2103 Celebrating Heroes Triathlon: 3rd Place Relay

Yesterday my wife and I raced in the 2013 Celebrating Heroes triathlon as a relay team, placing as the third overall relay team.  As we have done in previous years, I did the swim and bike and she ran.  This was a really fun local race for us; it is really close to home, it is well organized, and we both went into it with a relaxed attitude.  Also, as a shorter distance sprint triathlon, there is less to worry about logistically; our kids wouldn't grow as bored

Race Morning

I had packed up the car with my stuff the night before, so all I had to do on race morning was wake up at 5:45, get in the car and drive the couple of minutes to the race and walk through the park to transition.  By this point I have my transition setup down  and can do it fast and on auto-pilot.  I had almost forgotten how great it is to do a non-wetsuit race, it is so much simpler not having to carry in one more bag with the wetsuit, timing when to put it on and walking around in it (mine is great in the water, but isn't so fun to wear on land). As I setup, I saw a friendly face from my masters swimming; she was doing the swim leg of a relay.  I think I was in a bit of zombie pre-coffee mode and in retrospect was probably not at my friendliest.  Sorry!  I finished up my setup within about 15 minutes, grabbed my iced-coffee in a water bottle a powerbar and walked over to the swim start to eat my breakfast.  I was expecting to take under an hour total for my two legs, so nutrition and hydration weren't going to be a big deal, but I still needed my morning jolt of caffeine.

Swim (16:20)

I used to complain in my blogs that they always put my wave last.  I'm not sure if some race directors read my blog or it is just a coincidence, but in my last few races I've instead started in either one of the first few waves or at least in the middle.  For this race I was happy to get to swim with the majority of the men's field, including my normal age group.  Since relays or aquabike are usually put in some random spot, this was the first time I'd get to swim with my normal peer group.  It would mean a lot more jostling than usual, but also a nice opportunity to see some fast swimmers.  Right before entering the water, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing my wife and kids and taking a quick photo with them.

After my photo, I entered the water last in my wave to get ready to start, so I had to fight a bit to get a front position.  The start was definitely crowded and as expected it was slightly rough.  I felt a bit bad for my female swim friend who had to start with this huge crowd of guys, some of whom are not exactly polite about swimming over you, bumping you, etc.  I managed to escape the start without any issues and started looking for feet to follow.  I was a little surprised to see just how many people seemed to be going really fast, but reminded myself that a big fraction of all the fast swimmers in the race would be in this wave, so I shouldn't expect to be able to hang with the very front guys.  After two races in a row where I had found great feet to follow, I was getting pretty used to the idea of drafting for most of the swim.  But in this race I never really found someone who worked for me; a couple of times I drafted for a little while only to have the person slow down too much whenever they were sighting.  On the plus side, the faster swimmers made a nice splashing path that made following a good line around the course relatively easy.  So I just concentrated on doing my own pace and following as good a line as I could to avoid swimming any extra.  By the end, I had passed a lot of the wave ahead, and had passed a number of swimmers from my wave (you can tell by the cap color) who had presumably started out faster.

Looking at the results, I think I ended up around 17th overall for the swim, but got 2nd in the relay by a big margin.  There was a young woman relayer who I found out swam almost two minutes faster than I did and had close to the fastest time of everyone in the race!  That was an awesome performance.

T1 (1:29)

The other part I love about a non-wetsuit race is how easy it makes transition.  My entire transition consists of jogging to my bike, taking off my cap and goggles (while jogging), putting on my helmet (darn buckle took an extra second), and jogging with my bike to the bike start.  The only challenge in all this is that "jogging" for me is not a great idea; I have to take that very easy and accept that it is going to cost a little time.

Bike (39:33, 24.3 MPH)

I've done this race before and really liked the bike course, it follows a bunch of roads near my house that I regularly ride on.  However, I found out much to my surprise (should have read the race emails more carefully) the week before the race that they were using a different course this year.  It also goes on familiar roads, but in the opposite direction that I usually go on those roads.  While it isn't a huge deal, knowing the course well is a distinct advantage; you know how to pace various hills depending on whether you can recover on a downhill after, etc.  I did a little recon the Friday before the race and got at least a general idea of the course and what kind of a time I might expect to do.  I figured under 40 minutes was about right.

Unlike some races, I felt pretty good at the start of the bike.  I guess my swim fitness must be coming back a bit.  I managed to get my feet into my shoes within the first couple of minutes and was ready to go.  The most interesting thing to me about the bike leg was the progression of bikes I passed as the race went on.  During the early miles, I was mostly passing people on regular road bikes.  As the miles ticked on, the bike got progressively more fancy till by the end of the ride I was only seeing people on TT bikes with high end race wheels, etc.  I also had the fun of passing one of my local buddies on one of the steeper climbs on the course, giving plenty of time to give him my version of "the look" as I passed. Overall, this was a pretty fun course although I still think I like the old course better.  While there are not a lot of big climbs, there are a surprisingly large number of fast downhill sections; I think I hit 35+ mph half a dozen or more times on descents.  By the end of the ride, the course joined on to familiar territory and I knew based on my time to that point that I should beat my 40 minute goal time and just concentrated on keeping a good effort all the way into the finish.  

Looking at the results after the race, my bike split placed 4th overall, with the three overall race winners all beating my bike split time.  I recognized the name of each of those three guys from previous races and was by no means disappointed to be behind any of them.  Unlike some other longer races where it is quite unfair to compare my bike split against guys who do the whole race and are saving energy for the run, in a sprint these top guys can go very close to all out the entire time, making the comparison a bit more fair.

T2 (:27)

The bike to run relay transition was easy.  Transition was pretty empty when I got there, so it was easy to spot my wife waiting for me.  We handed off the timing chip and she ran off.  I was a bit disappointed to discover another bike already racked right next to mine; I had been hoping to give my wife a bit of a lead on the run.  After chatting with the young man who owned the bike, I realized he trained with one of my biking buddies, so at least we were losing to friends.  His relay partner was the woman who crushed the swim, and they had another fast young man doing their run, so I had no delusions that we were competing for anything other than 2nd place at that point.

Run/Kid Wrangling (33:41)

My wife brought my kids to the race, but obviously couldn't watch them while we transitioned.  A good friend who's husband was doing the race volunteered to watch our kids during the small window when my wife would wait for me in transition and before I could come out of transition to start watching them myself.  I was happy to not have to hunt for them when they showed up at the edge of the transition area and we exchanged hugs.  I quickly packed up my stuff and got changed into street clothes so that we could walk over to the finish line to cheer my wife at the finish.

We got to the finish in time to watch the top overall winners finish and as expected watched the first place relay team fly by.  There was then the slightly nervous wait as we watched for any other big numbers (the relays were all 3000+ numbers).  The kids whiled the time away playing at the edge of the lake.  Apart from worrying about where we placed, I was worried that my wife would hurt herself.  In the last race we did together, she hurt her knee and limped painfully to the finish.  I really didn't want to see that again.  I spotted her coming over the hill and immediately started trying to catch her on film and cheer her on.  Without realizing it at the time, I captured this great shot showing her being passed by the 2nd place relay team within sight of the finish line!  Much to my relief she did not re-injure herself, although she admitted she had to take it a bit easy to prevent her knee from hurting.  I suppose that may have cost us second place, but is a compromise I'm very relieved to hear she took!