Interlochen Race Report
Where to begin? I guess I'd like to start by saying I have a great wife and friends. We all arrived on Friday to the race site. Last year we had 4 of our core group racing. This year I thought we would have at least 2 or 3 of us. I knew a couple of our group hadn't really been training but I was sure they would give it a go. As of Saturday afternoon it was decided that I was the only one and my support crew would be awesome! We had about 10 other people from our hometown coming in to race their first ever triathlons and they would need all the support we could give them. Ok, on with the race report.
This was to be my second Olympic distance event of the summer. After my Motor City race, I was anxious to redeem myself and do well in front of my friends and family. Friday evening, after we had camp setup, I took a shakedown ride to preview the Olympic bike course. It was enjoyable to return to the bike course from my first ever triathlon a year ago. The first 10k seemed to fly by, this was my turn around point from last year and all I could think of was "is that it?". Life is good with a heightened fitness level. I enjoyed the rest of the ride and made a lot of mental notes for race day. On Saturday I rode the run course and found out what they were talking about with "the hill". This hill starts when you make a left hand turn from a tree lined, greatly shaded dirt road at about the 2.1 mile marker. Suddenly there it is rising up for the next mile right in front of you. I was instantly dreading the run. I made the climb on the bike and enjoyed the quick decent back. I also threw on the wetsuit Saturday and did a little swim warm up of about 700m. Just enough to get the blood flowing and see how the stroke felt. Mission accomplished on the course preview and race prep it was time to just rest and prep the transition bag/bike. It was also time to lay out my race goals and plans to friends and family. I have to say it's one thing to put my goals here on the blog where it all feels like I'm just writing for myself, it's quite another to make my goals public to my close friends and family where I will be held accountable. Time for the race.
Sunday Morning we wake to blue skies and warm weather. Unfortunately we hear the wind whipping in the trees. It is announced at the pre-race meeting that the wind is expected to be 20mph steady gusting to 30mph. UGH!! on a positive at least it would be a headwind on the way out on the bike and pushing on the way in.
Swim: goal time: <30 minutes Actual: 29:22
PERFECT!! The swim course was a clock-wise triangle. My favorite kind. I am a right side breather and this is the easiest way for me to keep the buoy's sighted without lifting my head much. The only problems I had were that I got stuck in no man's land for most of the swim without a person to draft off and when we made the last turn for home I could have sworn I was feeling like I was swimming into a headwind. The water got pretty choppy for the last 300 or so meters. All in all I felt like I had a good strong stroke the entire way with no real problems. This is my best event and once again I proved it with a 4th in my age group and a 29th out of 200 overall.
T1: goal time: <3 minutes Actual: 3:01
Not bad given the distance from the beach to transition and the fact that I put socks on this time. I'm right on my goal pace at this point.
Bike: goal time: 1hour 20 minutes Actual: 1:23:11
The out on this out and back route was BRUTAL. I don't know how the riders I saw with rear disc wheels stayed up on their bikes. I was almost blown over more than once on the way out. I worked hard to hammer when I could and just hang on when I had to. I knew the course and I knew I'd make up some really good time on the way back in. The ride back was, dare I say it, FUN! The wind made holding 20+ mph feel like I was coasting. I hammered it until I was into the last few kilometers when I finally backed off and let my legs rest a bit before the run. My nutrition and fitness were both finally just right on a hard ride. My legs still felt great as I dismounted for T2.
T2: goal time: <1:30 Actual: 1:40
No issues, just had to get some crap out of my sock. Threw on the number and took off.
Run: goal time: <1hour Actual: 1:01:35
I set a goal of running the entire way, having fresh legs and not pushing the pace too early. I'll take this time. I had NO issues with cramping like Motor City. I even held back a little early on knowing I had "the HILL" to deal with. I went past the first 2 miles thinking I felt really good. Then I turned the corner and could see the trail of ants ahead me climbing that blessed hill. I stuck with my goal of running the entire way, I wasn't fast but I managed to keep running. This was my last real challenge of the day. It would have been so easy to just walk as I watched person after person do on that climb. In case you're wondering it was about a 9% grade and coming back down hurt almost as much as going up. Every step was putting on the brakes coming back down. By the time I got to the bottom I was starting to feel twinges of cramping in my hamstrings. Fortunately, this evened back out again once I was on the flat again. I hit the 4 mile mark seeing my pace was holding steady to break my overall goal of a sub 3 hour race. I felt pretty strong all the way in and with a half mile to go I saw that I could shatter my 3 hour goal with a hard effort. A couple of roller hills with a little bit of cramping starting to set in but at this point nothing was stopping me. I sprinted hard the final 50m down the finish chute.
Overall goal time: 3 hours
Actual: 2:58:47
Overall I was excited to not only run a good race by my standards. I also hit almost every goal time I set and most importantly I beat my overall goal time by over a minute en route to setting a new personal best by over 12 minutes.
Look for my race evaluation and review in the coming days.
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