Great Buckeye Challenge - AG win, 6th overall

JEEPERS! Can you say BREAKTHROUGH??! I wasn't expecting to do NEARLY this well, and I thought for SURE that the course was short. But after comparing times with everyone else, and reviewing my garmin data, we determined that the bike course was only slightly short, and the run was actually LONG! So WAHOO!


Almost two months ago, I narrowly missed the podium at the Quest for the Capitol Triathlon where I went 2:14 and change with a bike course that had 1500 ft of climbing... (see last blog) I was super proud of my performance there and thought, "Ok, if this is the best I do this season, I'm alright with it."

Not the case...

This race came on the heels of taking a two week break to vacation in Oregon, and then immediately get home and move my family across the country to Ohio. (Hence... why I'm doing races in Ohio now.) I trained when I could. Did some incredible riding on Highway 101 on the Oregon coast, and ran on the beach. I even managed to get swimming in at the local pool in Seaside.

Then we moved. Here's a list of my training across the week that we moved:

- Swim at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho (swum the morning we began our trek)
- Bike in Idaho Falls, Idaho
- Run in Bozeman, Montana
- 2 x Bike's in Rapid City, South Dakota
- Run in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Bike in Davenport, Iowa
- Arrive in Dayton, Ohio

Then came the move in... not fun. Both Marian and I severely dislike unpacking a house. We were reminded of our dislike of this activity very quickly. The bottom line is that - as I write this - there are still many things left to be sorted through. I could probably be working on that right now... but well... blogs are people too.

So.... THE RACE!

[FYI: for my own documentation purposes, I lay out my food and fueling in these next two paragraphs. If that bores you, move down the page a bit.]

I stuck with the new "morning of" routine, and ate more food when I woke up at 430 to start my race prep. I had a fried egg, granola with yogurt, and a whole banana. Then washed it all down with and Emergen-C and 22 oz of honey water.

For this race, I moved away from Hammer gel, although I do still use a dash of perpetuem to help with my body's ability to metabolize fuel faster than I can burn it. I've been training with a mixture of honey, perpetuem, and baking soda. This race, I used 4 tbsp of honey, 1/2 tsp of perpetuem, and 1/4 a tsp of baking soda in a 26 oz water bottle. I then added a "back-up" 22 oz bottle mixed with the same proportions of nutrition.

To maximize speed, my goal was to be adequately fed and hydrated so that I could get out of the swim fresh, replenish on the bike, and not require ANYTHING on the run - including water. It's how I'd been training, so I wanted to try it in a race.

I'll spare you details of arriving at the race, but the bottom line is that HFP Racing Events are incredibly well run. Wow! We were impressed. I'm pretty sure that their's will be the primary races I do next year. The positive atmosphere, the transition area, the finish area, the volunteers. All of them were amazing!

Marian and Rianna - as always! - were there to support, and take videos. I gave them a kiss and ran down to the water to warm up a few minutes before the start.

I want to take a moment to provide some crucial information so that the rest of this blog makes sense. Marian has been the KEY to my being able to swim.... AT ALL. Before I met her. (Not married. MET.) I couldn't swim. She started giving me tips a LONG time ago, and has continued ever since.

Also, since arriving in Ohio (all three weeks ago) I've been swimming with the Dayton Area Sharks again. One of the best amateur swim teams in the country. We've noticed some significant improvement in my swimming, but this was going to be the first opportunity to see some true race results.

I warmed up comfortably, and felt really loose when they called the Olympic Elite and 20-25 wave forward. I stepped up to the front, and we stood at the water's edge poised to run in. They counted down, said go, and I sprinted into the water with the lot of them. Quickly realizing that we had some shallow water to go, I did a couple dolphin dives and then started swimming near threshold pace.

The first buoy was a hard right turn, and I was with the front runners. I swung wide to avoid getting clobbered by flailing arms, sighted the next buoy and got to work. There were a couple swimmers in front of me going at a pace I liked, so I hung on to their feet. But after a couple hundred meters they started to slow, so made the pass. Then there was just one guy a bit ahead of me. I swam hard to catch up.

When I caught him, we stuck together for the entire rest of the "out" part of the swim. We were closing on the far buoy quickly, and I swung wide as we pulled around it to head back to the start...

Then I was alone. So I started thinking this...


I'd apparently passed the other guy as we went around the buoy and I couldn't see him any more. In fact, I couldn't see ANYBODY in front of me. That's was a weird feeling. But I continued as fast as I could. I got into a great rhythm and found myself heading for the shore pretty quickly.

As I peeled my wetsuit off, running on the grass, I hit the lap button on my Garmin. I didn't realize it then, but my Garmin clocked me getting out of the water in 18:42... As I'm writing this, I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around that, but this left me with the fastest swim of the day, and put me at the front of the race starting the bike! HOLY COW!!



I ran up the hill to the T1 (with a nice heart rate spike to go with it) gave a hoot and a holler to Marian and Rianna faithfully waiting for me, and entered the transition area at 19:18. Had a 1:19 transition (which is an improvement for me) and got on the bike with no issues...

The bike was a GREAT course.... It kept everyone honest. There was a mix of flat and fast TT sections, some rollers, and even one short little climb in there. Since there was a mini, a sprint, a half , and three duathlons going on at the same time as the Olympic, I had a lot of company on the course. I passed when I needed and gave people some encouragement as I did. The middle third of the course is the hilliest portion of the bike, and I had to work hard on some descents and climbs to keep my speed up. Near the end, my legs were feeling fatigued, and I wanted to slow, but I remembered Marian and Rianna waiting for me and how much they were hoping I would do well. This gave me strength when I needed it.

It was in the middle section that I started getting passed by the macho bikers. Some of these guys were insane I must say. The guy who won even went on to ride the course in 56:08. I guzzled through my main water bottle and moved on to the second bottle with about 4 miles to go. (I'm glad I decided to bring it along for the ride.) I would go on to ride the course in 1:04:44, which takes more than 6 minutes off my best 40k bike!

As I neared T2, I looked to the right and saw Marian and Rianna standing in the parking lot waving. I waved back at them and gave a cheer. It was awesome seeing them. (Turned out, they hadn't expected my bike split to be so quick, and I caught them walking back to the transition area.)

A few sprint folks were entering T2 as I was and they going REALLY SLOW. I was probably a little unsafe in how I slipped between them while dismounting, but I was in a hurry. Consequently, I didn't have the fastest T2 of the day. But I still got out in 40 seconds.

I knew I had some men to catch, so I tried not to waste too much time easing into the run. My goal was to run right at the 40 minute mark. I'd set a 10k PR and was consistently running 39 minutes during bike/run workouts. I knew what I was capable of.

My heart and legs were warmed up, so even though my plan was to start conservatively, I was able to pick up speed quickly. I saw a guy ahead of me who had passed me on the bike, and I worked my way up to him. I passed him within a mile, and pressed on. My first mile split was 6:23 and I was feeling good. But after what happened at Quest for the Capitol triathlon, I knew I had to be reading my body carefully so I didn't fall apart on the back half of the run...

A conflicting pressure was that I knew the run course was an out-and-back, downhill on the way out, and uphill going back. This put pressure on me to run the first half pretty fast if I wanted to hit my sub-40 goal time.

So I settled for somewhere in the middle...

When I hit 5k, my watch read 19:50... so I knew that I was going to be hardpressed to make my goal time. But I was feeling much better than I'd felt at Quest for the Capitol. My legs felt powerful, and my energy was high.

I worked like a dog on the way back. A few of the uphills threatened to get the better of me. My heart rate started to spike quite a bit on one of the major uphills. But I surged once I was at the top, trusting that my heart rate would come down again. It did.

As I rounded the final turn to head to the finish line, my watch signaled that I'd passed the 10k mark. It read 40:03... but I still had another 300 feet to run. My official run time would be 40:20, but I was ok with that. When I crossed the finish line the race clock showed 2:06:24. That was an improvement of over 17 minutes off my last true Olympic time, and an 8 minute improvement from a race I'd done not more than two months before!

I had no idea how to account for this improvement. Not only have I qualified for Nationals for next year already, but (if I can be consistent), I may be able to make the Air Force triathlon team next May as well! I never would have pictured me closing in on the two hour mark in an Olympic Race this year. I can't really even take any credit for it! I've just been doing the work and the training and hoping it would pay off... and I guess it is!

I have to give God the glory for this one. I'm really trying to leave the results up to Him. I'll continue to do that in all my races!