Remainder of Season Update...or...Triathlon Season, Where Have You Gone?

   I don't feel I should have to be doing this in the middle of August, but the triathlon calendar and its lack of possible races to attend (living in the northeast, sans car) deem it so.  I may only have one more triathlon for the season before the distances to travel grow too great and, by default, I end this season the way I started it:  Doing running races.

   Having started this sport so late, it would be nice to have everything figured out by now.  I suppose I should be lucky that, while this season (only my second) has proven that I did not have everything figured out, it has given me the direction in which I should be headed.

   Late this past winter, I drew up a list of about eight goals for this season.  Some of them have not yet been met, such as winning a race outright, but most importantly, the ones that hinged on time goals have been met.  While it would be nice to come across the line first, it is these time goals that are far more important because getting a pro license has nothing to do with placing and everything to do with time.

   My assumptions that long course racing would provide my best opportunity for a pro license were firmly shattered this season, as both of my half-iron distance races ended with very disappointing runs.  It seems as though I cannot yet nail down a good run at the end of a race that long.

    Surprisingly, confirmation that all is going according to plan came from Olympic Distance races; a distance I have always associated with speed, especially in the water, that I just did not have.  Well, I've knocked nearly ten minutes from my OD swim time since the Pittsburgh Triathlon last July and my running speed has been picking up.  I devoted all of the off-season to improving my swim and what an improvement it was.  It was a sacrifice to allow my biking abilities to stagnate, but in the long run, I believe it will have been a necessary step.  Although it is only August, I know that this off-season will be devoted to turning myself back into a cyclist and nailing sub-hour 40ks next season.  While improvements in my swim would be welcome, I think maintenance will be more the name of the game while I strengthen the bike again.  Opening next season with swims under 19 minutes will give me all I need in the water in consideration for my '09 goals.

   A brief outlook of the rest of my season is as follows:

   The Portage Lakes Olympic Triathlon in Akron, Ohio in early September.

   The Milton Harvest Festival 5k on September 20th.

   The Pittsburgh Great Race 10k on September 27th.

   The Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, Pa on October 12th.  I'm about 85% sure I'm going to do this race, but I hope I have enough time work my run back up to sub-3 hour marathon ability.  After the Beantown disaster, I have realized just how bad of an idea it is to go into a marathon underprepared. 

Race Report of the Vermilion Harbour Olympic Triathlon, Vermilion, Oh. (8/17)

   After the previous week's disaster at the Greater Cleveland Triathlon, I was keen to get back on the good result train.  Under normal circumstances, getting up at 3 in the morning after going to bed at midnight (work the night before), would be a terrible idea, but this was possibly my second to last chance to race a triathlon for the rest of the season.  I was just happy that this race was allowing day-of packet pick-up so that I wouldn't have to spend more money on a car or hotel, and take Saturday off of work.

   I was surprisingly not tired when I got up in the morning.  After packing up the car, I woke up Kayla and off we went.  The three hours from Pittsburgh to Vermilion were pretty uneventful.  It's nice having no cars on the road to deal with, especially after missing out on so much sleep.  We didn't find a place to get coffee until maybe fifteen minutes before we got to the race so it was a tough three hours.

   As it turns out, Vermilion is a pretty cool little place, save for the fact that it is in northern Ohio and that it is indeed little.  I think that after spending nearly a week in Rhode Island with a beach a stone's throw away in most directions, I'm just excited to see any beach.

   I had plenty of time to set up transition stress-free and hang out with Kayla while watching earlier waves of the sprint race go off.

   Our U-29/Elite wave was finally called to the start line on the beach for the two-lap swim in Lake Erie.  After swimming in the ocean in Rhode Island, I felt pretty confident that I could take on pretty much anything in the water.  It made what little waves or current there were in the Lake seem pretty insignificant.

   The gun went off, we dove in and I promptly stopped.  The water had apparently jarred the left side of my goggle loose and it immediately filled up with water.  I took a second to fix it and was back on.  The swim seemed to go incredibly fast, but I had no idea where I was within the wave because there were people from so many other waves around.  Not that I knew it at the time, but I came out with a sub-19 minute swim!  

   My bike was waiting in transition at the end of one of the rows right on the edge of the transition area.  Before the race, I pointed this out to Kayla, suggesting that it might be fun for her to wait for  me there, just outside of the barrier, to cheer me on during T1.  Standing right next to each  other for the minute and change that it took for me to strip my wetsuit and grab my bike proved to be incredibly awkward.  We smiled, said "hi", said "bye" and then I was off for the bike.

   It was a bit hard to get going the first two miles or so because of the rough road surface, but luckily, that was the extent of the problems I had for this 40k portion of the race.  The route was great.  There was no traffic and everything was well organized and marked.  It took  a little bit longer than I had expected to get through the bike for a  few reasons.  First of all, the bike was about 3/4 of a mile long according to my bike computer.  About a week before the race, I plotted out the bike course on mapmytri.com and found it to be long on there as well.  Also, while there weren't really any significant hills to speak of, there were many long grinds up very small grades that definitely made it difficult to keep the speed up and proved to be tiring by the end of the leg.  Being a loop course, one would expect the downhills to make up for it, but they were quick, steep and technical with a lot of sharp turns.  This made it impossible to take advantage of the speed that downhills offer.  I passed my fair share of people and ended the bike in 1:09.  I would usually be appalled at this slow time, but it appeared as though everyone else's were a bit slower than average as well.

   Coming into transition, I was about five seconds behind four people.  Leaving transition, I managed to pass all of them straight away.  Then a  side stitch decided to knot my stomach almost instantly.  Luckily, about a week before the race, I read an article about how to manage side stitches.  It progressively started to fade, so I could pick up the speed gradually, however, it was not completely gone until about the half-way point.  I started running my usual pace after that, but the damage had been done over the first three miles and I was relegated to a 45-minute 10k.  Compared to the sub-40 run I should be able to cranks out barring any side stitches, I was a little disappointed.  But it was still enough to keep me in 16th place overall (including all of the registered elites), also putting me in first for the 20-24 age group.

   While not a horrendous day, it was still a little lackluster after being spoiled by Morgantown and a handful of other top-5 finishes this year.

   To sum up the rest of the day after the race:  Drive home and sleep.