatsoever, not a single marshal, and I think there was a good bit of drafting going on. I passed one guy in front of me after he crashed on the slick downhill and the paramedics were examining him, looked like a broken collarbone from the way he was holding it and the tests they were doing. The run was 8k (5miles) my longest in a race. I started out great and faded some toward the end. I like out and back courses better than loops like this one was. It’s easier to gauge your pace when you know exactly how far you have to go. Finish time was 1:47:19, good enough for 26th place overall out of 231, so a pretty encouraging day going into my A races.
After my first criterium the next Saturday (a fun experience, but definitely not a style of racing I’m naturally suited for), the day of the A-race had arrived. The Music City Triathlon was the one I had circled on my calendar 16 weeks before it happened, so I was really counting on a good race. It was my first full Olympic distance (as opposed to two previous, shorter races still classified as “international distance”), and also my first race without a support crew. It started out well enough, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the hotel was, considering how cheap it was. The problem was when I tried to find the SECTC athlete’s pasta dinner at Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is a LOT bigger than Samford, and with nothing but a building number, I was 45 minutes late as a result of getting lost. After dinner it was a lonely night of college football, but it helped me get to bed early. Sunday morning I got up earlier than for most races because of the 7:30 start and awoke to chilly 55° air. There was a Waffle House right around the corner from the hotel for my usual breakfast: a waffle, country ham, powerbar, and Gatorade. They confirmed the swim would be with wetsuits, so about 20 minutes before race time I suited up into my DeSoto T1 First Wave (the nicest wetsuit in the collegiate wave!). The swim was pretty normal, it started out pretty hard but people settled into a rhythm and I did a good job of swimming my own race. There was pressure to push harder, because it seemed like a lot of people were going by, but I guess I got to the front fast because there was very few collegiate bikes off the rack at T1, must have been relay teams (they were the second wave, we were first). Actually, looking at the results, the girls had a really fast swim pace, so that could’ve been it. I had pretty minimal trouble getting the wetsuit off and again had a great T1 and T2. Now that I’ve really focused on it, transitions have really paid off, now I’m usually top 5% overall. The bike was full of rolling hills, which I think I handled well, didn’t really gain much ground on the top guys, but didn’t give up much either and felt pretty good going into the run. It wasn’t all that hilly, just two really big ones, both in the first half to really drain your energy. It was a really tough course. Only one guy passed me on the run, but it’s definitely the area I could improve most. I’m still just a middle of the pack runner, so I can’t chase down the stronger cyclists or swimmers and get into that top tier. Right now it’s like I’m just on the threshold, big gains in either/both cycling and/or running could easily make a top 5 athlete. I finished 10th in collegiate males, so I’ll take that, some solid SECTC points. Last weekend was a short notice sprint, the Weiss Lake Triathlon in Cedar Bluff, Alabama. I was expecting a small field, but over 100 racers turned up to the inaugural event, even a pro! I think most people were intimidated, but not me: I set up my transition area right next to his, full carbon frame and disc wheel and all. From the start you could tell the organizers were rookies: the map showed a run across a non-closed state highway from the swim to T1! We swam 450 yards or so from the boast ramp in a triangle. I started close to the back but quickly made my way to the front. Course navigation paid off again as I barely had to look up and came into T1 riding high and in 3rd place overall. I figured the bike course would be pretty flat, but it had a lot of rollers, somewhere in between Callaway and Music City. The bike was pretty much a replay of the AL Sports Festival, I had a great ride but still got passed by Eubanks, who is a stellar cyclist. If he could improve his swimming and adapt to a tri bike and not just use a roadie, he could be a force in the Southeast in my opinion. So I put time on everybody except the front three and came in with a real chance to run down Brandon. I saw the pro, Felipe Bastos about half a mile from the turnaround and was still feeling ok, so that was really encouraging to end up only finishing 10 minutes down from him. The run course was where the organizers really goofed. Runs should either be out and back or a loop, but this one was like a maze, with at least 25 turns. That’s ok as long as you have volunteers pointing the way, but a few intersections (usually the really obvious ones) had 4 or 5 volunteers and the rest had none, just some spraypainted arrows on the pavement. It was terrible. I made a wrong turn with about 400m left and came in the finish straight from the wrong direction, and I wasn’t the only one. There is absolutely no excuse for that. It was the same way on the bike course. Not only is it dumb to not have at least one volunteer at every turn/ intersection, it’s unsafe and unfair. Again no marshals to stop drafting. It didn’t affect me, but I met a really big pack of runners about 8 minutes behind me and it looked like an ITU race. I finished fourth overall, third amateur, so a great day start to finish. Coming up this weekend is the big one, Hickory Knob. It’s the SECTC Conference Championship, so double points are up for grabs and a collegiate wave of over 90 athletes! It’s gonna be great.

Thoughts on Lance Armstrong, Part I

Last week I started reading Lance Armstrong's first biography (birth to first TDF victory) It's Not About the Bike. A few chapters in, one big point that Lance made sure the reader understood, he races (and lives) with a killer instinct that can't be taught. Sure, he has all the physical tools, but so did every other elite cyclists he raced against. Talent has never been a direct translation to championships (just ask Macca about his history at Kona). At the toughest part of the race, Lance could work himself into such a fit of rage and power away from opponents on anger. "Rip their legs off" was the way he described his goal when he attacked. He rode with a chip on his shoulder and attacked like a brazened assassin with knife drawn.

The reason I mention this is because I know that attitude can’t be taught, but can it be learned, acquired on one’s own will? Because I think the most powerful weapon in any activity that requires being pushed to the limit is to wield absolute control over your ability. Some coaches simplify this to knowing your limits, but I think that ignores the great ones’ capacity to achieve a near second consciousness, recognizing those days when they have no limits and capitalizing these brushes with invincibility by pouring out every once of their fleeting divinity to punish their hapless, mortal rivals. Lance’s fuel came from every direction, anyone telling he and his mother they would never amount to anything, the poor kid with no Dad who sucked at football. Then it came from his pro competitors and the press. He was too brash, bullheaded and irreverent, basically too American to be a champion in this thoroughly European sport. And there was no way anyone could beat cancer and the world’s 200 best bike racers in the same lifetime.

In an applied sense, my question is this: has my lack of adversity set me up for mediocrity, never allowing me (read as forcing me) to access all my potential? My early life was the polar opposite of Armstrong’s. I grew up in a Cleaver-like seal of support. In high school I sort of tried the whole anger channeling thing with mixed results. It made me work harder, but not necessarily get better. And if things turned sour despite my best efforts, that anger quickly became self-destructive. It also becomes increasingly hard to control the on/off switch: the more you compete angry, the more you live angry, and that’s not my goal. I don’t want to hate the world, just ride like it. Also, I’m not 100% convinced that’s the only way to do it. There has to be some way to excel and still be a nice guy. There has to be.