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Rev3 Quassy Race Report

Monday, June 7th, 2010

The morning of the race, after a full day of perfect nutrition, hydration, visualization and rest, I woke up to THIS.

See that red pin to the left? That is where the race was.

See that massive blog of angry just west of the red pin? That is what made me poop myself. Twice. Needless to say was mentally preparing myself for a pretty epic race. During the drive to the race site, I eventually tricked myself into looking forward to hydroplaning the entire bike and splashing through puddles for 13 miles.

Swim

Pre race chat with Toby

I’m not going to lie. I was looking forward to a little bit of a PR on the swim. I usually crawl out of the water at around 37 minutes, but have been doing a lot more swimming this season and would have been psyched if I didn’t have to push it too hard and could come out sub 35:00. Those hopes quickly went in the garbage within the first 400 meters of the swim.

I’ve had some pretty aggressive swim starts before, but this was just insane. I positioned myself just like I usually do, in the back(ish) of the middle but found myself at the center of a huge pack still at around 500 meters. Forearms were crashing down across my back. Multiple sets of feet were splashing right in front of my face. I was doing my best just to keep from getting punched and decided to play it safe and head to the outside of the course. It was going to be a long day and I had no reason to spend my competitive juices on so early in the swim.

I felt like I was holding a pretty decent pace. My shoulders were a little tight, but I was staying just left of a pretty decent sized group and was drafting off of some safe feet when I could, but the aggressiveness just never let up, especially as some of the super speedy guys in later waves caught up to my wave (we were the first to go after the pros).

At just about the halfway point, I’m convinced that I firmly planted my heel directly into some dude’s forehead. Feeling the echo of some guy’s scull reverberate through your leg is not a cool feeling, but it has to be better than what he felt. No joke, I felt like I seriously clobbered that guy directly with my heel, full force. This is my way of saying “my b.” I was swimming straight and had a normal kick, he must have just been so speedy coming up behind me that his head caught up to me before his hands did. But the race goes on…

I ended up exiting the water at 38:52 (2:01 min/100m).

I wasn’t too happy about it, but considering how I took a pretty conservative line around the swim course (and I ended up drifting more than usual…), I’m sure my pace was a little faster since I traveled a little more than the 1.2 miles that were marked off.

Bike

T1 was uneventful and relatively quick. I had cut off the last two inches of my wetsuit and lubed up plenty with TriSlide so my heels slipped right out and I was good to go.

I stuck to the nutrition plan that I laid out in my last post and started sucking down on my first bottle of EFS Liquid Shot mixed into a water bottle.

The roads were all pretty wet, but somehow the mega storm of the century was still holding off. Except for a few sprinkles, it was pretty decent weather. Humid, but otherwise cool and great for racing.

The hills hurt just as much as I expected and I was feeling really strong. Besides letting my upper body bounce around above the handlebars like I was rocking out to some sick beats while climbing up one of the major hill (thanks again Sonja for calling me out on my totally lame form), I had a pretty nice groove going and was having a blast. A perfect example of a bad habit that I’ve been working very hard to break all season, but when my mind goes into “race mode” all that goes out the window and I climb up hills like I’m pedaling a moon bounce… ::sigh::

Rolling through mile 29 we passed the Trakkers aid station with all of my teammates and friends who had raced the Oly the day before. They were hootin’ and hollerin’ and it was awesome to suck in all their energy. I even got flashed by Ryan and for some reason I instantly decided to squirt him with some extra water in the bottle I just picked up. I’m not exactly sure why. Strange unexplainable reaction, but I thought it was funny.

Ryan, I hope I didn’t get you too wet buddy. Thanks for the laugh.

Unlike Knoxville where I was just smiling and having a blast the whole time, Quassy was all about getting down to business. Immediately after the Trakkers aid station I hunkered back down and kept on cranking.

I eased up the pace a little during the last five miles and focused on taking in some extra water (to avoid a repeat of the dehydration issues I had on the run last year). Meg went flying past me and I was SO tempted to go chasing after her. I decided to use my better judgment (knowing that she is a super speedy runner and trying to chase her out of T2 would be dangerous) and let her disappear in the distance in front of me.

I knew I was capable of hitting around 3:00 from riding the course two weeks ago, but knew that the run was going to really challenge me so I was aiming for somewhere between 3:05-3:10 so I could get ready to unleash whatever I had left once I got on the run. I felt like I handled the run pretty well. Strong enough pace without having to worry about not saving enough for the run.

Time: 3:11:46 (17.58 mph)

This was definitely on the slow end of my predictions, but I was happy with it. For such a challenging course, it followed my plan to the letter and felt strong coming into T2.

Run

I rushed through transition, packed two fuel belt bottles and an EFS Liquid Shot flask into my pockets and started the last part of my trek to the finish line.

While I normally struggle to find my legs after the run, apparently all the BRick workouts this year paid off. I didn’t feel super speedy (which would have been a great surprise) but I was able to get a nice rhythm going. I started checking the time at every mile to keep my pace under control until at least mile 4 or 5 where I planned to reassess how I felt.

I was only looking at the minutes and seconds, so it took me four miles to realize that my watch had frozen half way through the bike and I wasn’t actually doing perfect 10:00 min/mile pace over and over. Crap. It wouldn’t even let me tell the time. I’ve gotta replace that thing ASAP. For a $25 garage sale purchase five years ago, my Polar HRM was a steal but I need to invest in some new goodies that are more reliable.

The run hurt, but I was doing a LOT better than last year. I had to walk up some hills (and even some flats) but I mostly focused on listening to my body and making smart decisions.

Example: I have this theory that whenever I’m dehydrated and working out, I can feel my pulse in my head. When that thump came back to my skull. I stopped, tossed down a little water from my fuel belt bottle and walked for a minute or two to help it absorb instead of just sitting in my stomach.

While the hills were relentless and were tearing everyone apart, the humidity only made things more insane. I just couldn’t cool my body off. Any water that the kick-ass volunteers splashed on me or that I dumped on my head just sat there. Nothing was evaporating. I felt like I was a giant running sponge. Thankfully I decided to run with my Fastwitchs. This was my first time testing out the drain holes in the bottom. Unlike my old Asics trainers, these things didn’t soak up all that much water and were WAY more comfortable to run in while wet.

The last half mile of the run course was just some sick joke. A giant, straight hill just out of earshot of the finish line. As you come up to the base you can look up and see all the athletes ahead of you practically crying as they go up.

Every single person I saw in front of me on the hill was walking at some point, but I refused. I knew how close we were to the finish and was going to take them down. Slow and steady I increased my pace and knocked down four guys until I reached the top and let loose. I could hear their pace quicken behind me as they tried to hold on, but I must have had too much ground on them to respond. It was awesome having those rabbits to chase and take down on my way to the finish.

Granted I was only really competing with myself for the first 70 miles, but throwing a little mano-a-mano (x4) action for the last .3 miles is always exciting.

Run: 2:21:09 (10:47 min/mile)

The clock stopped for me at 6:15:44

That is a full 13 minutes faster than last year!

The End

I couldn’t be happier with my race. Of course there are things I’d go back and tweak (including doing more tempo run workouts), but that will always be the case for any 70 mile race. Ultimately, I had a plan, I nailed it and had a blast the whole time.

Great event. Killer course. Awesome teammates. I can’t think of any better way to spend a weekend.

I’m nowhere near speedy enough to bringing home age group hardware, but check out all my fast teammates.

And more importantly, a great weekend spent showing Momma Bull what her son is capable of. Major thanks to my mom and my girlfriend Sam for coming out to spectate and take pictures. Knowing that they would be there screaming my name each time I came through transition was more motivation than they’ll ever know.

Up next: Reevaluating my FullRev Cedar Point training plan. Stay Tuned!

Tags: half ironman, rev3 quassy | Posted in Nutrition, Race Reports, Triathlon | 12 Comments »