I had already discovered that triathlons are pretty fun when you only do two of the three disciplines; I can't run but have done lots of relays where I swam and biked. Yesterday I found out that just doing one leg might be even better. For the first time at a triathlon I was signed up to just do the bike leg of a relay thanks to an invite from the AFC list searching for a biker.
Due to the way the relay came together, I met my teammates for the first time race morning. They both seemed really nice and not surprisingly there was a bit of gentle probing about whether we would be competitive or not. No one was taking it too seriously, but it would be fun to place and seemed possible. I thought our biggest competition was likely to come from the relay parked next to ours that had a super nice bike (Scott Plazma w/ full DI2, Zipp disc, etc) and a biker that had recently done well at Savageman and was prepping for IM Florida. I also saw my triathlete pro buddy Suzzy Serpico who was doing the run for a relay as a quasi-training day (also getting ready for IM Florida) and we assumed their team would be fast too. So at the start, we mentally slotted our team as contending for third place.
The only thing that seemed to be wrong was that my power meter wasn't registering. I looked down and noticed that the little magnet on the frame had gotten jostled to a different position and so it wasn't picking up. So much for the test ride pre-checkin where everything worked perfectly! This wasn't a huge tragedy, but did mean that I would need to pace myself by feel instead of by checking my watts. The super nice bike guy had left a minute or two before I did, so I was pretty surprised to pass by him on the first climb up Homewood road less than 10 minutes into the ride. I hoped I wasn't going out too hard and feared that he might pass back later. I had the first sign that I was going faster than expected at the 10 mile point. I had told my wife my guess at splits at that point on the course since you pass it four times and would thus be a good place to try to watch. I had told her to expect me the first time at about :30. I hit it at about :25. I still felt in control of my pace, so I chose not to adjust my effort, just keeping it steady and comfortable. The first lap of the course was really fun; there were tons of riders for both the half distance and the simultaneous Olympic distance on the course. I find seeing, passing and routing for so many riders to be a blast. I finished the first lap and the half way point, looked at my time and was shocked to see 1:07. I had told my team mates to expect about 2:30 since a previous year on this course I had done 2:29 or so. In transition, one volunteer came up to me and seeing my full on serious looking kit (awesome AFC skin suit, aero helmet, etc) jokingly said, "What are you going to do, a 2:15?" I laughed that off and said "Not on this course!". Naturally at the halfway point I'm starting to wonder if 2:15 might actually be realistic. At that point I was also worried that I might have massively screwed up my pacing. I felt fine, but it didn't seem realistic.
On the second lap I spent a little extra time at the crest of each climb making sure to drink to hopefully avoid cramping or bonking. The field also got a lot sparser, which sapped the fun and motivation a bit. Almost all of the Oly riders were off the course by that point and I was starting to reach the front of the field of the Half race. Fortunately, each time I thought that I had been solo for a long time, I would catch another glimpse of a rider up the road and concentrate on trying to catch them. I managed to maintain a pretty similar pace for the second lap and with about 10 miles left to go, I was pretty sure I was going to be able to maintain the effort. Naturally I was mentally calculating just what I needed to do to hit 2:15 and thought it looked borderline possible. After a final hard effort down Rt 108, I turned into the finish and saw my bike computer reading 2:15:xx and an average speed just under 24 mph. I realized I was going to potentially surprise my runner quite a bit, so came into transition screaming pretty loudly hoping to get her attention. After a slight delay she came up, grabbed the timing chip from my leg and ran off. I was happy to see that I was the first relay biker in to transition and the waiting began to see how big a lead we had. About 10 minutes after I came in, the second team arrived, so we were predicting it might be quite close for first place.
I'm not quite sure what to attribute my unexpected time.
I usually am able to predict my time pretty accurately, but off by 15
minutes seemed huge. It certainly helped to not have to swim first. It
also helped that the weather conditions were ideal. I also have spent
the summer doing significantly more volume riding (at the expense of not
swimming). I didn't feel faster during that time, but this may have
been the payoff of that increased volume. Or maybe it was the new AFC
skin suit :)
After my leg of the race, I chatted with our swimmer for a bit and then met up with my family and another family friend who did the Oly race as his first triathlon. I walked my kids back to their car, returned to the finish line and then when my team's runner finished (at almost exactly her predicted time) we ran in to the finish as a team. After finishing, we checked the results and at least at the time it looked like we ended up first of the 21 relays. Due to other commitments (two kid soccer games), I wasn't able to stick around for the official results and the award ceremony. Hopefully those initial results held up and we ended up winning. Regardless of the overall result, I had a great race and really enjoyed myself. I just hope that if I race again next year the conditions are this nice.
For the Strava nerds, here is the activity: http://www.strava.com/activities/87349390
