The Push

Beh-Beep. Beh-Beep. Beh-Beep. Beh-SMACK. And so began the start of another race day at 5:00 this morning with a resounding backhand to the "snooze" button on the alarm clock.

Today was the Pine Bush sprint-distance triathlon, consisting of a 325m swim, a 20k bike and a 5+k run. Let me tell you, this is a great event. It boasts a very inexpensive entry-fee, it's chip-timed, and most impressively of all, it's extremely well-organized with volunteers and/or police at virtually every single intersection of the bike course directing traffic away from riders. This year marked the 5-year anniversary of the Pine Bush triathlon and played host to over 350 triathletes.

Today's race was also supposed to be a test of the leg speed while gaining a bit more open-water swim experience. The strategy was to settle into a tempo during the swim, then open things up wide on the bike and the run.

Swimmers today went off in "waves" (so to speak) based on their age-group and gender. My wave, of course, had the priveledge of going off first. At about 8:00, the race director had all the male 25-29 competitors line up at the water's edge of Rensselaer Lake and urged us to get in and wade for the start.

"Racers - move into the water"

One step, lake weeds knee-high, soggy muck mixed with duck and goose excrement underfoot.

"Racers - keep going, fully in the water - make room for all competitors please"

Two steps, getting tangled in weeds, much now up to our calves.

"Racers - please move further out"

Five more steps, water up to our shoulders, too many weeds to tread, not one rock to place our feet on.

"Racers - a few more feet - good. Start time is in 3 minutes"

3 MINUTES!?!?

Finally, after what seemed like an awkward eternity of standing in duck haven, the gun went off, and I made my way to the first buoy. I'd say after about 100m, the group was spread out a bit, with me taking up the back of the leading 1/3 of my pack. A good position for me, and I'd settled right into a great pace and effort - hardly any leg work in the swim, and a very conservative stroke to save the muscles for the bike and run. Soon, I was coming up the sandy shore and into T1, feeling fresh and strong.

Exiting T1, I immediately passed 3 competitors and set out about the remaining part of the bike course. I kept my head down and my gears high for the whole ride, which ticked by very fast. I was riding great, with snappy legs and good form. The only problem, however, was that the few competitors in my leading wave out in front of me were completely out of sight the entire course. So there were no "rabbits" to chase - a situation that I've always had a hard time with. With no one to chase, it's hard to push 110%.

Into T2, I was still feeling relatively good, despite a knot that had developed in my left hamstring during the bike. I racked the bike, and quickly donned my running shoes and race number to head out onto the run course. Coming out of T2, I was ecstatic to see not only the founder of Joe's triathlon fan club (and my personal favorite), but also my very good friend Brent who'd come out to cheer me on. Pushing on, the first 1/4 mile of the run was downhill, which hurt the quads and prohibited me from getting into my running rhythm straight away. Once things leveled off, I began to settle, but again, there were no competitors in sight, so I could only run by "feel". At the halfway point, however, I saw the lead runner on his way back along the course and was able to figure out how far ahead he was from me. With this information, I picked up the tempo, and began pushing a higher cadence throughout the remaining duration of the run. I remember thinking I was pushing the pace too hard for a bit, but my HR settled and I was eventually running a much more appropriate race-pace. Unfortunately, it was too late, as two other competitors had caught me in the last mile of the run. Had I run this quicker tempo from the start, I likely would have been able to hold them off and move myself up a bit in the overalls. No excuses here - there were some really fast guys out there, as evidenced by the final results - but I wish I could've done the run over again from T2.

So, in the end, I walked away 28th overall of 352 competitors. Not a bad result, but this was only good enough for 7th place age-group. Granted, some of the men in front of me set a blistering pace, and there were a number of great athletes in my group. My goal going into the race was to go sub-1 hour by pushing the bike and the run. I was pretty close, but things just didn't happen in the run the way they should have... not until I was motivated by seeing the leader. I'm very happy with my performance, as I felt spot-on for the swim and the bike but, clearly, we have more mental and run-training to do from here on out.

Thanks for reading.