Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Race Report 6.16.13

Downtown Austin and the State Capital.

Day Before Race: 

I rode the bike in the morning before we left for Austin.  Just a quick trip around Lakeside Parkway and back, I took it easy and did the 17 miles in a little over an hour.  I was only supposed to do 30 minutes but it was a nice day and I wasn’t really pushing the pace.  However, I really didn’t feel too good about 20 minutes in.  I just felt sluggish and blah.  I chalked it up to the taper week blues and everything would be ok.  We loaded the truck and headed to Austin around 12:30pm.  I started to get a headache on the way down and what felt like a low grade temperature.  I was a little concerned, although on the outside you wouldn’t have known the difference.  Inside I was wondering what I would do if this turned into something bad.  After packet pick up at Jack and Adams and we got back from dinner, Threadgills by the way and it was fabulous, I took two Tylenol and fell asleep in the hotel room around 8pm.  When you have four people in two double beds, that is a pretty good signal that something isn’t right.  I woke up a few times in the night with some stomach problems.  This was not a great start.   I had a dream that woke me up at 3:30am that was very vivid.  I dreamed it was 7:30am and I had overslept.  It scared the hell out of me but I was able to sleep again for another hour.  The fact that I was able to sleep somewhat consistently made me nervous too.  Most of the time, I just sit there and can’t sleep at all.  A real WTF moment to be sure, I didn’t feel so sick I couldn’t function but I wasn’t right either.

My support crew.

 

Texas Sky before the Race at Lake Pflugerville

Pre Race:

At 4:30am, I decided to get up for good.  Hit the bathroom again and took a shower.  My wife helped get the gang assembled and I got everything I needed loaded in the truck.  My nutrition needs were very simple.  For sprints, I don’t take much.  One bottle of Skratch Labs pineapple formula for the bike, two honey stinger gels on the bike, one cherry lime Roctane GU for the run, one Enduroshark tab before we left the hotel and a few other to carry with me (if necessary), and a honey stinger protein bar to eat before we left the hotel.  When we got to the race site at about 6am, we had to park pretty far away and it was really busy in transition.  You could rack anywhere you wanted.  I have never done a race like this.  I usually have  to rack by race number, age group or something like that.  I was hoping to rack by age group so I would know where the competition was when I entered and exited transition.  After setting up transition, we walked around a little and then I did a warm up swim in the lake.  The band on my goggles busted on Friday so I was working with a new pair and needed to get them adjusted.  My stomach was not cooperating much with me and I had to hit the portapotties a few more times.  I took more Tylenol in the morning so my head wasn’t really pounding too much.  Once the race started, I asked my family to keep track of how many people in my wave exited the lake before me and how far behind in minutes I was to the fastest guy in my group.  My swim wave was for my age group only, so I should have a pretty good idea if I could hit the podium or not based on where I was positioned.  They all agreed so I was ready to go.  Race was to start at 7:30 and my wave was due off at 7:48.  When you were up, they had a corral you stood in before heading across the timing mat and wading into the water awaiting your start.  When we got into the corral, the turnaround buoy broke loose and started floating across the lake.  This was a big advantage for the 40-44 group as they didn’t have to swim all the way to the end and cut off 30-50 meters off the swim.  We had to wait for the buoy to get reattached so there was a delay of a few minutes for us.

Comin' out of the water

Swim:

I think there were 36 in my swim wave.  I started in the front row out to the right.  The buoys were on my left the whole way but out to the right looked like a more direct line to the turnaround.  What I deemed to be the fastest guy in my wave (Roger) was standing a few feet to my right so I am pretty sure my thinking was spot on.  When they counted us down and sent us off, the washing machine started.  This week I intentionally started at a very comfortable pace.  As such, I had quite a few people around me for the first 100 meters.  Everyone behaved themselves for the most part and I kept it nice and easy for the first 200 meters as there was some natural separation, the herd thinned and I was able to get to clean water.  I knew there was a small group of maybe 10 that was ahead of me as I hit the red turn around buoy 250 meters out.  It still looked like a long way to shore from 250 meters.  It’s strange how far things look when you’re not in a 25 yard pool.  I went ahead and pressed the pace for a few minutes and started passing people in my wave and the wave that left 3 minutes ahead of us.  I had one big guy t-bone me.  He was headed out to sea the wrong direction so I had to stop and let him pass in front of me before I could carry on.  I was quickly closing in on a group of six or seven and there was no way around so I just followed them into the beach and we all got out together.  There were probably three or four in my wave in the group.  On the way to transition, the family shouted at me that I was number 7 out of the water in my group and was about 2 minutes behind Roger.  This was a little disappointing.  I hoped to be much closer exiting the water for this race.  I guess my effort may have been a little too easy in the beginning and I gave up some ground.  I started to feel a little fatigue in the last hundred and the only thing going in my mind was how in the world was I going to do 2200 yards at Buffalo Springs if I felt like this bad in two weeks.  My time was a little over 10 minutes.  I should have easily been out in at least nine but that's open water racing.

T1:

I ran to my bike and had no troubles to speak of.  Shoes went on easy, attached my race belt, sunglasses and helmet were fine and took off out of transition.  I forgot to hit my watch in transition so I am relying on the race timing which is usually accurate.  Two minutes and two seconds in transition which seemed long but it was probably 45-60 seconds of travel time from the water to my bike and then from my bike to the mount line.  A long way from being slow but up 20 seconds off the fastest in my group, I don’t know what I could have done different.  I didn't feel like I was on a penalty kill for a little over a minute getting my shoes and helmet on.

Bike:

When I left transition, I did not see the family so I assumed I was still 7^th in my age group and started looking for people to pick off on the bike.  The wind had picked up a little and seemed to be blowing about 10mph from the south.  The first part of the ride was to the northeast so it was very comfortable and fast.  I slowed down slightly to get drink and take a honey stinger when I entered a very bumpy section.  My bike started to veer left and I got close to a guy in my age group who was trying to pass.  I didn’t know he was in my group until I saw his age on his calf.  Ok.  I had some motivation now.  It didn’t take me long to pass him back and we got into a nice rhythm of doing this back and forth for the next 8 miles or so.  I met him after the race.  He lives in Pflugerville and his name is Michael, very good guy by the way.  We were passing lots of people.  Just like the Rookie, we passed guys in their 40s, 30s, and 20s but not many in our age group.  I didn’t expect to pass Roger or even be close after spotting him 2 minutes in the water and figured there may be one other guy who would be pretty fast.  I did expect to catch a few.  A lot of people wear the calf sleeves and this covers up their age.  When we would pass someone, I took a peek at them to see if it was possible they were in our age group.  We did pass one or two definitively and then my old friend from the Rookie passed us with about 4 miles to go.  His name is Doug and he always wears a US Army tri kit.  He got us going into the wind before we turned back to the north and headed back to the lake.  Here’s where it gets strange, either I was hallucinating or Doug slowed down and I definitely remembered passing him.  Once we got on the highway service road, I never remember seeing him again.  I asked Michael if he remembered getting passed a second time on the road and he didn’t.  According to time, he led me by about a minute going into T2 but I have no idea how that happened.  Once we had the wind at our back, I drank as much Skratch as I could and downed my second gel.  I had put a little bit of distance between me and Michael but not much.  The roads were pretty rough and we got caught up in traffic on one of the roads weaving through a traffic jam.  The police had stopped traffic on our two laned road and we had to ride in the center to get through.  Not real comfortable and definitely slowed us a little.  Right before the mount line I pulled my feet out of my shoes and did a nice graceful dismount.  My time was 40:04 which equated to 21mph average.  The fastest ride I have ever had in a race.  The Zipp 404s are awesome.

T2:

Went great, I was in and out in 57 seconds.  No trouble at all getting the shoes on and bolting out of transition.

 

Getting the bad news from my son that I'm 6 minutes back of the leader.

 

3 miles around the lake.

Run:

On the way up the hill to the running trail, my family signaled I was 6 minutes behind Roger and they had no idea what place I was in but thought I was close to a podium position.  After a three quarters of a mile, Michael passed me.  I was going ok but just didn’t have the extra gear for this race.  I tried to maintain distance with Michael and did keep him within 20 feet for at least another mile.  My plan was to sneak up on him at the very end.  At about mile 2, I saw Doug in his Army kit and couldn’t decide whether that was really him or not.  I figured there was no way since I passed him on the bike.  I am a faster runner than him and was closing the gap but he was pretty far up there.  I did pass someone in our group at mile 2 so I thought I was close to a podium finish but had no way to know.  After mile 2, I tried to pick up the pace and get close to Michael.  It just wasn’t happening.  He picked it up too and I lost enough contact to seriously contend with him.  Doug must have picked it up when he got passed and finished less than 10 seconds behind Michael.  Michael ended up third so Doug finished fourth to me at the rookie and now fourth at this race to Michael.  I was fifth about 30 seconds behind the two of them.  I did the 3 miles in 23:17 equating to approximately 7:45 miles.  I can do better than that.  I really felt flat during the run and that was disappointing.  Being that close to a podium finish was a buzz kill.  Good news is we didn’t have to hang around for awards and could take off.  I finished in a little over an hour and seventeen minutes.  I think a little time was left on the course but considering everything it was a very good day.

Crossing the Finish Line

 

Post Race:

They are hard core about not going into transition until the last biker comes through so there was a big line waiting to get in.  Once the last biker took off on the run, we were able to enter transition.  That’s where I met Michael and talked to him for awhile.  I really wanted to see Doug and find out how the hell he got around me and when, but I never was able to find him.  Once I got my bike, the whole crew headed to the Oasis for a Father’s Day lunch and then we headed home.  My headache returned on the ride home with feverish type symptoms.  I took a few Motrin and felt a little better.  My stomach wasn’t great either when I got home.  I have no doubt I have a virus or something.  The lack of energy during the swim has me spooked a little.  Time to move on, there will be no catching Roger unless he has a monster mechanical breakdown during one of the races so it might be me and Doug fighting for second place in the series.  Should be fun since we seem to be pretty evenly matched.

 

A popsickle, cold towel on my head, cold water to drink and waiting to see the posted results.

Father's Day at the Oasis after the race with the kids.

....and my wife.

You gotta love the view at the Oasis on Lake Travis.