Monday, October 21, 2013

Aquabike Nationals-- Rev3 South Carolina

Balloons Over Anderson, pic by Rev3 teammate Jen
1800+ miles.  30+ hours of driving within an 80 hour period.  Worth it?  Oh yes. 

Though I signed up for this race last year after I found out it was USAT Aquabike Nationals, travel plans were slow to come together.  Throughout the year I leaned on a few Wisconsin triathletes to come race with me, but for various reasons things fell through with each.  Within a couple of weeks of the race it became clear that it was going to be a solo mission, and I was left to decide the best way to get there.  Fly?  Rental car?  Yes, I have 3 bikes and no car... I know.  Cue luck/ serendipity/ good friends.  Ben was on his way to Hawaii for the week and graciously lent me his "blue toaster" to use while he was gone.

I'm certainly a gal who enjoys a road trip, and I've driven several impressive/borderline stupid trips before, including: 1.) 10 hours straight to Kansas for a sprint tri, but at least I had one other along to chat with, and  2) 12 hours straight, solo, during the night, to Rapid City for work.  I mapped out a route, but the more I thought about it, the dumber it sounded to drive 14 hours straight by myself so soon before a big race.  I have family in Ohio, and it would only be an extra half hour out of the way to stop there.  Perfect.  I was able to get a few hours of sleep, but had to be up early to finish the drive and get into Anderson by midday.  I finished the trip without any major problems, but was still a bit zombielike by the time I rolled into the Anderson Civic Center, the site of the race expo.

Here you go, Ben.  I couldn't figure out how to get any hot air balloons in the frame, though.
Pre-Race

The afternoon was frenzied as I tried to condense all of my normal race prep activities.  I was tired and kind of out of it mentally.  I did make it just in time for the first athlete meeting though (whew!), checked in, and said hi to a few teammates.  Anderson is a two transition race, so the swim and T1 were at a separate location about 3 miles away.  I headed over there hoping to have time for a quick shake-out ride and splash around before checking my bike in and heading to the Rev3 team/staff dinner at 6.  Ahh, the best laid plans.  I managed to flat the latex tube inside my rear tire half an hour into the ride, and ended up on the side of the road unable to get my valve extender to work with the spare tube I had on me.  A Good Samaritan fellow racer named Morgan spotted me and stopped to help, and ended up giving me a ride back to transition.  Morgan, if by some chance you come across this blog- thank you, thank you, again.  The triathlon community is full of wonderful people.  I drove back to the expo to buy a new tube, then back to T1, and by that time only had time to check-in my bike if I was going to make it to dinner on time.  So much for swimming or driving the bike course.  Attempt 1 to wheel it in- forgot its number sticker.  D'oh.  Trotted it over to transition again, said goodbye to my little buddy, and I was off.

At Rev3 South Carolina both the Glow Run and the Rev3 staff/ Team Rev3 dinner were on Saturday night instead of Friday, so at last I was able to do both!  There was a pretty good showing of team members at this race, and it was great to catch up.  Kristin and I had fun chatting during the glow "run" (jog, since I was racing the next day... and we'd both just eaten Mexican food...).  The run course wrapped around the Balloons Over Anderson festival, a pretty cool weekend-long hot air balloon and carnival event.

Team Rev3 members post-dinner!

With a race the next morning, we couldn't stick around the post run festivities (fireworks, movie, popcorn) for long.  I was staying the night with Rev3 teammates Chloe, Kristin, and Heidi.  The four of us got all of our things together for the next day while following the Kona pro race and our friends with the online coverage.  I think I amused my roommates with my routine- emptying everything out of all of my bags and re-packing them to make sure everything would be where I needed it- but it's just one of those things that makes me feel more at ease before a race.  Triathlon has so much more gear involved than other sports, and I didn't want to take the chance of misplacing anything I needed.  I wouldn't be running, but I still had shoes to drop off at T2 so I could cross the finish line when I was done, I had certain things I wanted at the car after the race, and I obviously had swim and bike gear to bring with me to T1, as well as a few things to use before the race (an extra water bottle and PowerGel, sunscreen, etc.).  The race was going to be around 3 hours long...

Race Day

For an aquabike race like this (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike) I ideally would have wanted to get a solid warm up on the bike, then a good swim.  With all bikes being checked in the day before the race, it wasn't possible to take the bike back out on the road in the morning.  My second choice would have been to bring a trainer into transition and ride inside there- I've seen a few pros do this at other Rev3 races.  But with two transitions, that wasn't an option either: I would have had to bring the trainer on the athlete bus with me in addition to my other bags, plus the race wouldn't be able to transport it back to the finish area for me.  So instead I got to T2 in the morning and started with a run warm up sequence and  squats to get my leg muscles firing, then dropped off my shoes and visor at my transition spot and boarded one of the athlete buses to T1 with my swim and bike gear.  As I set up my spot, I noticed that my front water bottle was leaking from the bottom.  I didn't have a way to fix it or bring another bottle with me, so I would have to make do with one good water bottle on my bike frame and just drink quickly from the front bottle each time I filled it on the course.  Once I was finally satisfied that everything was set up on my bike the way I wanted it, I found some teammates and hung out for a while to try to calm my nerves.  Then it was time to drop off my dry clothes bag and go remind myself how to swim!

Swim
I was starting in wave 3 of the day at 8 a.m., ten minutes behind wave 1.  Wave 1 contained the Half Rev men under age 40, wave 2 was men 40-55, and my wave was a mix of men 55+, all relays, and all of the Half Aquabike participants.  The swim course was fun: we started on one side of a peninsula and did a big loop around it to finish on the other side.  I figured the start might be aggressive, so I started in the second line of athletes instead of the front.  My start was clean and I found someone to follow for the first few hundred meters.  After the second turn we started catching the orange caps of the  second wave, and I navigated my own way through the chaos.  I felt strong and in control. Eventually I started catching some green caps of wave 1 swimmers as well, but I tried to focus on keeping my stroke smooth and my effort high.  I tend to perform well in open water compared to swimmers of the same level in the pool, and I think that's mainly due to being able to maintain concentration in the second half of the swim leg.  I was hoping for a sub 29 minute split here, and was a little bit off of that.  The swim is always the hardest split to compare race to race.  Times seemed a little slow across the board here, and weaving through athletes probably slowed me down a bit, but I'm happy with how I felt in the swim regardless of the time itself.
Split: 30:29

Transition
One thing I definitely did not do well was put my wetsuit into the transition bag quickly.  This is not something I've practiced since it is only done at races with two transitions, but it might be worth taking the time to figure out the best way to do it since I had trouble!  As I ran out barefoot with my bike I heard someone say "First female," but I was skeptical...
Split: 1:11
transition 1
Bike
This bike course was "lollipop" design, with one giant loop, a short jaunt on the same roads around T1, and then a few more roads continuing past there to T2 (my finish).  With 3 speed bumps along the road out of the park, it wasn't possible to build much speed right away.  I hit the button to start my bike computer after the second bump, but as I exited the park and looked down, I saw that the computer was off.  I hit it again and saw a flash of numbers, then nothing.  Confused, I did it a third time and caught the empty battery icon out of the corner of my eye.  No.  I remembered looking at its cord the night before and figuring it didn't need charging, but I didn't verify.  I'd had plans for what power I wanted to put out on different parts of the course, but now I'd be doing it entirely on feel.  My pacing plan, since I didn't have to run, had been to do the first half at the effort I usually bike at in Olympic distance races, then try to bring it up in the second half and make sure I was completely exhausted by the time I got to the dismount line.  For the Aquabike our finish times were taken at the entrance to transition 2, so I would need to get off my bike and run about 4 steps at the end.  Trying to sprint into the dismount area would be dangerous, so I didn't want to have anything extra left.
 
With the way the starting waves were structured, I found myself around a lot of riders of similar ability level right away, and it was interesting.  Since I didn't have power numbers to rein me in on the first part of the course, I revised my plan to try to bring up the effort a little bit every 10 miles, and take it easy on the climbs in the first half of the race.  I was surrounded by men and it was hard not to absorb their pacing, but I figured based on what I'd seen at other long races that a lot of them were probably climbing too hard.  I ended up around a bunch of guys that were hard to shake: they'd fly by me up the hills, and I'd gradually pull them back on the flatter sections and descents.  I was careful to follow the non-drafting rules, though it was frustrating to have to sit up and slow down a few times for people.  I'm used to being on my own most of the time at races when the women start together- the women's amateur field isn't usually deep enough to get bunched up.  My sympathies to those of you who deal with this all the time!

Ten miles in, I passed a girl in Dynamo kit.  That's the team female pro Haley Chura swims with, so I wasn't too surprised that this great swimmer was apparently on the team too.  I didn't know if there were any other women still up the road (after all, that spectator had apparently missed this one), so I kept riding like I was chasing someone.  Throughout the middle of the ride, I was... I was chasing everyone.  The field spread out, so I was on my own much more, but I tried to keep slowly picking off the people in front of me while sticking to my pacing strategy.  At 30 miles I got a special "hey, I'm over halfway" kind of excitement and picked it up considerably for the next 10 miles... maybe a little bit too much. 

There were 3 aid stations on the bike course, at 15, 30, and 45 miles.  I got water at each and poured it in the front bottle, but the leaking was noticeable.  I drank as much as I comfortably could after each aid station before the water ran out, but I wasn't getting quite as much as I wanted overall.  I also realized that my normal bike food for a half distance race (PowerBar Gel Blasts) was too solid for my more aggressive aquabike pacing... should've stuck exclusively to gels.  Lesson learned.  By the time I got to mile 45 my legs hurt pretty badly, and my stomach felt like it was holding a lot of fuel that wasn't being absorbed. I told myself that there was only half an hour to go, and kept using the people in front as motivation.  This is what you wanted to happen.  The last half hour of a half distance race is always painful, but it was novel to experience that on the bike instead of the run.  I caught teammate Josh around mile 50 and gave him a cheer, hoping he remembered that I had nothing to hold back for at that point (he was doing the entire half, not the aquabike).  During the last few miles it felt like my legs were shredding apart, and I pushed harder, just wanting it to be over faster.  Finally I heard the noise of the expo and made the turn into the Civic Center grounds, got off the bike and shuffled my way the last few steps into transition.  DONE.

Split: 2:40:18, Total: 3:11:58

what a beautiful, beautiful sign
It was strange to slowly hobble my way through transition with my bike while people were running by.  I got to my spot and tried to stand there and take off my cycling shoes.  My legs wobbled and I had to brace myself on the bike to stop myself from falling over.  Interesting.  Finally I got both running shoes on, put on my visor as I walked the rest of the way through transition, and jubilantly jogged the opposite way most people were going- right around the corner to the finish chute to get my t-shirt and finisher medal! 

Post Race

One of the best things about traveling by myself was the freedom to make my own schedule.  I was in no hurry to get back on the road after the long trip down, so I enjoyed a few hours at the race cheering people in, attending the awards ceremony (found out I won the Aquabike!), and running around chatting with friends.  After a quick break to take a shower and sit in Ryan's NormaTec boots, I met up with other Team Rev3 members and Rev3 staff to cheer in the final finisher of the day- a Rev3 tradition! After grabbing some dinner with Ryan and Anthony it was time to hit the road again.  Another great weekend with the Rev3 family-- can't wait until next year!

I split up the drive on the way home too, and decided to sleep in, see Ohio in the daylight, and spend more than a couple of minutes with my aunt!  If you find ever find yourself in Oxford and need a place to stay, check out Presidio Pines--  then you can see these guys too:


2 comments :

  1. Great to see that you left all the bad luck behind you with that flat tire on Saturday! Congratulations on an amazing race, a national title, and a wonderful trip! Glad I could be some small part of it.


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  2. What? no photo of the trophy? You're too modest. Great job! Glad I could witness it.

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