Last weekend was the Boulder 70.3 triathlon. This blog post was mostly going to be a race report, but I realised just how long it's been since I posted anything... a lot has happened since then, and much of it is useful back-story for the Boulder race.
So, back-story it is.
Last time I posted here was after the Atomic Man duathlon, a tough race (10km run, 40km bike, 5km run) held in White Rock, New Mexico. Well, only six days after Atomic Man I was treading water at the start line of Ironman 70.3 St. George, in a rather beautiful part of Utah. Largely due to laziness, but partly because of eye problems, I hadn't been to the pool much. My cycling and running had seemed to be on top form though.
How did that race pan out? Well, the girl and I had driven over to St. George and were staying at a gorgeous B&B. (She likes the town and B&B so much that she wants me to do the race again.) The race was on Saturday and we headed over to Sand Hollow to get the bike set up in T1. Sand Hollow is perhaps the nicest-looking spot for a swim. EVER (I'll try to find a picture). When I was there on race day I was less thrilled. The water was only as cold as at Ironman Wales, but seemed to be affecting me more. My swim was as glacial as the water felt, and I was glad when my hands finally thawed enough for me to get my socks and shoes on, and then out on the bike.
They laid on a fantastic bike course too. It was what you could call an "honest" course -- plenty of climbing, some flat, good opportunities to catch some wind. Thankfully the wind was fairly minimal, and the heat of the day didn't arrive until much later. The second state park on the course (after Sand Hollow) was Snow Canyon, which is a beautiful hill climb that just gets steeper as you go. Of course, what goes up must come down and the descent from the top of Snow Canyon is fast and on good roads.
Then to the run. The baking hot, totally exposed run. Did I mention the giant hill that covers the first few miles? No? Well, it's there. Actually, the way out wasn't too bad. For a little under half the run I even found myself matching another guy stride-for-stride and we chatted while we ran. The only real negative part of the run was running back down the big hill towards the finish. I had a little pain in my left ankle whenever I tried to open up with some speed on the downhill. Maybe I hadn't fully recovered from my sprint finish at Atomic Man, maybe it was new. Regardless, I slowed a little and then added some speed for the flat last half mile to the finish line.
Total time: 5:16:02, for 299th position overall and 54th in my age group.
I have to say that I was unhappy with my transitions, and I have only myself to blame for a slow, tough swim. Overall the experience was overwhelmingly positive though and I wasn't unhappy with my race time for such a tough course. The course was nice and the atmosphere was great.
Three (very lazy) weeks later I was at the Jemez Mountain Trail Run with the girl. She'd been looking forward to the 13.4 mile trail "half-marathon", so we signed up for that together. Of course, I was under strict orders not to run with her, and to go ahead and race. The race is on technical, rocky trails and has about 2400ft of elevation gain (half of it coming in one monster climb). Given that, I was hoping to come in under 2 hours, and figured that under 2:10 was likely. The speed at the start of the race was amazing - I wasn't sure whether all of those runners knew what they were doing, but it turns out that most of them are just FAST. Anyway, I was doing well until about mile 3, which is when I first got stabbing, cramping pain. It was at the bottom of, and off to the side of, my abs. I had to walk several times before I hit mile 4, and a couple more times towards the end of the race. It was a hot day, in the end. Despite the cramps I finished in 2:18:06 (29th overall), a respectable time but I hadn't had a lot of fun out there.
Happily I turned my attention back to cycling! Next on my radar was the 41st annual Tour de Los Alamos, what they call "the oldest bicycle race in the southwest". For the last three years I've raced this in the Citizens category; the category for folks who aren't USA Cycling licensed racers. I've won the 30-39 age group every year (twice in a sprint finish) and had improved my overall position from 7th, to 3rd, to 2nd. This year I'd upped the ante by racing as a licensed rider, debuting at the Adoption Exchange Classic. The citizens' race is one loop of about 27 miles, plus a couple of miles of "neutral parade" through town. Category 4 and 5 riders get to race for two laps of the course!
My winter had seen me put a lot of hours in on the stationary trainer, using TrainerRoad and training videos from The Sufferfest, and it really felt like it had paid off. My riding was stronger than it had ever been, and my plan for the race was to stay near the front of the pack, and go with any breaks I thought had a chance of surviving. My (perhaps optimistic) goal was to finish in the top 5 - mostly because, dammit, that's MY loop. I've ridden the course probably approaching 100 times. The race started at a relatively gentle pace. In opposition to last year, I felt no compulsion to drive the pace on the opening hill to shed people before the long straight downhill past Bandelier National Monument. The plan was simple: sit in, stay close to the front, go with the breaks. So I was sitting in.
As we got into the neutral zone marking the descent into Ancho Canyon I was chatting to a guy I'd met at the Adoption Exchange Classic back in April. I remember saying "The climb out of here is where the attacks usually come", but I was expecting it on lap 2. Except as the hill got steeper I found myself in second place and the guy in front was pulling away. Quickly. I figured that if I caught him, he'd slow up and wait for the pack - break nullified. Except that didn't quite work...
I hadn't realised that I was also dropping the pack on the way out of the canyon, and as I was fading slightly, trying desperately to get into the leader's slipstream, I heard a laboured voice call out "C'mon, you're nearly there!" Glancing back I only saw two people, then a gap before the peloton. My legs took that as a good sign and I charged up to the leader, closely followed by my fellow chasers. The leader sat up slightly as he heard us catch him, likely figuring we were the peloton, so I called out "We've got a gap."
The next 40 miles were a torturous, yet oddly awesome, ride in a four-man paceline. The referee on the motorcycle kept pulling up alongside us to give us splits back to the chasing riders. "20 seconds", "40 seconds", "1 minute 15 seconds". Apparently while trying to chase us down, three more riders had gotten away from the peloton. There were a few terrible minutes where the chase group was pulling back some time, but we got to the final climb of the race with a 1:40 lead. And that was where the teamwork and cameraderie of the break dissolved. Our little group fractured and I was left in a battle for 3rd or 4th. When I got to the line I stopped, got off my bike, and managed a controlled collapse to the ground. Third place; the hardest and best executed race of my life. And a podium in my home town race! Best day of the year, right there.
Final stats: 3rd place (Senior Men's Category 5), time 2:39:21.
So then all I had to do was use the rest of my summer to switch back to triathlon training and get ready to race in Boulder. Easy, right?
(To be continued...)
