Mother's Day Triathlon

 One of the great things about the northwest is the unpredictable nature of the races.  Some races are flat and fast sessions of blazing speed and all out power, while others are grueling accents up the side of mountains that are more suited towards mountain goats.  Of course you have a few races thrown in there that just leave you asking yourself, “who the heck thought this is up?”   Along the lines of unpredictable courses, you will always enjoy the random patterns of weather that is known as spring in the northwest, a.k.a the season that comes after winter that is almost winter.

The crazy weather pattern was never more prevalent than at the Mother’s Day Triathlon.  The weather was pounding rain, blustery winds, and swirling storms. Weather that was more suited to ski jackets rather than tri suits.  I have a little secret for getting through situations like this.  The secret is to tell myself, “just get through the next ‘x’ number of hours, after that it’s all good.”  I had to use this technique numerous times before the race. My race friend, Kevin, and I actually had a great discussion that on days when it is outside factors that are making things hard, the race essentially takes place in your mind.  The hard part of the race was overcoming, mentally, the hurdles that we knew we would be suffering through.  Once we set it in motion there would be no stopping us.  I told him, in 2 hours we are going to back in this car with a bunch of awards and it’s totally going to be worth what we have to do.  I can recall numerous times where I have been in positions where I was apprehensive about a situation, in those instances I reached a turning point of turnaround or fully commit.  Every single time, not some of the time, EV-ER-Y-TIME, I have pushed on, it has turned out epically well. Did you find the lesson in that?



As Kevin and I sat in the car, there was no complaining, just a silent focusing of our minds to the task that we knew we had to do.  Never once did we consider not racing (double negative J), we were there to race, we were there to take care of business.  The weather was so cold that Kevin and I had to adapt our pre race routine to include a full wetsuit dressing while still in the protective confines of the car.  Adapt and overcome, right?  We entered the car as mere mortals; we emerged as wetsuit clad super heroes ready to brave whatever came our way.

While standing at the edge of the water, I made the judgement call that I would forgo the swim warmup. In hindsight this was a smart move, the time I spent not freezing in the water was worth it. 10 seconds before the start I had one thing going through my mind, “I will do whatever it takes.” Considering my exit position I had an excellent swim. Despite coming out first, the lack of warmup left my swim feeling slow and my arms heavy. I hit the water’s bank happy to be out of the drink. Before I could say “dang it’s cold,” I was on my Cervelo P3 Murder Machine…murdering. Wait, not murdering, riding hard is what I meant.

The one fun thing about races with bad weather is I ride through things I usually avoid like the plague. For example, during a race I blow through puddles doing 20-something and don’t even think twice. During training I would never subject my bike or my kit to such crazy behavior. The race course was one big puddle, for the first half of the bike course I was focusing on riding smooth, staying out of the detonation zone by keeping my effort controlled, and constantly trying to spit out the rain water that was flying off my front tire up into my mouth (disgusting, road water tastes chalky and metallic fyi).

With my thirst thoroughly quenched, I hit the bike turnaround. I took a brief time split to second place; my calculation put a $10,000 Scott Plasma with Zipp 808s about two minutes back. Shortly after, I spotted Kevin in the distance riding hard in 3rd place, leading a chase pack of 4 or so. Going into the race I really wanted a solid run, and I really wanted to test a race tactic of riding a bit easier to see if this allowed me to run my fastest. On the last quarter of the bike I powered down and tried to gather my legs for the run.

Transition 2 was shaky at best. My fingers were so numb from the cold that I couldn’t get enough pressure on the lace locks to tighten my shoes. I had to settle for yanking the laces, tucking them into the shoe, and hoping they held. The other half of the race tactic experiment was to make absolutely sure I did not start too fast. In doing so I left T2 in first running comfortable and smooth. As the chase pack approached T2 I took time checks to the chasing racers as I ran in the opposite direction. I knew in my heart I was going to win if I stayed strong and on course.

I continued to run comfortably hard as I passed the first aid station. After my alkaline mocha on the bike I passed up any refreshment. I hit the run turnaround on total cruise control. I trained through this race (see Rowdy Gaines’ Concept) but my muscles actually felt reasonably strong. On the way back to the finish I spotted Kevin engrossed in his bitter dog fight with the chase pack. As we passed I yelled at him, “get your glory son!” Not really sure what that means.

At this point I was running fast, but I knew I could run faster. I was faced with a decision to cruise into the finish in style, or hit the detonate button, shred my muscles, and finish the last mile with pain and spit. As a training race, I decided that in the grand scheme of things it would be best to save the muscle shredding and spit on face for when it became absolutely necessary. I had more training to do in the next few weeks that would benefit from not running my legs and lungs to destruction. In the end, I had done what it took to win and I had a great run.

There is no greater feeling than winning and I prolonged it by finishing fresh, feeling great, and absorbing the cheers that the parka-clad spectators offered.  I am so thankful things turned out like they did.  Kevin also had a great day coming across the line with a top 5 finish.  We both left the race with awards, and the satisfaction of knowing that not only did we give ourselves the opportunity to do well in a challenging situation, but we also establish that the “EVERYTIME” absolution still stands without dispute.    

*Notice the shirt says "Memorial Day."  The race director did not get the order of shirts in time so he offered these as the replacements, still cool.