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Rev3 Quassy Olympic Race Report

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 »

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 »

Rev3 Quassy Prep

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

When racing, race hard.

When volunteering, volunteer hard.

And that was the plan of the day.

Me and a bunch of the team trakkers crew volunteered at the mile one aid station of the Oly run course. Earlier this week I made a trip to the local party store and bought up all the green junk that they had. Pom poms, mardi gras beads, noise makers, grass skirts, it all got thrown in my basket. Needless to say, we were the most exciting/motivating aid station of the whole day.

I was able to do enough hip shaking to distract a few athletes from their leg paid while handing out sports drink. Mission: Accomplished.

But ultimately, that much cheering can really wear a guy a guy out. Not wanting to waste all my energy before MY actual race starts tomorrow, it was clearly time for an afternoon nap before dinner with the fam!

I will be wearing one of these sweet new Trakkers devices, so go to this URL after 7am tomorrow to follow my little blipping green dot move along the Rev3 course in real time and cheer me on while still in your pajamas.

http://live.trakkersgps.com/events.aspx

Tags: rev3 quassy, trakkers | Posted in Triathlon | 1 Comment »

Rev3 Quassy Bike Course Tips

Monday, May 31st, 2010

There is only one week left until Rev3 Quassy!

I’ve been looking forward to this race since last year. The race was a blast, but the course totally destroyed me. It is by far a PW half and I definitely have something left to prove.

This year I’m coming back with a whole new perspective on my training, a sweet new tri bike and a year of built up adrenaline to prove to myself that I have it in my to rock the course. I’m definitely not hoping for a PR since it is the hardest half I’ve ever done, but I’m at least hoping for a much smoother race day execution.

It is one of my favorite rides and when I heard that the RD made some changes, I must admit I was a little worried. After pre-riding it last week, all my worries were washed away. There are some slight tweaks to the course, but its personality sill remains the same. I’m still very much a happy triathlete.

For all my buddies out there that I’ll see in CT next week, here are some tips for destroying the bike course instead of letting it destroy you.

The first two miles is a nice easy downhill to help get your legs underneath you, but after that it is pretty constant undulation. Don’t bother waiting for that long flat section to hammer it home. It doesn’t exist.
90% of the climbs aren’t all that much of an elevation gain. What makes it challenging is that there are so many of them and they are big enough where you can’t just charge the downhills to let your momentum carry you over so you can easily wear yourself out if you aren’t careful.
While there plenty of fun descents, I can’t think of many (if any at all) that end in a smooth flat section where you can keep that downhill momentum going and just cruise. Almost every descent is immediately followed by a climb of some degree.
On the other end, just about every climb is a little windy. So don’t go charging up hill around a corner, assuming that the road peaks just past your line of sight. It doesn’t.
The pavement is actually pretty smooth. This is New England, so there a few sketchy areas where you’ll have to navigate around some sizable potholes and cracks in the road. That is inevitable. There are also some pretty smooth and freshly paved areas, which make speedy descents A-MAZING.
The bike course isn’t overly technical, but you are gently winding around the course the entire way. There are no straight shots where you can bomb down hills with full sight of the road ahead, but nothing is so sharp that you have to hang on to the brakes for dear life, except for two parts.
My favorite descent is just after you take a right onto Thomaston Road (RT 109) at around mile 17. At first it isn’t a steep drop and slowly sneaks up on you, so it is good to know about ahead of time. The grade slowly increases and before you know it you’ll be winding through gentle turns at close to 40 mph. I love it. Towards the bottom, you pass a big dam on your left and take a 90 degree sweeping right turn. It isn’t so sharp that you have to touch the brakes, so keep that downhill momentum going and USE IT.
At about mile 31 (Camp Dutton Road) and 45 (Hard Hill Road) there are two sharp, downhill left turns that are definitely worth being aware of. Rev3 will have flaggers out making sure that everyone is playing it a little cautious and blocking traffic from the intersections
When you take the Left onto Rt 254 at about mile 23, prepare for a long hard climb until about mile 30. Say your prayers at the church at the bottom and make sure you are ready for some suffering. There are a few false flats and short downhills, but you keep going up-up-up until you turn off of 254 at its very end. At around mile 31, you’ll be at the highest point in the course, but don’t let that get into your head. Just because you are ultimately headed downhill, there is plenty of climbing left. Even the last 5 miles have some serious climbs left to tackle.
Because there is so much undulating terrain, make sure you focus on efficient shifting. You should be shifting a lot to avoid burning your quads out while climbing or missing out on some extra speed coming down the other end of any one of the million climbs.
Personally, I know that I’m pretty bad about being diligent about my hydration on hilly courses. I’m probably better off drinking uphill (instead of coasting a little on the downhills or patiently waiting for that mysterious flat section). Just something that I have to be aware of.
If you did the race last year, the main difference that you’ll notice is that you won’t come back into T2 from the same way you did. Last year you had a quick downhill. This year? Not so much. Enjoy that gentle climb all the way in to the finish.
Oh yeah, the run course is no piece of cake either, but that is a different story entirely.