Evergreen Lake International Triathlon Race Report
July 21, 2007 Hudson, IL
1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run
~70 degrees F, low humidity, sunny, low wind at beginning but high at end of bike

This was a B race for me. The past four weeks have been three weeks of build followed by a recovery week. The race had an elite amateur/collegiate wave and I chose to race with my age group. I couldn’t race collegiate because it was the Midwest conference champ and my school isn’t in the Midwest and we don’t have a tri team (yet) anyways. I also like age group awards and based on the participant list, I had zero chance of getting in the money for the overall (overall awards could only come from this wave) in this smallish but very FOP heavy race. They started 12 minutes before my wave.

Pre-race: Got up at 1:30am, grabbed my stuff and hopped in the car to leave at about 2. Then I drove for 3.5 hours to the race site. I followed my usual pre-race nutrition plan of drinking a cup of recovery mix and a cup of green tea starting about 3 hours before race time (I didn’t want to wake up my system too early). I sipped another bottle of my drink before the race. This was probably a mistake because it seemed to have partially fermented overnight and tasted positively disgusting. I definitely did not feel well by the time I got to the race site at 5:30. I picked up my stuff and set up my transition area. I hoped on the bike for about 20 minutes and then jogged for 10 with a few strides as my warm-up. I felt better by the time the start came around at 7.

The swim was a diamond shaped loop in Evergreen Lake. The swim was 79 degrees, so no wetsuits allowed. The waves started 3 minutes apart, so I caught a lot of people in the waves before me. I either navigated really well or really poorly because I felt like I took direct inner routes to the big buoys (ignoring the little ones that were along the way to ‘help’ us navigate that I don’t think we really had to go around) but I had open water around me pretty much the whole way even though I passed loads of people. I tend to veer left and the loop was to the left, so I probably did inner arcs between the buoys. There were times when the big mass of people was over 10m to my right, but I’m not convinced my navigation was quite that bad. I’m pretty horrible at finding someone to draft off of, so having a clean swim is usually my best bet at a good time. I felt alright, but I never really got into a breathing pattern. Sometimes every 2 sometimes every 3, sometimes every 4… sometimes I’d breathe then sight, sometimes I’d sight then breathe on either side. I sighted a lot because swimming so far away from the rest of the field was making me nervous. My swim was reasonably good though.
Swim: 25:53 1500m, (44/295 Overall, 8/79 women)

I had a fast T1. I ran up a little bump to the transition area, straight to my bike, helmet on, grabbed my bike and ran. I tried bodyglide on the openings of my bike shoes for the first time and that helped me get them on faster. I had the same T1 time as Bryan Rhodes! He’s ranked ahead of me in T1 splits, but it must be by less than a second.
T1: 0:37 (4/295 Overall, 1/79 women)

The bike course was mostly flat (except for the 4 speed bumps going into and out of the park). There were about 2 gradual 50 foot climbs, but nothing really of too much note. This is very typical of Midwestern bike courses. There was very little wind when I began biking, but it really picked up when I was somewhere around mile 10-15. There was one 2 mile section on a bumpy chip-sealed road, but the rest of it was all smooth and fast. I hammered the bike. I didn’t pass very many people (just most of the women in my wave who beat me out of the water and the occasional old guy) and slightly more people passed me (including one woman from the wave behind me). This is a season best bike split for me and my second fastest ever 40k split (My fastest was a 1:10:xx at Chicago 2005). I just looked at some of the pictures from the race, and I really think that a bike with better geometry for me has the potential to make a significant difference. I really do not look comfortable. I almost drank two full bottles of my mix which also tasted somewhat fermented, but not as much as what I drank before the race. I am always happy to make it over 20mph. I know it is just a number, but I’ve had a lot of 19.7-19.9mph splits.
Bike 1:13:01 40km (125/295 Overall, 15/79 women, 20.4mph)

I’ve continued my streak of messed up T2s with this race. This time I for whatever reason did not feel comfortable swinging my leg over the seat and getting off at running or even walking speed. I have no idea why, since it is not normally a problem, but I came to a stop and then got of the bike and then started running. Another T2 slower than T1. That totally accounts for the 4 seconds between me and the woman ahead of me in the overall.
T2: 0:44 (11/295 Overall, 2/79 women)

The run was just plain painful. The run course was pretty much flat, but all in the sun. It was a T-shaped course with two turnarounds. I started to catch some of the straggler collegiate people who were in wave 1 with the elites 12 minutes ahead of me. My legs hurt because I had gone so hard on the bike, my stomach felt woozy again, and I felt like for sure I was going ridiculously slowly. Somehow, I was only three seconds slower than 6 weeks ago. I really think that I gave it my all. I puked out everything in my stomach right after I crossed the line. It was sort of dramatic. That used to happen all the time since my stomach is always finicky at races, but it has been about two years since I figured out what I can tolerate so it took me by surprise. Lesson learned: I cannot tolerate partially fermented (or whatever happened to it) sport drinks. It was a painful run, but it was still a pretty good run. Hopefully in three week, I won’t have nutrition problems and will be faster.
Run: 44:06 10km (72/295 Overall, 6/79 women, 7:07 pace)

Total time: 2:24:21
60/295 Overall
5/79 Women
2/10 F20-24 (But I got the 1st place award because the 1st 20-24 won the overall in 2:13)

I was very happy with the new Olympic distance PR of 2:24:21. This was a top heavy field, so getting 5th woman, only 4 seconds behind 4th, means a lot even though its my lowest overall placing of the season. This is by far the strongest field in which I have raced in this season. Bryan Rhodes only got third. The winning men’s time was a 1:52 and the top 5 were sub 2 hours. The winning woman came in with a 2:13. The women who finished on either side of me biked 1:09 and 1:05 (there were 8 women who biked under 1:10). Based on how hard I felt that I hammered the bike and looking at those splits makes me feel really slow. This race had 6 women under 2:25. It was a pretty fast course, but there were also some seriously fast people racing. I’ve really noticed this season the difference between the fields for sprint and Olympic distance races. I’ve placed in the top 5-10% of the field for the sprints that I’ve done this season, but for the Oly’s, I’m barely in the top 20% (and for this race, I wasn’t even in the top 20%). Also, I placed second in the Best of the US competition for IL. I’m not sure whether the spot will roll down or not, but has anyone heard of it or done it? I’m not sure it will be even possible for me to try to get to Florida on October 6, but we’ll see.

Results here:
http://www.onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=5951