National Triathlon (Age Group) Championships
Omaha, NE, Aug 2017
National Triathlon (Age Group) Championships
Omaha, NE, Aug 2017
My objective was to get one of the slots for the 2018 Triathlon (Age Group) World
Championships in Australia. At the National Champs, the top 18 in each age group were guaranteed
slots for Worlds. The slots "might" go as deep as 25.
I was a triathlon early adopter, having started them in 1985 after running and
then cycling intercollegiate. For >30 years I'd serially trained hard and
competed for around four years, and then either burned out or got some long term
injury. Training would then get reduced to some minimum intended to keep me from
getting pear shaped, then after four or five years, I'd get my mojo back and I'd
be back training two-four hours per day. I was pretty serious about this sort of
thing. For example, during the 2003-2007 come-back, with three infants, I was getting up at 3AM for three hours of training before the work-day.
Come-back #4 ended in late 2007 when, once again, I burned out and walked away. 
Eight years later. In 2015 I finally figured out a swimming technique flaw
that had been causing shoulder problems and I gradually started
swimming more. A year later I started cycling again, and soon thereafter I was
training seriously--meaning double-daily workouts. The next year, 2017, I
started racing again--somehow having aged into the
55-60 age group. I was no where near as fast as I'd been ten years prior, but my
gray-haired competition was even worse off.
For six months I traveled to races around the various
southeastern states, but I did not find any fast old guys. Therefore,
even though I was still in the first year of come-back #5", it seemed like a World
Championships slot might be within my grasp.
The race.
I packed up my bike and flew to Omaha. Only the top 10% of each age group get
invited to the national champs, so I expected this race to be very different
from what I'd become used to. Instead of a few serious competitors among the
masses, I expected that every single participant would be pretty fast.
I had signed up for the Olympic distance race; 1mile swim, 25mile ride,
and a 10km run. As a youngster, this used to be my best distance. The charm of
the 2- 2/12 hour race is that it's just long enough to make one's opponents
suffer. Doing the Olympic distance was a
calculated risk. I'd been doing shorter "Sprint distance" races lately--I'd not done an
Olympic distance in a decade. It takes experience to pace one's effort level
across the 2 1/2 hour effort, such that you're going as hard as hell, but not quite so hard that you'll
unravel prematurely. On the one hand I
had to ride my ass off and crush everyone, yet I still needed to have the enough
left that I could run a decent 10km and hold the position earned
on the bike. The final leg, the 10km run, is mostly about survival. Although a
triathlon is three events, fully half of the time is spent on the bike.
Therefore when one is metering out their precious reserves of strength, the ride
is the place to spend it. Inevitably, when it comes to the run, I don't have a
lot left. The run becomes a suffering contest. I dig deep and try to survive.
I'd intended to do an Olympic distance race about a
month prior as a tune-up, but some hamstring problems interfered. As a result,
as a feel for how hard I could push during the hour I'd be on the bike, all I
had was a vague 10 year old recollection of a stronger me. That was worrisome.
The transition area was packed with the gear of a couple thousand participants, each
location specified by a little placard displaying a competitor's race number. A
lot of work had gone into that. I estimated there were $5 million worth of bikes
in the transition zone. This was the
biggest triathlon I'd ever done.
The water was warm and that was bad news. They were not going to let us wear
wetsuits. With no competitive swimming background, the swim is by far my weakest
event. Unlike cycling and running, swimming is mostly technique, and the
buoyancy of a wetsuit compensates a lot for weak technique. In triathlons, I
often have the fastest bike split of the entire race, and the fastest run split
in my age group. So if I was allowed to wear a wetsuit, my sole weakness was
going to be mitigated. But if I couldn't wear a wetsuit, my entire race would be a battle to
make up the three to five minutes I'd lose in the one mile swim.
Race day.
I left my cheap hotel early and with a huge bag of gear on my back, I rode
the three miles to the race venue. It was three hours before race start--plenty
of time to figure things out. I needed to
understand exactly how we got from the water to our bikes, the last half mile of
the bike course, how I would get my bike to it's rack, and then my route running out of the transition area.
Finally, I needed to know the last half mile
of the run course. During a race I become a crazed axe-murderer with no brain
cells left to figure out anything. Therefore every critical navigation detail
has to be already understood. A little thing like, "once I rack my bike and put
my running shoes on, do I turn left and run past the other bikes, or do I turn
right?" could mean defeat. Knowing the course exactly is especially true
for the end of the race. If I was absolutely exhausted but needed to outkick someone
to the tape, I'd need to know the exact layout of the finish. A 50meter
misunderstanding of the exact location of the finish, could easily mean doom.
I also needed to do both a run and swim warm-up. For some reason I never really
understood, it takes me at least 300 meters to remember how to swim. Swimming is
like ballet. Decent technique looks easy but is actually incredibly difficult.
The transition area was going to close one hour prior to race start, for no
reason I really understood. That meant that everything I might need in the last
hour of recon, warm up, and the swim, had to be in my hands.
To my very great surprise, the race officials were not letting us get into the
water and swim a bit for a warm up. That seemed really strange, and since I
needed an honest 15 minutes to slowly remember how to swim, this was also trouble. So, risking DQ, I
walked down the lake for 4-500 yards until I found a tiny cove that just barely
hid me from the big dock that was the swim-start. The little cove held some kind of pumping station, the exact purpose of
which I hoped not to learn first-hand. I paddled around a bit. No
one was the wiser and I wasn't sucked into to become part of the Omaha water supply.
The mile swim. They put my age group of a hundred, or
so, in the water. We had three minutes in the water before the
swim start and I got kinda anxious because it was clear that I didn't have
enough warm up yet. I resolved to just start slow and easy, and concentrate very
hard getting my technique back. Once I started "getting it," I could push harder.
When the gun went off, I paused for a second and then headed
out. The delay was intended to help keep me out of the wrestling matches that
tend to develop in mass swim starts. I did the first 100 meters nice and easy and
just tried to remember how to
swim. As I started "getting it" and gaining efficiency, I started working a bit harder, and
soon I was
able to hold my own against those around me. As I made my way past buoys in the almost
mile long swim, my technique was not a disaster, nor did I veer off course and
lose time. With about 1/3rd of a mile left, I poured on some coals and began
passing people. Ultimately I came out of the water 38th
out of 103, which, against the top 10% of my age group in the nation, is really
about as good as I could have hoped.
The 25mi ride. It didn't take long to see that I was in trouble. Usually,
because of my weak swim, as soon as I get on the bike I start reeling in the
strong swimmers that had gotten on their bikes a couple minutes prior. But, this day, I didn’t seem to be reeling anyone in, at least not anyone
that “counted”. By the time my age group got out of the water, there were
probably 2000 people on the bike course. We had markings on our calves
that indicated our age-group. So as I hauled ass past slower cyclists, I checked
right calves to spot those that were in my age group--they were the only ones that mattered.
There were a zillion cyclists on the course, but darn few in my age group. The few calves with "55" on them that I saw were guys passing me, not me them. It was startling to be passed on the bike by someone in my age group. In all the decades of doing triathlon, I could not remember that happening before. Certainly, I was keeping the intensity level dialed back just a bit, but it was maddening to allow my direct competition to pass me and then pull away, when I certainly felt strong enough to chase them down. I fretted, however, that if I squandered reserves this early in the race, I'd be hosed later. It was very hard to stay frosty and be comforted by the hope that "those guys are riding too hard. They will die later."
Since this was a national event, there were race marshals everywhere.
Carrying their clipboards-of-doom, they were on the backs of motorcycles and
they zoomed around watching for infractions of the various cycling rules, like
"drafting," "must pass on the left," and "can't cross the road centerline." The
problem was that there were so many people on the course that occasionally
breaking a rule was inevitable. I tried really hard to never be at risk for
breaking one of the rules, but it became
routine for someone in front of me to do something unexpected as I was moving up
to pass and all the sudden I was at risk for DQ. I'd move up to pass on the left
and suddenly they've shift left so now I was "drafting." Or I'd be passing on the left and their unexpected
move would force me into dodge to their right to complete the pass, which is
illegal. Or, I'd be about to pass a couple people but their movement would force
me to either illegally cross the road's center-line or crash into them.
As I caught up to each group of cyclists, I had to make guesses re. what
they were going to do in the next 10 seconds and work the variables such that I
got by them without anything unexpected happening. The course was choked with
riders. Half as many riders on the course would have still been too many.
There were so many clipboard toting officials zooming around, like assassins
on the back of motorcycles, that I felt terrorized. The road was thick with
riders that I needed to pass, and their paths were often unpredictable. There
was no way I could maintain a steady pace to pass all these people without
bending a few rules. Also, I stressed over the idea that some official well
behind me might have a helova time determining if I was 10 meters back from the
guy ahead of me, or only 9. So I tried to keep some lateral displacement between
me and the guy ahead as I caught up to him, but inevitably his movement was
unpredictable. I
also tried to maintain awareness of
motorcycles as they snuck up from behind, and when one was in the area, I was
especially risk-averse about passing riders.
Several times I saw an official on a motorcycle pass me, pull up to one of the
guys in front of me, pull out their clipboard and write down that guy's #. It
was somewhat terrifying to know that even though I was trying very hard to
adhere to the rules, a bit of bad luck could still result in getting DQ'd. The
officials added a lot of stress to the ride.
Exercising uncharacteristic restraint, I battled
thru all the slower traffic and finished the ride without having pushed really hard on the bike.
I was very pleased that I'd been able to "go easy" so I'd have plenty left for
the 10km run.
To my surprise, I would learn later that I'd picked up 8 places in the ride,
moving from 38 to 30th. I could have sworn that I'd dropped a half-dozen
places..
The 10km run. As soon as I started running, I knew I was in trouble. I
had thought sure that I had plenty left, but I was wrong. I was totally thrashed
so the 10km run was a death march. I felt like I was struggling in molasses the
whole way. I saw a lot of guys, in my age group, pass me as I barely shuffled
along. It was agonizing
to let them go. I didn't know where I was in my pursuit to get into the top 18
or top 25, but each guy I let pass me and pull away just made it more certain that I would not
get a world championships slot. I just had no choice, though, but to let them go. I was surviving,
minute by minute, on only meanness and gristle. If I went with one of the faster
runners as he passed me, I'd burn thru my last, carefully husbanded, reserves in a 1/2 mile.
Then I'd be walking. I was utterly crushed. I made it to the finish, but dang, I
was barely moving.
Somehow, I picked up three places in the run. That was bewildering. So an honest eight
months into Come-back #5 and I ended up 27th in the nation. 18
slots for the world championships, which could trickle down to 25th, but 27th
was right out. Shit. In a 2 1/2 hour race, I missed 25th by 30 seconds.
But, I just didn't have it. 26 guys beat me fair and square. They were better
men.