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| 6 AM. Time to go to work, baby! |
Okay, so it turns out I am only a champion in the same way the Maradona's "hand of God" goal in the 1986 World Cup semi-final against England made him the games' MVP. Many people forget that this most imfamous goal was in the same game where he also scored the century's most famous goal, dribbling the length of the field, past six defenders plus the goalie. So, my weekend was equally awesome and villainous.
HOW IT WENT DOWN
That 70 miler with Russ and Andrew was just what I was looking for to get the legs tired. My goal was to race Sunday's oly triathlon on exhausted legs to see how fast I could go on an empty tank. For dinner the night before the race, I pounded down a about 40 oranges that I juiced and blended with about 15 bananas. I also have to add in here that we went out with some good friends that night to a swanky restaurant where I sneakily ordered two non-alcoholic beers.
I woke up on Sunday about 5:30 am to thunderstorms rolling in after weeks rainless heat wave. "Oh no, not today! I want heat wave." On top of miserable weather, I also didn't leave myself enough time to do my normal race day ritual, but I was able to pound down a 7 banana +10 strawberry smoothie after about 30 oz of water. I accomplished a most-excellent poop, then I loaded the bike on the back of the car and drove 40 minutes east to the state park, jamming out to a Pandora mix that happened to play my favorite pump up song-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PNpIxqqMtQ
In spite of the Killers, Cake, and Weezer, I set up my bike in the pouring rain and was feeling really low. Why was I here, alone, in the rain, in the dark? Luckily I had the optimal transition spot, because no one else was apparently feeling ambitious enough to claim their spots in the bike corral. Then all of a sudden, I needed to go poop again. What what? Sorry to be graphic, but every race day, I end up having an unexpected projectile-like #2 that cleans me out completely. It feels quasi-orgasmic to be so cleansed before a race. I'm just glad it happened before I put on my wetsuit.
Wetsuit?! Are you kidding me?! With water temperature near 85F, it was much too hot for wetsuits, but... I decided to wear mine just for the practice of taking it off in Transition 1. My weakness is swimming, so I usually try to just focus on a clean and rhythmic stroke, not letting my HR spike before the bike. But as always, I got excited and changed the plan on a whim.
It was definitely my hardest swim of the year. I flew without my dials, so to speak, racing by perceived exertion rather than using my heart rate monitor and odometer. I've been meaning to save up for a Garmin GPS gizmo. I know my HR was near 185, because I had a hard time even standing up on the beach when I came out of the water. The swim course consisted of two rectangular laps, amounting to .93 miles. I always find a way to round it off to a good mile by zigzagging and, no joke, ramming my head into a buoy. I had no idea how long it was taking, because I also forgot to start my watch when I was distracted by the announcer telling us to check our goggles. DOH! C'mon, Dwyer, pull yourself together. I ended up completing the swim in 21:04.
Getting out of the park was an immediate uphill climb on the bike, where I decided I would let my heart rate and breathing recover from the swim. I was just glad to be reunited with Hansel Pinarello Funkizeit. I got passed by the one and only dude. He looked familiar. (I actually met him on a local trail two weeks earlier. His name was Rob and he was badass enough to be shirtless and wearing compression socks. I passed him on the Loveland trail two weeks ago and he kinda took it personally and decided to pass me and let it be known that he "never gets passed." He actually turned out to be a really nice guy, unlike most of the cyclist wienies around here). So, there Rob was, passing me...again. I decided rather than play a cat and mouse game, I would just keep him on a close rein of about 50 meters, without drafting, of course. At the turn around point, we climbed a hill and he jumped out of the saddle. As he crested, he tried to shift gears, but he dropped his chain. I felt bad for him for a split second. I almost stopped as I thought about Contador leaving Andy Schleck in the dust in this situation, but I only paused enough to ask if he was ok and hear him say, "dropped the chain". It looked like a quick fix, so I rode by and descended as fast as I could. He wasn't far behind.
The course was very hilly, which I usually excel at, but my legs were noodle-ized from the day before. I've been deliberately trying to hold back on the up hills, maintaining a steady power output both up the hill and down. This strategy seemed to work, because after the race, Rob said that he tried to use the uphills to catch me, but I was always able to distance myself on the descents. This has nothing to do with being a good technical descender because I hold back on down hills ever since my shoulder-separating crash.
HOW THE DIRTY DEED GOT DONE
As is my MO, I had NOT mapped the 25 mile course. The bike course was poorly marked and I ended up taking a left turn where a traffic cop fell asleep and everyone else took a right turn, so it was really a race officials error. I couldn't have known because I had no one close enough to follow. While I'm proud to say that I discovered a more efficient route, it also happened to be 3 miles shorter than everyone else's route. It saved me about 8 minutes, which means that 4 or 5 people would have likely finished before me. But I was oblivious to all of this until much much later.
The run is usually painful as hell. On the double-out-and-back 6 mile course, I implemented the same strategy as with the bike-- start the initial uphill very reserved. Hold back and get my legs used to the new motion. Before I knew it, I felt ALIVE. I probably ran my fastest 5k in a race ever. But come lap two, and that return up the monster hill, I was in a dark and desperate place.
Fresh runners were beginning their first lap as I was beginning my second. You eye-ball these guys and wonder if you've miscalculated where your closest competition is. Could that gazelle-looking-dude feel as good as he looks? Why don't I feel like he looks? Even though I felt kind of demoralized by how fresh they looked, I tried to keep pace and I only got passed by one dude. I even made a special deal with myself, that I would stop at every aid station and walk for 10 seconds or so, just to make sure I kept my HR in check and got some calories in. No date-o-rade miracles to report, I'm afraid. I succumbed to gels and gatorade provided by the aid stations in response to last week's 32 mile run and date-o-rade-fiasco. (The date-o-rade issue is a really a logistical issue rather than a nutritional one. I'd take dates and date-o-rade every time if my usual source were actually had some. Since they're not in season, I can only purchase nasty plasticky ones.)
When I crossed the finish line, I collapsed to my knees. OWWWWWW! Luckily there was no puking as is often the case with my final sprint efforts. In fact, there was no final sprint effort at all. I suppose I was just to taxed from the big week of training.
I congratulated the next 3 guys to cross the line and there was Rob at #4. "Hey brother, what took you so long? I thought you just dropped a chain and got right back on. Did you get lost?"
"No, but YOU did. You went left when we were supposed to go right!"
I didn't believe him till I got home that night and checked the course map. I suddenly realized that I had no recollection of passing through the quaint downtown district of Batavia. HAHA!
I felt like a total idiot. But you know what, human error is a factor in every sport. Think how many basketball games would be different if referees managed to catch every infraction. As my wise and cynical brother, Mike pointed out, baseball would be extinct right now if steroids hadn't snuck in to make it interesting. I'm not saying I agree with him, but I am going to relish in the moment for a day because I'm darn proud of my effort. But of course, I'll be contacting the race officials to let them know some one else deserves the victory and the series' points. And I can guarantee that I was the hairiest man in the top 10.
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| Still standing, but barely. |
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| "Happy fake A-day, mamacita!" |
Even in my prime cycling days I would have been hard pressed to finish a 70 mile ride. You should be proud of yourself asterisk or not.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the poop part made me laugh. Anyone that has been on a long ride knows that pain.