5430 Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

The fastest in my AG went 11:02 (-2:14) ahead of me but he finished quite a bit back so he's probably a swim guy. 11:51 (-1:25) was the fastest of those in the top 10 and there were four in that group.

I think I could have hung with them if the wave would have been smaller and I could have seen them.

Average of the top ten was 1:12 and I went 1:21 so that is much better than the past. Fastest was 0:41. I wore socks which added 10 seconds or so. Ran in shoes which I think I'll just do from now on. I'm really fast at clipping in and I've had trouble getting my shoes tight enough practicing mounting the bike with my shoes clipped on.

Next race I'm going to really sprint hard from the mat to my bike to try and get T1 under average. I'm also going to use some lube around my ankles which I've never done.

I pushed this ride HARD. Got passed by a couple guys during the gradual climb but they never dropped me and I did the legal draft thing on them until we topped the climb. Then I dropped them badly on the fast parts pushing my 54-11. I was able to pedal at over 40 mph and I never coasted once on the course (except on turns all of which I rode very well). I knew I was killing the ride when I passed the 10 mile sign in 24:20 (24.7 mph) which is after most all the significant climbing. I knew 26 mph was possible and that helped me push even harder. I've been working the bike very hard lately and was thrilled that I was going to post a really great split.

The TTX felt perfect on this ride and I think I'm poised for a true breakout ride but it will have to be after Boulder Peak because that Old Stage climb with the speed limit on the descent really hurts the average MPH.

Unfortunately, at the end I crashed badly and ruined my split. The last time I looked at my computer I had 26.2 mph but I started it after I clipped in and that was before the dismount so I would have come in slower officially but still maybe close to 26.0 which was my goal. Only four guys went 26 or faster.

I can't really remember exactly what happened but I recall thinking I was going way too fast when I started to swing my right leg over the bike for the flying dismount. I think I may have accidently hit my front brakes because I instantly went over the handlebars and landed on my left shoulder first very hard. All I can really remember is hitting the ground hard then a really loud noise like I'd totaled my bike and lots of people around the finish saying "ooh" really loud. Then very quiet and screaming (me). Lots of guys were coming in passing me as I rolled around the ground for a while in agony. Eventually I sorta remembered it was a race so I stood up and it hurt so bad that I screamed a bad word (sorry kids). It was so perfectly quiet and I think the crash looked pretty gruesome and the people watching were a bit shocked. I still feel bad about my language (and I need to work on cleaning it up overall) but I tend to be very vocal when I get hurt.

After that bout of pain subsided a bit, I checked myself to make sure I didn't have anything very obviously serious, which I didn't. Eventually, I asked a volunteer about my bike which someone had picked up and was holding off to the side. Somebody handed it and both my shoes to me. Then I walked across the timing mat. Nice finish Steve!

The crowd (which was big) gave me a huge ovation (even after my bad language) which was very nice.

The time above is my official split which ended up being slower than any of my Colorado sprint splits so far. The route was a little long (17.28 miles with 728' of climbing). That's quite a bit of climbing for a tri course especially because most of it is in one long gradual climb in the first 5-6 miles.
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/map.asp?route...

At first I felt really stupid and sad but I eventually felt really thankful and lucky. I think my right shoulder hit the ground hard first, then my left knee, then my right hand. I think the bike actually fell on me as I rolled onto my back and then slid across the asphalt. Melinda didn't see the crash, but she heard it from a ways away and then she saw me all bloody trying to recover.

The final tally really isn't too bad :

* Left shoulder with severe road rash, swollen very badly and sore but no AC sep and my collarbone looks OK. Can't move it much but I think it's OK.
* Left knee with moderate road rash, swollen severely but it didn't twist so I think it's just a severe bruise on my patellar tendon area that's drained into my Baker's cyst in the back.
* Right thumb appears broken for sure but I've done it so many times my hand doc said I need surgery on both anyway so no big deal.
* Right ring looks severely sprained possibly fractured.
* Right wrist sprained probably not fractured but like last time I have so many old fractures they can't really tell which are new unless it's far more swollen and tender than it is now.
* Right quad a pretty bad bruise I think from the handlebars as I went over them.
* Less serious bruises and road rash on left elbow, two other fingers, a little on my chest and much of my back but it's not very deep.

I forgot to look at my helmet but I don't remember hitting my head. (Anxious to see it tomorrow when I get home).

ETA:
Helmet has not a scratch so my head never hit the pavement. The good news is that my bike is almost perfect. The bike flipped forward and landed on the handlebars. The left brake lever apex is sanded down about 1/4" so it slid quite a distance on the bars. Then it skidded on the seat which is pretty torn up. And then I think it just fell over because I can't find any other damage. The weird thing is that it was so loud. But I think the noise was probably just the ground hitting the pedal causing the chain to pop the cassette hard which resulted in that loud hollow sound that the Zipps wheels make.

So even though I've practiced it a lot, I will never do the flying dismount again. I'm going to stop my bike, unclip, and get off like the AGer that I am.

I was in bad shape. The guy across from me had thrown his wetsuit into the bike rack so my bike wouldn't rack and I was so hurt that bending over to move his suit was very hard.

Not crash.

There was just no way to post a good run. I was hurting bad, bleeding a lot, worried that I'd just destroyed my frame and front Zipp 1080. It was pretty horrible and for about the first mile I was just kinda moaning in pain. The support I got from the other guys passing me during the run was really amazing. After the first mile I seemed to loosen up a bit but when I tried to run hard for the last half mile, the pain just wouldn't let it happen.


I probably should have quit just to be sure my knee and shoulder were really OK.

I took a shower and then hit up the med tent for lots of post race road rash scrubbing, de-graveling, anti-bacterial, and bandages.
I talked my way into transition early, got my bike which amazingly appeared fine, and left for DIA. Melinda dumped me there and I made my plane with about 30 minutes to spare. Had a comfy seat up front and so I slept most all the way to Dallas.



I had a breakout race going until my crash. No idea how my run would have turned out after a hard bike effort but it certainly would have been faster than 23:00.


Good race but making everybody drive there on Saturday to pick up a packet is hypocritical if they really want to be green as they promote. They claim it's because of USAT rules but that's a blatant lie. All USAT requires is that IDs are checked and they could do that when passing out timing chips/bracelets. They want people at the expo twice to add value to their sponsors, plain and simple.

If they made packets available a few times at sponsor shops around Denver/Boulder before the race and then had a table at the race, they might not have the enormous line to get into transition on race morning since some of those people would be in line to get their packet and that would spread everyone out a bit. I think if Bolder Boulder with 55,000+ entrants can do race-day packets, the 5430 series can also. This issue is why I'm rating the race 4 instead of 5.