Got up at 3:15 a.m. to leave at 4:15 to arrive at West Hartford, Connecticut by 6 a.m. (Surprise: Litchfield is only 1:30 drive from home, but Litchfield Hills are 1:45 hour away….) Had prepared EVERYTHING the night before, and had time for 5-10 minutes of PT for the bursitis in my hips just before driving. Had considered sleeping in, not feeling ready or pumped up for this race, but as long as I was awake and as long as I was driving… might as well do it.
Nice, friendly people volunteering and racing. “General seating” on grabbing a place to rack the bike, but found a place on two slots from the end of the row (easy to find) and near a garbage can and fence (easy to leave my oversized gear bag).
The swim: Lots of jostling – only three mass wave starts (men under 40, men over 40 and over, women and relay teams – remember this detail for the end of the blog…) – so it was hard to find clean water. On the other hand, easy to draft off someone the first loop (out of the water to run across the beach after the first loop was challenging — hard to walk let alone run!) and beginning of the second loop. Finally got into a rhythm and enjoyed the water (short sleeve wetsuit was fine, won’t ever listen to that stupid Monster Lake fisherman’s website about water temperatures for various lakes – they had reported 64 degrees!). But whenever I relaxed I had to remember to stay smooth but work harder, this is a race! Apparently I didn’t remember enough: my speed dropped from 1:48 min/100 yds to 2:05, ultimately averaging to 1:54 min/100. (Coach Steve had predicted 1:55. The guy’s good with numbers…). Finished the 0.9 mile swim in 31:25.
Transition 1 included a long run along a rocky dirt path. I tried to take off my wetsuit sitting down on the bench where I had left my shoes. Big mistake: gotta stand up and step on the suit leg I’m removing. Not sure how much time that cost. And then run/walking the 1/4 mile to transition (heart rate through the roof / walk to get HR under control…). T1 in 6:18.
Bike, as advertised, started with screaming downhills and rolling hills for the first 15 miles, then up! up! up! for the remaining 10. My 5-mile intervals told the story: 21.6 mph, 25.7 mph (!), 19.2, 18.4… then 12.3 mph for the last ascent. Got into leap-frogging with Doug Casey, nice guy I had met on the line to the outhouses before the race: I repeatedly passed him on the flats and downhills (reaching, um, 49 mph, which I only learned after the race, fortunately), he passed me on the uphills, and as noted, the ride ended going uphill… Truly sharing the road with traffic – van turned right slightly ahead of me! Big trucks slowing down in the middle of the route!
Good news is bursitis in my hip scarcely flared up (apparently PT is helping) but adductors felt tired early on, and my wattage/speed dropped towards the end even at moments of flat road. 1,340 feet of elevation over the 24.8 mile (40 km) course. Finished in 1:14:36; average speed: 18.9 mph, avg. power: 197 watts. Not bad on a tough course.
Run (walk!) on the grass to transition, and probably would have been faster changing to running gear if I hadn’t been panting so much. Some mixed feelings when I saw a guy who had passed me on the bike with “62 [years old]” on his calf getting into transition a few feet ahead of me…. Maybe I’m chasing him, maybe he’s chasing me… T1 in 2:21.
Hard to rev up and get moving into the run, and knew it would be rough: the race ended mostly uphill. Even when we started running the early downhills I knew this was going to be another race like Kingston’s last year, where I felt I had to earn each and every mile. Really, ideal weather — warm but almost entirely shaded. Rest stops every mile had “barrels” to dispense into cups — not enough volunteers, I guess, to hand out the water. Off in the distance was Doug (who kept and increased the lead he took on the bike; let it go, he’s not my age group) and then he was gone… Another guy way ahead I thought was in my age group seemed too far to catch as well. Oh, well.
I just tried to maintain my speed and ended up picking off the younger runners who were within reach, counting those who passed me and those I passed — netting out at 11 racers. (I could not catch that young woman with the pony tail for the life of me, but that big guy who took a break at every water stop finally lost his mojo at mile 5…).
Once I realized that however hard I ran, my ranking at the end of the race was likely already sealed, it was hard to push harder. The temptation to take it easy on the uphills was tremendous, but this was MY race, going as fast as I was able, checking in and feeling whether I could push harder, just focus on that nearby mailbox, now the tree a little farther down the road, OMG I’m at mile 5 and what feels like immediately after I turn the corner and for once the Finish Line appears earlier than I expected. (And my Garmin says I was right: the run is only 5.6 miles, not 6.2.) Finished in 47:20, which apparently translated to 8:31 min/mile. (Steve had predicted 8:30… Damn, he’s good.)
Bottom line: 2:42:12, 2/13 for Age Group, 48/179 OA. Not my fastest, but not my slowest either, and felt fine for this challenging course.
But especially humbling: First place overall was my age group – 64-year old, legendary Bill Schumann in 2:11:43 (!), beating 2nd place (30-34 AG) by one second! The guy who came in second didn’t even know he hadn’t won until after he finished — because Bill had been in the second wave of men who started the swim 3 minutes after the younger men’s first wave! And if that weren’t humbling enough, Rick Klutey, the guy who took first place for our 60-64 age group (since overall podium finishers don’t also win their age groups), finished 7th overall in 2:18:15. Yes, 1st place AG was 24 minutes ahead of me.
Well, the metrics didn’t matter to me during the race, and I’ll stand by my new attitude: did the best I could on that day, felt strong, and enjoyed most of the race. “Who could ask for anything more?” Other than asking for… beer.
