Perspective – High Cliff 70.3 Race Report

My first triathlon race of the season was on Saturday up at High Cliff State Park.  Heading into this race, the pace of life has been a little faster than my comfort zone.  A couple of weeks ago I decided to bail on the Kansas 70.3 race last weekend to squeeze another week of training and to get excited about racing.

For this race, it's hard not to talk about the end before the beginning. In the car ride home, Susan told me how she saw a guy getting pulled out of the swim. Later that night, I read the news the triathlete didn't survive.  A married father of two, my heart has been terribly heavy for the Witmer family. 

Considering what that family is going through post-race, reflecting on my race day seems trivial.  Arriving at the start line and crossing the finish line healthy are really the only factors that matter in this race and every race.  I’m pretty sure I’ll never hit a podium spot and (thank God!) I’m not dependent on this sport for putting a roof over my head and food on the table.  I do it for the fun, to challenge myself, and to live a healthy life style.  The only real reason I take a moment to write a race report is so I can learn from my experience.  

The goal for this race was to go in with no expectations, have a fun race, stick to my nutrition plan, and see how the times pan out...and move forward from there.

Swim:

After setting up transition, we walked down to the water and the lake looked smooth as glass. The buoys for the sprint race looked really, really short and the course marked for the 1/2 distance looked really, really long, but I was hoping it was an optical illusion!  I was counting the buoys out, over, and back and was a little concerned that the ones on the way back were very tiny.  

I was in Wave 11 which the waves were grouped with about 50 athletes based on when you signed up.  I thought wave 11 was the last wave, but I was happy there were a couple of more ½ iron waves behind me before the sprint waves went off.

When my wave went off, it wasn't too bad. The water was extremely shallow at the start, so there was some water jogging...then we started swimming. It doesn't matter how many open water swims I do, first race of the season I always have a problem with anxiety and getting settled into the swim. Had I known I was going to bail on Kansas, I probably would have squeezed in one of the sprint/Olympic races in the past couple of weeks just to get the race jitters out of the system, but I didn’t, so I had to deal with it. After cornering the far end I felt like I was finally getting into a rhythm the lake started to get choppy. I’ve swam in tougher conditions, but when a chop comes up like that, it took a little more focus to stay relaxed and get the swim done.  If the buoys on the way back in had been the same as the way out, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but spotting on little tiny balloons in the water was a challenge.  I seem to have stayed on course and my Garmin says a 1.4 swim.  Based on the first race and the conditions, my time being a couple minutes more than I was expecting is an ok starting point.

Bike:

Right out of the T1, there is huge 3/4 mile hill.  Some say it's a cat 5, I'll believe whatever they say.  Overall, I loved the bike course. It doesn't have killer hills that pop up like the IM Madison course, but it's not boring flat like riding around Chicago.  The wind that caused the chop on the swim was out on the bike course and made it interesting.  Nutrition wise, I practiced what I planned.  I was happy with my bike split until I looked at the Garmin data.  This was as probably the most fun I've had on the bike in a while, but I still have a lot of work to do on my cadence to get myself set up for a great run. 

Run:
The course kindly integrated running up the same hill that started the bike route.  Fun stuff.  Then it led into a 6 mile trail loop to complete twice.  Besides the thunderstorm and torrential downpour in the middle of the woods, it was a pretty nice course through the park. 

In triathlon, the phrase gets tossed around often: "There's no such thing as a good bike followed by a bad run."  Without a doubt, I’m 100% on board with the theory.  In the case of the run in this race, it was pretty much a disaster, but wasn’t caused by anything that happened or could have been controlled on the bike.  Essentially, it was about a 13.1 mile walk.  I would rather have a slow jog over having to walk as much as I was forced to do on that segment of the race, but some days it’s just about getting to the finish line, not quitting, and not giving a $@#* what people think about your time.

My official results: 
Swim - 47:00
T1 - 3:39.1
Bike - 3:10
T2 - 5:10
"Run" - 2:57
Time: 7:04

I’ve completed 5 half iron distance races now, and even with having the challenge I had which turned the run into a walk to get to the finish, it was still better than three other 1/2 iron races.  I know it doesn’t speak a lot to those times, but I'll take care of my run issue and I head into my next training block for Racine 70.3 with the confidence that I’m going to have a great race.  This race wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t a PR, it wasn’t one I really wanted to “write home about”, but I’m still here to do it again.  The gift of life…I’ll take it.

Once again, a HUGE shout out to my incredible supporter, SusieQ!  Just when I think it’s a long day for me, I think of how long of a day it was for her…and I’m so incredibly grateful for her encouraging words and all of the support she gives.  Not to mention, if I had to pay someone for all of the car loading, unloading, driving, food preparing, answering the random stupid questions I ask (often repetitively) with the patience of a saint…I would be broke!  :-)

There are not any good pictures from the run or finish, so I'm going to end with two pictures I took of Bixby on my trainer in the past couple of weeks.  She's my indoor cheer leader and no matter how the race turns out, coming home to her I always have a smile on my face.