St. Anthony's 2008 "race" report.

Everything about St. Anthony's Olympic Triathlon this year was awesome. With very low expectations going into the race, it was nice and laid back, low key, and non-stressful from check-in to the post-race Coronas. SA really does a good job with everything...this year was no exception.

Luke and I headed over on Saturday morning to check our bikes in (that's Luke standing next to the Bigun - he's the "normal" sized triathlete). Just prior to that...I have to finally give props...I took my bike over to the LBS...the DREADED LBS...for a brake lever plug. The owner was a one-man-show in there, and I waited, patiently, for all his customers to leave before I hit him up for some help with the plug. He got right on it! He crafted a plug that worked, and then I told him I probably needed a new rear derailleur hanger, thinking mine was bent, and could he order one? He put it up on the rack, did a couple of adjustments, and it worked fine. All for no charge. My faith hath been restorethed!

So we only saw Matt Reed getting out of the water as we were going in for a warm-up swim. Man, that guy is nothing but skin, muscle and bone! We didn't spend any time at the expo - ogling stuff you can't afford is getting less and less fun for either of us, so we probably missed our chance to see any other famous triathletes. On our wetsuit-less 400 meter swim, we both left the water sweating - the local water buoy said it was 79 degrees - so we made the decision to bag the wetsuits. There were spots of cooler water and spots of really warm water - I had a feeling it would be wetsuit-legal, but I'd done the 78 degree wetsuit thing before and I know I just hate it.

Sure enough...almost everyone was wearing their wetsuits. The wind had picked up a little from the day before, so I'm sure the RD was taking no chances as the SA swim is notoriously hard (due to waves). My first 500 meters went surprisingly well - I was right on track, with a pack of swimmers and staying in line with the buoys. Making the first turn, I think I forgot how ocean swim currents effect you - and before I knew it, a kayaker inside of the buoys was shooing me back out. I tried to sight a couple of times but every time I'd look up, a wave was blocking my view of the buoys....so I just kept swimming. Not the best plan. I had two major corrections like that until I rounded the final buoy and headed for home. The last leg cuts further back on itself, with the current pushing us away from the buoy line. I'm still clueless about the current, wondering why I keep having to do major corrections and still am not even close to the line of buoys. I finally get to the exit stairs where my college buddy Rob is volunteering to pull us all out of the water (Rob is a fantastic swimmer...I was wondering where he was today). While I swam "strong" the whole 1500m, I had the worst SA time I've ever had - 37:25. I know, I know.

I motored through T1, blissfully unaware of my horrid swim (of course, my lonely bike was a major reality check), in 2:30 and off I went on my bike. As you can imagine, with that swim, I was passing EVERYONE - which I guess was pretty cool. Until, of course, all the really fast 50+ dudes came zooming by, one by one. It was weird; I felt like I had no "top end". I was hammering along at 21 just fine...but I just don't have the 22+ speed I did a year ago. On the flip side, in the last 4 miles of the bike, I kept my pace and felt I still had plenty of pedaling on tap - verses last year where the last 4 miles were a suffer fest and my average MPH dropped from 22.3 to 20.9 - yea, it was bad. So, I averaged 20.9 mph (1:11:17) and was happy not to have crashed, cramped or otherwise did any damage to myself or others.

T2 was also speedy, for me, at 2:08 - but it was there I met with my first challenge; a cramp. Usually I get my cramps in the calves...but this was a side-stitch. Jetpack was running out with me for a quarter mile or so (thanks to the Jet for some of these photos), and in that amount of time I did some deep breathing and hard exhales which worked like a charm - the cramp went away and never came back. I went out very easy on the run - at the 3 mile turnaround I was averaging over 9:30 on the Garmin. I kicked it into gear, hunting down Clydesdales and trying to keep my pace under 9 in the process. That lasted about a mile. I still passed a few Clydes, and coming down the shoot I heard TriSherpaDi and my Dad (along with Luke's wife and young-in) cheering me on to a final pace of 9:26 (58:32) - an Olympic distance PR for me.

My takeaway's from the race -

1. Just use the damn wetsuit like everyone else. I'm sure part of that 5 minute swim PW was due to swimming nekked.


2. Remember the effects of tides and currents when in the ocean...be quicker to adjust.


3. Make sure the front laces on your shoes are at the right tension. I "installed" my quick-laces and while they are great for slipping the shoe on and going, they leave a bit to be desired for constant tension across all the laces. I've got the blisters to show for it.
   
4. Get a timing chip ankle "belt". This year SA issued a very new, very hard Velcro strip which did a great job of securing the chip but cut right through the back of my ankle. This is not the first race where the timing chip had a crappy attachment strap. They can't be that expensive, right?
   
5. If I want to bike fast, I have to train fast. If I want to run fast, I have to run fast in training too. I've got gobs more training volume on the bike prior to this SA race, with the same bike set up and fairly similar wind and heat conditions, and still rode the same speed - actually, could not ride nearly as fast (albeit for a sorter duration) than last year. Fartleks are the ticket.
   

With the take-away's, I'm not really complaining about the race. It might have well had been a "C" race, that I raced hard but did not train specifically for. I'm convinced that IM type training totally changes your physique in such a way as to make you (me) slower, but able to go longer and recover quicker. Either that, or I'm just getting old. You can see from the chart above, I had a 4 second PR on the bike, 9 second PR in T2, and 2:19 PR on the run. Not really a bad day after all. Interestingly, the number of 40+ Clydesdales finishing the race is up to 95 - 28 more than when I started doing tri's. And while I'm getting slower, the Top 10 are getting faster - 6:12 faster to get into the Top 10 this year compared to '06. Well, enough about St. Anthony's for one year. One more short sprint race left (and a self-run Half IM sometime in the next couple weeks...) and it's on to CdA...

Oh, and the really insane, crazy thing about this race....look at my race numbers in the last running picture. Click on it so it enlarges for you. YES! The same woman applied all of my numbers. The "4"s and the "5"s are different on either side, but same arm to leg. Maybe Sweet Baboo knows what psychological disorder causes Sybil-like number writing by a Volunteer Body Marker. I'm still a bit shook up over it. Fortunately I didn't even notice until Corona #5 in the hot tub....