Coming off a very hard race at St. Croix that included a bike crash I knew it would be a crap shoot to be ready for a very challenging Columbia 5150 course (the hardest Oly distance race I've seen) 2 weeks later. My body was still in a healing state from the crash up until race day and I think this probably impacted overall muscular recovery leading into the event - based upon how I felt early in the week I should have just scratched this race. When Torsten and I talked about doing this race it was understood I probably wouldn't be 100% and it could turn into a hard training day vice a good race result. We've pretty much gone away from doing "training races", if I race I want to be in the best form and position possible to race FTW but I was willing to roll the dice here since it was a local event. Honestly, as soon as the bike leg started I regretted my decision to race this event.
Pre-Race: Fellow wattie teammate and all around good dude Caldwell Clarke and I met up for pre-race check-in and course recon. Race note: CC took 1st clydesdale in the under 39 division. The bike course was pretty much one climb after another non-stop for 25 miles. It had rained all day off and on and the trend seemed to be indicate rain for race day. Flashback 2 weeks to St. Croix racing in the rain and crashing. I immediately started to get very nervous about crashing again which carried over into zero sleep the night before the race which left me waking up zapped of energy. Lack of sleep mixed with cold/rainy weather is not a good recipe for me. Bummer!!
Swim: Swim course was pretty straight forward just a big loop around a lake. Water temp was 69F which meant my first opportunity to try out the new custom Wattie Ink Blueseventy Helix. Just as I was heading down to do a quick warm-up the RD calls everyone out of the water 20min before swim start?! Not good for me. I was starting in the Elite AG wave (male and female) and it was WAY bigger than usual and included the 2012 USAT AG national champion - 46 males and 17 females so I knew the start was going to be absolute chaos. Not sure why but I was very cold as soon as we got into the water, almost shivering. As soon as the gun went off it was absolute chaos until the first buoy about 500M away. We basically had a pack of 63 people all swimming almost the exact same pace. After the first turn it spread out a bit and I was able to get into a rythm. We ended up swimming into some current (wind related I believe) on the back side that slowed things down a bit. Out of the water a touch over 23min - CRAP!!! Looking at the pro times it seemed everyone was about 1 min slow and the garmin had the course at 1.05 miles so not an absolute disaster for me but still put me way off the front group.
Target time: 21-22min
Actual time: 23:37
T1: I was really light headed when I got out of the water. May have been due to me being cold, who knows. Slower than expected T1 to get the HR down and then up a gigantic hill onto the bike course.
Bike: Hands down the toughest Oly distance bike course I've been on, constant climbs with 1700ft+ of gain. The strategy here was to ride as hard as possible to try and close the bike gap. We figured I could ride this course right around 1:00 flat if I rode my watts around 350-60. As soon as I got on the bike I knew it was game over. My quads were shot, fatigued and no juice. The legs were flat as a pancake and I couldn't sustain any power. The gamble had not paid off. I spent the remainder of the bike trying to restart the engine but just couldn't hold any sustained power and just started riding stupid spiking my watts too much on climbs etc. The course was wet and I wasn't willing to take any risks and crash again so I gave up some time there as well. Full disclosure - I didn't want to be out there anymore halfway through the bike, I just had no business racing on this day. Rolled into T2 a little disappointed and not really sure where I was in the field.
Target time: 1:00:00
Actual time: 1:06:12
Run: Another super tough Oly distance run course, again, the toughest 10k I've done in an Olympic distance race. Up and down the entire run with some very steep downhills which made it very difficult to get any speed going - about 700ft total gain over the entire course. There was one uphill in the back of the course at 12% grade that was BRUTAL!! I really couldn't get things going on the run until about the 5k mark when I warmed up a bit and started sweating but by this point it was way too late. Passed maybe 8-9 guys on the run but not nearly enough to put me anywhere close to the top 10. Given how my legs felt on the bike and difficulty of the course I was pretty happy running 37min.
Target Time: 35:00
Actual Time: 37:20
Position: 6th M30-34, 20th M Elite amateur, 52nd overall
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