Monday, June 6th, 2011
Last weekend was once again one of my favorite weekends of the year. REV3 QUASSY!
A killer course, hanging out with my Trakkers, Rev3 and CREW friends and all is right in the world. I initially signed up for this race back in 2009 because it was a “homecoming” for me, just 30 minutes from where I grew up and where my parents still live. This time around, my whole family was out of town so I adopted the Trakkers/Rev3 crew as my family for the weekend and joined the slumber party over at Laura’s house.
With my epic +2 week cold last month and zero training during that time, I wasn’t expecting any miracles. I actually had NO idea how I was going to do. I couldn’t even give Sam predictions on when she should watch out for me to cross the line. I was just hoping to finish under 3 hours/not embarrass myself and have fun while doing it.
But let’s talk about the race.
Pre-Race
I woke up at 5:00 after a “meh” sleep and started mixing up my nutrition bottles and packing the car. Normally I eat cereal every morning as soon as I get up, and I do the same thing before races to avoid giving my stomach any surprises. Unfortunately this morning my stomach was throwing ME a surprise. It wasn’t happy. Instead of trying to force down milk and cereal that might not be so easy to digest, I went with my plan B. Race nutrition as breakfast.
I mixed up a flask of EFS, a serving of PreRace and threw a flask of Liquid Shot into my pocket. I slowly slurped on each as I drove to Quassy and got ready to race. My stomach was happy. I got some high quality calories and sugars in me. I was hydrated. All was right with the world.
Rev3 hooked me up with an HD video camera to film the bike course. It was a little added pressure, but it is a good thing I’m a (slightly) better cyclist than swimmer and figured I’d be passing a few fish out there on the bike course and I wouldn’t look like a chump. It was also a little added incentive to stay honest and not draft (not that I do that in the first place). I checked out the rig that they set up on my bike over night and was more worried/excited about coming back with some cool footage than a solid race time.
I socialized a little with some of teammates and friends, lubed up on Tri-Slide, hopped into my wetsuit and made my way to the swim start. I was feeling completely relaxed. No pre-race jitters. Just ready for a nice hard workout with a few hundred of my closest friends.
The Swim
I was one of the first waves and made my way through the corral. I lined up on the beach in the very back of the pack, dead center, without a care in the world. Clearly I didn’t have much of a strategy for the swim start. I’m no fish, but I was faster than a lot of guys that lined up ahead of me and had to battle my way through them for the first third of the swim. It was nice having feet to follow and leapfrog, but these feet were to slow to follow and didn’t do me too much good.
Other than that, I felt great and was LOVING my first race in my new TYR Hurricane 5. I never had a complaint about my old suit, but this thing feels SO much better. My shoulders felt so free, unrestricted and speedy. Once I finally zig zagged my way through the packs, I made my way to some open water, fell into a nice pace and was able to dial up the effort a little. Towards the end of the swim course, I had two guys on either shoulder and we were battling it out. We were literally inches from each other (unfortunately I was in the middle) but managed to hold a straight line and not bash each other’s heads in as we approached the finish.
I crawled out of the water in a decent time. Not my best, but good despite my poor choice in starting positions. (What a rookie mistake.) I even spotted Sam as I ran up the grass through transition and gave her a big smile.
Time: 27:13 (1:52 min/100m)
The Bike
A speedy transition and I was off on course. It was a little cool to start, but easily warmed up. For the first 10 miles or so, my teammate Josh and I swapped places. It was good to have a friendly face out there. I knew that is a strong cyclist, so if I could stay with him for a while (without blowing up) I’d be in a good place. We even had a little parade for a while between Josh in front, me in the middle and another teammate Mark behind me (all legal distances). We swallowed up some guy who yelled out “Where is Trakkers from anyway?!” I just responded “EVERYWHERE! I’m Boston. Georgia is up ahead. New York is behind me!”
Triathlon is definitely an individual sport, but it is a blast racing with a team full of friends.
Despite a hilly course, my avg speed was +20mph for a while. Not what I was expecting, but I felt strong and went with it. My favorite part was some of the downhills. I hit +45mph at least three times and LOVED it. I was yelling out the speeds from my bike computer so that when I reviewed the footage from the HD camera under my aerobars I could see what it looks like to go that fast on camera. Eventually the fast descents wiggled away the spoke magnet on my front wheel so I couldn’t tell how fast I was going anymore. Bummer. I gotta glue that sucker in place.
A good ride. Not a major breakthrough, but I was REALLY surprised how much bike fitness stuck with me this year. I guess I’m a little stronger than I thought.
Time: 1:19:30 (19.38mph)
The Run
While in HIMs, I usually let my legs slowly settle into running again before I dial it up to my race pace, I decided to just not listen to my legs, stick to my race pace and let them adjust. I t worked too! I stick to low 7:00 min/miles for the first 2-3 miles and felt good.
Then the hills came. And kept coming. They were brutal. I cried. But just a little. And they were masked in sweat so no one noticed and it was okay. They definitely took a toll on my legs, but I still felt alright and kept pushing through. The one thing about both the Oly and HalfRev run courses at Quassy is that they both finish the same. One. Big. Nasty. Hill. You can just barely hear the music in the distance to motivate you up it, but it is KILLER. It totally makes you work for it. But after that, it is flat and wide open all the way to the finish.
Happiness.
Time: 51:25 (8:18 min/mile)
Total: 2:42:02
I was only :30 seconds off of my PR. And on the hardest Oly course that I have ever done! Clearly a major surprise given my expectations. A good time, a great race and I can’t wait to race it again next year.
Tags: olympic triathlon, quassy, rev3 quassy, rev3 triathlon | Posted in Race Reports, Triathlon | 10 Comments »
(click the pic to see the full version)
