Sunday, July 17th, 2011
This weekend was the Fairlee Olympic up in Vermont, and I got to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.
RACE CAMPING!
I convinced Sam and a bunch of friends to head up into the mountains to spend some time in the woods. We spent Saturday afternoon playing cornhole, grilling and enjoying some cold beers.
Sam hanging out at the camp site.
Our cozy pre-race accommodations.
Once the sun went down, we started up the fire and roasted up my new favorite pre-race snack. SMORES!
(I love the way the fire is lighting up Sam’s face in this pic.)
Sunday morning came and the birds and the sun were our alarm clock. We broke down our campsite and headed up the road to the race.
I went through my morning nutrition plan with no major changes. The one new tip that I took was my teammate Jill – a flask of my power juice. Some First Endurance PreRace to chug as I am in transition and getting ready to head to the swim. This is my secret weapon.
The most underrated triathlon supplement.
Team Trakkers Pride
The view of the mountains over the swim start.
Suited up in my TYR Hurricane. I freaking LOVE this wetsuit.
Walking with my wave to the starting line.
Coach gave me a different plan (compared to my usual protocol). Kill the first 200m of the swim. One of my biggest mistakes at Quassy was lining up in the way back of the swim wave and playing it super conservative. This time around I worked my up to the very front and got amped up to try to hold on to some fishie feet. It seemed like a lot of other guys in my swim wave were playing it pretty conservative, so I had plenty of room up front. I didn’t even have to fight my way through the pack once the gun went off.
You probably can’t tell from the pic above, the swim course was kind of a disaster. There was a dock right in the middle of our route and one of the buoys drifted away (but we couldn’t even see it from the beach because a boat was in the way. The RD told us to skip the second buoy that floated away, but unfortunately, I couldn’t tell where the hell it was. I couldn’t see any of the damn buoys because my wave’s caps were yellow and so were the buoys. A yellow swim cap at 20m and a big yellow buoy at 200m look absolutely identacle.
Frustrating, but who doesn’t like a challenge? Right? Unfortunately, just about everyone around my wave didn’t skip the second buoy (because we couldn’t see the third) and ended up making the course a LOT longer. So much for that swim course PR I was hoping for….
Swim Time: 30:51 (75/236)
Entering transition.
Taking off my wetsuit/showing off my assets.
Putting on my socks. Riveting, eh?
The bike course was AWESOME. Riding through the green mountains with some great scenery on either side. The route was a pretty simple out and back, but had some nice smooth flats with some light rollers and a few steep out-of-the-saddle climbs. I was feeling really strong and kept attacking, hunting down other guys ahead of me. A few other guys got the best of me, but overall I was climbing up the standings.
Then I looked down and realized I was averaging over 21mph and still felt great. I have never even averaged over 20mph in a training ride… I went with it. God DAMN I love riding my bike.
Side note, does anyone else get some extra satisfaction when passing someone on a disc wheel when you are rocking vanilla training wheels and no aero helmet? Cuz I do.
Bike: 1:10:53 – 21mph (36/236)
The run started off HOT and only got hotter. I dumped the rest of the water from my bike over my head before I even left transition!
I tried to keep my pace in check for the first half, so I could unleash whatever was left for the back half. Despite the heat, I was actually feeling pretty good. I even passed a girl who complimented me on my turnover. Does that mean my running is actually coming back and improving this year?!
It heated up to 95 degrees and when the course wasn’t shaded, it was a freaking nightmare. I just kept running as fast as I could so I could get myself into the shade. And the hills were WAY more than I was expecting. I had to mentally dig deep and think back to some of the really hard hill repeat workouts I’ve knocked out lately to keep my pace up.
In the end, my time definitely suffered because of the heat and the hills, but everyone was suffering from the same course. We were all in it together. It hurt and I couldn’t take in enough water to keep my body cold, but I kept moving forward.
Run: 50:09 (8:02 min/mile) – 60/236
Total Time: 2:36:30 (4/8 in my AG)
So despite a long swim course and a hella hot run course, I managed a 5 minute PR!
A good weekend and my first race camping trip was a big success. I was only 1:40 off of a podium finish! Grrrr…
I still couldn’t be happier. Thanks for reading!
Next up: Beach To Beacon 10k.
And of course, thanks to my awesome sponsors who help me do this triathlon thing every day. I love you all. Rev3, Trakkers, Avia, First Endurance, SBR Sports, All3Sports, TYR, Canari, Recovery Pump and CycleOps.
But more importantly, thanks to my awesome bride-to-be for supporting me me, sleeping on the ground, taking awesome race pictures, cheering me on and hanging out in the sun all day just so I’ll have the motivation of seeing her at the finish line as some extra motivation to keep me going.
I love her the most.
Tags: camping, fairlee triathlon, fairlee vermont, team trakkers, Triathlon | Posted in Race Reports, Triathlon | 3 Comments »
