Escape to Blue Ridge Tri The Mountains Triathlon - Triathlon

Got moving quickly and surprisingly jumped of the front with one other guy. It seemed like he was going pretty good so I slid over to him and sat on his feet. I kept waiting for the normal bunch of fast guys in our wave to overtake us, but they never did - I took a peak back at the first turn buoy and we had actually opened up a little gap - very unfamiliar situation for me on the swim. Knowing that I was suppose to hit the bake much harder than I normally would I was happy just to continue to take it fairly easy with the hope of coming out of the water ready to go. I was feeling great though so with about 250 yards to go I started easing up the effort and just built it all the way in. Sighted well and thought this was a good swim.


I thought this swim would be about 10:30, so was a little surprised to see my time after the race. I should have gotten to the race earlier and warmed up well, and trusted my pacing instincts a little more - I knew I was taking it easier than I was able, but being off the front simply confused me somewhat.

Jennifer was standing right next tot he swim out, and she was shouting to me that I was second out of the water, confirming what I thought. I Hustled quickly to my rack, and then flubbed the rest of T1 kinda hysterically. Todd was standing next to the transition fence right at my rack and yelling all kinds of crazy things at me, and I honestly got kinda tickled. I got a little tangled up in my speed suit, and then stumbled around getting my feet in my shoes. I jammed my helmet on and took off running with my bike for the exit, only to realize that the rear adjustment buckle for my helmet was jammed up on top of my head inside the helmet. It was very uncomfortable and I actually thought for a second about stopping and getting it right, but then decided to punish myself for being such a klutz and instead just soldiered on.


Again, get to transition early enough and get everything set up correctly. I know the buckle thing is an issue with my helmet, and I usually lay it out so that doesn't happen. I also did zero pre-race transition walk through or visualization like I normally do.

After I got through the shit-show of T-1 I got settled down and got to work on what I came to do: burn all my matches on the bike. I rolled up the big hill out of the marina fairly hard, but there was a 16 year old kid that SPRINTED wide-open past me up to the top of the hill. I caught him free-wheeling down the first first little descent, already popped. Kids are funny!

This race was slotted in my schedule more as a test/training day and my primary instructions were to attack the hills harder than I normally would, so that is what I commenced to doing. With 1300 feet of climbing in just 18 miles, the course was as hilly as described, but nothing was too steep, and I just hammered away in the aerobars the whole way. I caught the guy that beat me out of the water within a half mile, and for the next couple hills I played cat-and-mouse with a couple of other guys, including one of my teammates Tony who had gone of in the wave ahead of mine. By the third mile I was clear and just focused on hitting my power targets on every ascent and worked hard to stay steady on the descents. The course was a straight out-and-back, and as I neared the turn-around the folks from the first waves started trickling by headed the opposite direction. With over 100 folks going off in front of me I was surprised that by that time there were less than 20 folks still up the road. That gave me a lot of incentive to push harder on the return trip and I was able to catch several more folks before there was nothing but clear road up ahead for probably the last three or four miles of the bike. On the second to last descent I gobbled down a gel.

Well, I rode the bike exactly lie I was supposed to, but I was still surprised that I had the legs that I did - they felt fairly fresh even though I had a relatively hard 20 hour week which included a couple of hard rides and no taper. So, if I wanted to race this a little better I would have tapered a bit and rode a little more evenly, but that was not the point today.

I slipped out of my shoes on the descent back to the marina, hopped of cleanly at the dismount line, and ran to my rack quickly. bike up, helmet off, shoes on, grab my visor, glasses, and race belt, and off quickly.

In the wrong direction.

The guy that came in right behind me was nice enough to shout that I was going the wrong direction. Aughhhhh! I spun around, thanked him, and took off in the opposite direction out of T2.


It was all good except for not knowing where the run exit was. Again, get there early. Walk through transition. visualize. It really is as simple as that. I am usually good at this part, but I kinda blew both transitions this time around.

Yeah, well, if I rode the bike portion of the race as prescribed, this wasn't suppose to go particularly very well, but in the back of my brain I was still hopeful. The run almost goes almost immediately uphill, and within about 30 meters I here some feet coming up behind, and fast. The guy that was nice enough to tell me that I was going the wrong way out of transition comes by me, and I look over and in my very best Jerry Seinfeld voice (imagine him saying "Newman!") I thought in my head "Keith Marshall!" Goddamit. I took about three steps with him, but he was gone so fast up the hill it was like I was going backwards. I have raced Keith enough to know that even with good legs he is tough to beat on the run, and my legs were toast. He gapped me by a good 45 seconds, but on the long downhill I was able to hold the gap, but just barely. Then on the long uphill into town Keith was just gone from sight, and he ultimately put over a minute-and-a-half on me on the run. My legs were gassed from the effort not he bike, and I was short-stepping on the climbs in order to keep my cadence up. Having Keith up the road was good incentive as I did keep the gas on more that I might have other wise, and I did manage to run down a few more folks from the younger age groups. The last guy I fought was about 800 meters from the finish line, and he lifted his effort and ran with me for a while. I was just hinting to myself "please, please, please" don't sit on and make me try to sprint for the finish, because that just ain't gonna happen. he fell off with about 600 meters to go, and then with about 400 meters to go the finish line came in to view up a loooong, straight uphill right in to the center of town. At this point I glanced at my watch and halfway thought I could run under 21, which would have been a nice benchmark, but I was wide open and it just took forever to get there. About 50 meters from the finish line I saw Todd on the side of the road shaking, shaking, shaking, a champaign bottle. For a brief second I thought about running away from him to the other side of the road, but then I thought "fuck it, let him have his fun" and I ran right at him.

And got soaked from head to toe.




The run went better than expected, but even on a good day I think I would have been a little over 20 minutes on this course. It is an honest one!

Cheered my teammates and Zach in (Zach got his own champagne celebration from Todd) and then went and hosed down and changed at the bath house. The post race food was supplied by local downtown restaurants and there was even a bluegrass band providing entertainment, so the wait until awards was a lot of fun. There were tons of people there and it had a nice festival vibe being right in town.


Keith and I rolled up to 2nd & 3rd in masters, which was nice - it actually looked like the 45-49 group was a little more competitive this go-round than the 40-44 bunch.




No taper, poor pre-race prep, overpaying the bike etc. But all-in-all it was OK - at least I executed the import part (the bike) as planned. But because I somehow got in my mind that this race was actually just another bike workout I just didn't take the whole thing very serious, which I suppose is OK. Talked through the bike data with my coach this morning and I think we have a better idea of pacing targets for nationals.




Very good, tough race. All the hills on the bike and run suit my strengths.