Race Report of the Deer Creek State Park Olympic Triathlon. Mt. Sterling, Oh. (6/7)

Well, you know when only two people, including the 15 registered elite athletes, break 2:10 for an Olympic race, it probably wasn't the fastest course ever.  I was pretty excited going into the day because I had heard that it was a pretty fast course and I was anxious to put up a good time.  Instead I settled for putting up my worst time in an OD race.  Ever.  Maybe I can take that fact with a grain of salt though, because looking through the results from last year to this year told me that everyone's times were several minutes slower this year.  So what happened?

To save a little cash, it was my plan going into the race weekend to make the three and a half hour drive to Mt. Sterling the morning of the race instead of getting a hotel.  That would mean getting out of bed at two and being on the road by three.  It's early, but doable if getting to bed early enough the previous night.  To complicate matters, the Penguins were playing game five of the stanley cup finals Saturday night.  There was no way I was going to miss the game, especially since I actually had a night off of work to watch it.  It seems as though I've had to work nearly every playoff game this year.

So my plan was to go to bed when Kayla went to work at four and get up for the game at eight.  After the game, I would go back to bed for a few hours until it was time to get ready for the race.

Phase one of the plan happened seamlessly.  I got some good sleep before the game and unfortunately witnessed a complete thrashing of the Pens.  It got so bad that I turned it half way through the second period to watch Independence Day.

Commence phase two.  I said, commence phase two.  Not responding.  I'll try again.  Commence phase two.  Basically I rolled around in bed for about two hours doing everything but sleeping.  If I reached the shallowest of depths of sleep, it went unnoticed thanks to my alarm.  I wasn't tired, probably from sleeping earlier in the day, but it sure wasn't a good way to start the day.

There was  little pre-race drama thanks to the uber-huge registration lines.  I had to rush a round a little bit to get everything in order before the start, but it was really no big deal.  The pushed back the start of the race by fifteen minutes so that helped a little bit.

The swim was a bit of a melee.  I don't know if it was just the nature of the swim course, but there never really seemed to be too much room to maneuver.  I didn't seem to be going too badly, but it was hard to tell.  What I could tell was that on the home stretch of both of the two laps, the sun made it really hard to see the buoys.  The zig-zagging off course probably did more than anything to relegate my swim to a not-so-hot 23:51.  Disappointing.  Again, comparing last year to this year, maybe the swim was slightly long.  Times averaged well over a minute faster last year.

It took some time to get my legs under me on the bike, but a few miles into it, I felt fine despite feeling like I was going to vomit at the beginning.  The first five or six miles seemed to be tilted ever so slightly uphill.  Just enough to keep speeds between 22 and 23 miles per hour.  The back half of the course picked up nicely until two short climbs punctuated the run into transition for the start of lap two.  I'm not sure what happened, but the winds had apparently picked up quite a bit from the first to second laps.  I was passed by more people than I'm used to getting passed by on the bike, but I didn't feel too bad.  I was shocked to discover that my time was 1:07.  In last year's results, bike splits didn't start to get consistently over 1:10 until about 50 people deep.  This year, it only took about 35.  Maybe there was more wind this year or something.

I started the run feeling okay, but not too pleased to discover that the first mile was almost entirely on grass.  That mean the last mile would be almost entirely on grass.  Great.  Regardless, mile one went by in 6:20.  I didn't feel like I was pushing too hard so I had faith that I would hold that pace.  After two miles, the pace dropped to a 6:30 average and at the 5k mark, I was almost at 21:00.

I don't know if it was just me, but it felt like the run was uphill both ways.  All I could think about getting to the turn around was, "well, hopefully I can get a negative split because I'll be able to run downhill."  But after turning around and starting the run back, the road seemed to be tilted up even more.  To make matters worse, I was fighting cramps from about mile two that would last all the way to the finish.

The pace picked up for mile four, felt like it picked up for mile five as well, but actually slowed and sucked even more for mile 6.  I ended in over 44 minutes.  I'm sure it didn't help that I haven't been able to run normally since the beginning of May.  I realize how disenchanted I am about the race as I sit here writing this.

So what happened?  What happened to my 20-minute swims of last year?  What happened to my bike leg that I thought was my strength?  I've had stomach cramps in the past and if I am able to start running normally again, I don't think there is a problem there.  Yeah there might have been differences in the conditions and course compared to last year as the results suggest, but the fact is that was not a good race.  I ended in 2:18.  19th overall and 2nd in the age group.

Meh.