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 Swim
Comments: I swam pretty well, but got off course a couple of times due to lack of sighting. I found a set of feet for about 400 meters and just let them guide me for a while (sighting every so often to make sure my 'guide' was on course). After rounding the bouy, I swam solo to the finish. I felt good and the swim passed pretty quickly. What would you do differently?: Not a lot, except sighting a little morre often at the beginning.  Transition 1
Comments: I brought more stuff than I ended up needing, but I was concerend about the cold. I ended up only needing my arm warmers and socks. I also put my riding shoes on instead of pre-cliping in. The start of the bike goes down hill quickly on a bumpy road and I didn't want to mess around with my shoes at 30 mph. What would you do differently?: I took a little longer to get changed than I would like, but this was my first time using a changing tent and I had brought more stuff than necessary. Maybe bring less stuff, but if it had stayed cold, I would have missed that gear.  Bike
Comments: I got going pretty quick and passed 3 in the first 2 miles. Our race referee had told us to 'pass with authority', so that's what I did, leaving me in the low 30's as I made my left turn onto the Cascade Lakes Highway. No big deal except the traffic controll folks were walking around in the middle of the road. I had to do a little bit of high speed manuevering to not make myself one with a hand held stop sign. Got going pretty well and noticed that my HR was a little higher than I wanted, so I tried to ease up just a little to get it into that sustainable zone. Was all by myself for about 10 miles and started wondering if I had made a mistake somehow on the course. As we started to get into the rollers before the fisrt climb, I saw a couple pointy helmets up the road and felt better. I just worked on closing slowly to them and checking my time against landmarks along the road. When I got to the Elk Lake Lodge, I was about 1:30 faster than my 'doing good' time was, so I was worried I might be putting too much into the bike, so I jst continued to monitor the HR and keep within myself. The climb from Elk Lake to Devil's Lake was a little harder than I thought it would be, but I was still ahead of my goal pace when I hit the bottom of the Sparks Lake climb. This is the one I was worried about. My bike is a 10s with 53/39 on the front and 11-26 on the back. I was thinking that a 28 or 30 would have been awfully nice, but I just went for it and it actually turned out to be an easier climb than I anticipated. I let out a whoop as I got over the hardest part and got some applause from a few folks who had parked out there. I eneded-up getting to the top of the climb about 3 minutes ahead of the pace goal I set. There was a little bit of headwind comming over the top, but I just tucked in and got as aero as I could and started the descent into Bend. Did really well on this, and ended up just catching one of my club members in the last 5 miles of the bike (he would shortly show me how it's done on the run though). I felt really good, getting up to 40+ several times and staying in the 30's for much of the descent. My goal was a 2:30 for the bike, so the 2:22 I got wass a great result for me. It was weird, as I had the 2nd fastest bike split, to see T2 empty. Took me a few minutes to get straightened out... I almost ran out without my bib! What would you do differently?: Be careful not to over cook early, I think my bike impacted my run (at least a bit). I do love riding my bike fast, though, so I don't have any deep-seated regrets. Transition 2
Comments: I got on top of my shoes and was able to hop off and jog the bike well. I fumbled everything after that, I guess. With the racks so empty, it took me a while to find my spot and my bag. Once everything was found, I almost ran accros the timing mat without my bib. Jeez! Ran back, got it, and then was off. What would you do differently?: Normally, at smaller races, I have everything laid out and can have a 1 minute T2. I need to think about this before I do another clean transiton race.  Run
Comments: Ugh... I wish I could get this one back! Started at a 7:40 ish split, which is too high for me. Heart rate was at 168... I was out of control. I worked to slow down and started to bring my HR back under control, but never got back to the place I trained at (Mid 140's at a 9:40 or so pace). I ran alone for the first two miles and felt pretty good about my performance. What I should have done is take in some nutrition at about mile 2... I was getting dizzy later and completely out of energy. It felt like a death shuffle from miles 4 and on. I ended up walking about two hundred yards after the mile 5 marker up the last long climb. Had a flat Coke at the next aid station and felt the benefit a few minutes later.... sugar! When I saw the mile 6 marker I knew I had it and gradually got more motivated as I approached the finish. My 9 y/o daughter ran out and joined me for the last block of running (allowed by Leadman, thank you) and we crossed the line together. The annoucer was great calling out my name as we came through. I was slightly overwhelmed as this is the longest race I've done and I finished inside of my goal of 4:15. What would you do differently?: Eat, and maybe save a litle on the bike. Look at HR at the begining of the run and be careful to not start digging a hole at the begining of the race. Post race
Warm down: Warm down was about 45 minute of feeling like death... oh. I drank some ice water and a coke. Ate a few pretzels. I found out that I had finsihed 5th over all, so, as part of the top 15, I got a Big Belt Buckle! Gonna have to wear it to work! I also wanted to mention that I felt really grateful to have my wife Jen and daughter Mackenzie there at the finish line. They did a great job a sitting with me and getting me stuff to drink and just letting me recover. It made it pretty special to have my kiddo run through the line with me! She completed her first kids tri earlier and now is asking me if she can do the Leadman when she's 16. :) The finish area was nice with chairs and tables set-up. We went to the finishing chute to cheer on some finishers as they came through. What limited your ability to perform faster: Nutrition on the run and likely run volume. While I have done more running this year than any other, it is an important area for me to improve on. I need to eat on the run, as well. I probably would have been faster if I had slowed down, had a banana and continued on at a steady pace. Instead I had the positive split comming in. Event comments: Nicely organized, the race definately had a fell that it was 'all about the racer'. It was nice to have things go on time and for the volunteers to be doing a good job at the road crossings. Finishers medals are impressive and the swag bag was pretty good. The Belt Buckle is sweet, too! Profile Album Last updated: 2014-06-19 12:00 AM
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United States
Lifetime Fitness
75F / 24C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 5/26
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 0/
I'm lucky enough to live in Bend, so I just took Friday off to go stage my bike and set up T1. The weather was forecast to be low 80's and clear, but I have been pretty cold on some of my morning workouts lately, so I preparred long sleeve, long leg bike wear to put on out of T1. Turned out the air was warming up quite niceIy and I just ended up wearing arm warmers and my one piece trisuit.
Anyway, setting up Friday, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to get in a swim... little did I know that my zipper on my wetsuit was broken! At this stage in the game there were few choices... either fix it and have it for tomorrow or go without. I'll say that the wesuit gives me a ton of confidence in the open water swim, so I drove home and came up with a way to get the zipper restarted and I used some bailing wire and twisted it tight to create a clamp to hold the bottom of the zipper from un-plealing. Thankfully the fix worked and I had a wetsuit to swim in again.
The pre-race meeting was done very well, with the head referee (Jurgen) letting evryone know that he did not want to issue penalties and went throught the race rules with some common sense examples. This would help shape someof my decision making on the bike course and help me pace a little better. I loved the organization and the set-up. Keith, the RD, had his stuff together.
I had a little trouble getting to sleep early, so took a Melatonin at 10 pm to prevent the anxiety wake-ups that I some times get. Got up at 4 am to make my cup of coffee and a bowl of oat meal. All my clothes were pretty well organized and I got out the door at about 4:45. The T2 area was only a few minutes of driving, so I got there, got set-up and waited for the bus. While this was my first time doing this race, I had heard stories in the past of bus drivers not knowing where to go... guess what, the stories are true. The bus drivers were unsure of where to go. The gang on the bus (every seat was full) was pretty easy going, and we all helped our driver navigate to the lake. It's about an hour drive in a bus, but few people took any naps, every one was chatting away.
We got the lake about 20 minutes before sunrise... it was beautiful, the fog was lifting off the far end of the course and the lake was flat. Cultus Lake is as clear as a swimming pool and the temp was 63 degrees. Gorgeous. We watched the Epic 250 start and the Epic 125 start before it was our turn.
The start to the race is technically a floating start and you need to swim about 250 yards to get to the start line. Once there the water is only waist deep, so you can stand and wait for the start. Some people just walked out, but I swam to get the muscles warmed up and ready. Oh, the swim was also changed from a 1000M to a 1250M by the folks who set up the buoys. They let us know that at the starting line, lol.