Radiant Lake Triathlon

*Sleeping on the sidewalk before the race...well not really sleeping at this moment

Going into this race I was tired.  There have only been a few times that I have been this tired going into a race.  It was however, right where I needed to be.  If I were fresh for this race, then I would have had made a mistake somewhere in training.  This race was the very end of my race focus build session and I was definitely feeling the fatigue that had been saturated in.

*Kevin cleaning his bike before the race

*This is how I clean my bike

I don’t want to give the impression that I wasn’t happy to be racing, because I love to race, but I was tired and my demeanor was more quiet and my movements slower than normal.  One of the body’s protection mechanisms during over-training is to release chemicals that turn your attitude to “less than awesome” in a self-prescribed way to lower your motivations to continue training and breaking down your body.  I was definitely in that stage.  Again, this is right where I needed to be.

Kevin and I arrived at the race and were greeted by excellent bike spots in the elite rack, a great man-made lake, and beautiful blue sky.  The race director took excellent care of us with lots of volunteers, spacious transitions, and very cool personal services like hanging up our wetsuits while we were racing.

I slowly moved through my setup while fighting off the urge to sit down and sleep.  After I had set everything up, I went to body marking, and found my way to the sidewalk to sit down and relax.  Before I knew it I had to drag myself to the swim start.  The gun went off and I went into cruise control settling onto the leader’s feet.  At the turnaround of the half-mile swim I started to feel my muscles burn and a few “ouchies” develop as my body continued to let me know it was being over-trained.

*Taking pictures while laying down

I held second place for the remainder of the swim and exited about 20 seconds behind superstar Derek Garcia.  Once on the bike my hamstrings screamed with discomfort.  I felt very uncomfortable the first stretch of the bike as I rode a false flat into the wind.  It was during this stretch that eventual winner Brian Hadley went by averaging 27 mph (insane).  As the bike ride progressed, the race started to come to me and my muscles.  At about mile 12 of 14.4, I encountered a big right hand sweeper that I overestimated.  I took the corner way to slow, in doing so the gap that I had been holding over super-racer, Nate Birdsall, closed almost instantly.  Nate used his speed to overtake and drop me to 4^th place. 

With my legs protesting and my hamstrings on fire, I made it back to T2 to some excellent cheers and a race announcer that said, “Bryan Brosious coming in 4th place riding his beautiful Cervelo P3.” I knew going into the race the run was going to be tough. In fact I needed a very tough race to build my mental toughness and shred my legs that last little bit before recovering. I had planned everything for this training phase and this race was fitting right into the plan. The whole run was pain, I had no turnover, I was constantly fighting the urge to lean back and run on my heels. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t enjoyable. This race I ran 7:02 pace which was very far from my 6:15 pace of the previous race. That change in pace is a good indicator of the fatigue I had accumulated.

The leaders pulled away but I was able to hold off a charging chase pack and secure 4th place overall. All things considered, 4th is amazing for this race and I am thankful to do so well. Especially true as this race brought out the best racers in Idaho and Washington. I am not disappointed at all.

I was very happy to be heading home with another top five finish, some awards, and the thought of the recovery period that was coming up. Big things to come…

Rowdy Gaines: We will see soon enough...