OK, I'm back after racing in Ohio

Thursday: There's a race report listed in the appropriate forum, but I thought I'd better add a few details here becuase it was such a unique experience, to say the least! I drove the 700 miles (11 hours) to Ohio on Thursday, checked into the motel, went out for dinner, and generally lazed around that evening. The plan on Friday was to check out the bike course, ride a few laps, pick up my registration packet and have everything ready for the 7 AM start on Saturday.

Friday: Things are not starting off well. I check out the bike course first by taking a lap of it in the car. There are a few nasty hills, including one I have dubbed the "Wall Of Death", about 1/4 mile long, looks like mountain climbing hardware may be required to keep from falling off! Secondly, the road surface is horrible. It consists of rough chip-seal with numerous potholes and no shoulder to ride on. Several of the roads are 55 mph 2-lane affairs and have their share of fully loaded tractor trailer rigs whistling by at speeds up to 60 mph. The comfort factor is less than 1 on a scale of 1-10. If I had to train daily on roads like this, I would sell my bike and take up a different sport. I don't know how people in north-central Ohio tolerate conditions like this...it makes me appreciate the riding conditions here in New England a lot more now. I will from this day forth never again gripe about bike riding in the northeast! All this has scuttled my plans to ride the bike course on my bike. I value my life, and if I'm going down in flames (or under the wheels of a crazed semi-tractor trailer driver) it's going to be during the race and not on a training ride.

Saturday: I arrive at the course. Up to this point the weather has been great, hot and sunny, conditions that I like. The hotter the better is OK with me. Unfortunately, race day has decided to become cold and rainy. It's 50 degrees and pouring rain. I don't tolerate this well at all. I arrive at the course and see a couple of women packing up to go home, refusing to ride in such crummy conditions. Maybe they've seen the bike course as well. I figure I'm into it and have driven a long way, so I'm going to at least give it a shot.

1st Leg of the event: I'm entered in the Long Course Duathlon...it's a 6.2 mile run, 40 mile bike, 4.8 mile run. After a long decision on what to wear, I settle on a nylon wind shell over my sleeveless tri-suit. Almost everyone else has bare arms and legs...I don't know how they do it. The hotter the better for me. Even after warming up, I'm still a bit chilly. At the last minute I decide to remove my cycling leg warmers. The gun goes off and I'm at the back of the running pack for the first leg. The run goes reasonably well for me, I feel pretty good after a 10K run, but my time is slower than I'd like, mostly since I can't seem to really warm up. Even after the whole leg is complete, I'm still glad I have my wind shell on, I'm not overheated a bit. The rain has continued...there are lots of puddles on the course, my feet are soaked. I arrive at the transition and mine is one of the few bikes still on the rack...surprise! I hate to run, have I mentioned this before? I take my cycling shoes out of a plastic bag I grabbed at the hotel...ah, dry shoes! That will last for at least 2 minutes. I put on my helmet, then my sunglasses, but the rain makes them instantly unusable, so I leave them in the transition bag. I had put a full bottle of Gatorade in the bag, intending to drink most of it during transition. I forget. No matter, the cold rain has at least kept me from overheating, to say the least.

2nd Leg: I'm off. Now the faster pace of the bike increases the windchill from being soaked. Within 3 miles I'm freezing. I think about getting off the bike and calling it quits, this is insane. I press on. It's actually more comfortable on the aero bars since the wind stops blowing on my forearms. My legs are fine, but 5 miles into the loop, my feet are going numb. And despite having visited the bathroom 5 minutes before the race start, I find I now have to pee. I stand on the pedals, and on a gradual downhill, relieve myself into my tri-suit, letting the rain wash away the evidence. I come to the Wall Of Death...there are several competitors walking. I pass a number of bikers as usual and press on. The road surface is as horrible as it seemed in the car reconaisance. Lots of cars and trucks whiz by, I'm blinded by the spray, since it would have been useless to wear glasses. I go past a competitor who has crashed. A volunteer is treating him on the roadside. He does not look well at all. I am sympathetic, as it could have been me, but I press on. Finally it's back to the race track where we complete a lap around the track before heading back out for lap 2 of 3 on the horrible roads. I think of quitting as I pass the transition point. I tell myself "one more lap and then see how things are." Back out on the roads. I'm freezing even more. I pass more bikers, perhaps up to about 15 or 20 now. If I didn't suck so badly on the run, I'd feel like I was doing a lot better. My feet are now so numb that I can barely feel my toes. I'm shivering uncontrollably, hardly able to hold onto the handlebars. I hit a large pothole, and miraculously avoid a nasty crash! Once more up the Wall Of Death, passing 2 more riders in the process. Finally I make it back to the start line. I have one more lap around the track and then am supposed to go back out for one more road loop before the last 5.0 mile run.

It isn't going to happen. I pull into the transition area, climb off the bike, gather my soaked gear, remove my timing chip and hand it in to race officials. I'm a DNF after running 6.2 miles and cycling 28 miles. I am so frozen, I can barely climb off the bike. I probably could do the final bike lap, though I'd be struggling to hang onto the bars. I'm not willing to risk this, not with the lousy road conditions and the rain and high speed traffic going by. I have a family to provide for. Even if I made it through the bike leg, I'm not sure I'd have anything left for the last 5 mile run except for to walk through most of it. In warm dry weather, I'd have had no problems. I'm not dehydrated, my legs are fine, but my feet are like blocks of concrete, my hands so frozen (despite wearing gloves) that I can barely hold the bike to wheel it back to my car.

I pack up, return to the hotel, change clothes and decide to leave for home that day instead of staying over until Sunday. After a heroic 700 mile trip, I arrive home before midnight. What did I learn from all this? You can drive down the street for a local event, you can travel around the world to compete...but you can't control the weather. I guess I could have worn more clothing, waterproof bike over-shoes, gortex rain suit. But I'm philosophical...despite the road conditions and the lousy weather, I enjoyed the experience immensely. If I were in the organizational seat, I'd change the venue of the race. The organizers did a credible job with what they had to operate with, but perhaps they need to see how a REAL race is run and learn from it. Overall, I'm very disillusioned by the road conditions in the state of Ohio...I don't know how Ron does it if he rides on roads like we raced on. They make Massachusetts roads look like engineering marvels! I'll never again complain about my local riding conditions. You have my sympathies Ron! It was a fun trip nonetheless, but I won't be going back next year.

Max