It was quite an amazing experience: they actually had three triathlons (hence the "Tri-palooza") that weekend, first Nationals, then the Olympic Trials (consisting of around 10 male and 10 female athletes, vying for spots on the Olympic team), then an open triathlon the next morning. I was amazed at the number of teams who came from far away: basically, any American university with a triathlon club or team was there, with schools from as far away as Montana. I was especially impressed by the representation from not only California and the Southwest (I think modern triathlon was invented in San Diego, after all), but also the Midwest: Iowa, ISU, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Northwestern, etc.
Unfortunately, our Georgia Tech club is a little disjointed; we don't have a coach, have little funding, and rarely train together. So it was a little disappointing to see how team-spirited many of the other teams were: the night before the race, at a free pasta dinner, many teams were dressed up in themed costumes, or were playing music and dancing; while I had only just met about 1/2 of the people on my team. But seeing all that will inspire us to work more towards the "team" idea in the future, though, I think.
After leaving the hotel dark and early around 4:15 AM on Saturday, we arrived at the transition area, carefully set up our stuff, got marked with our race numbers and picked up our timing chips, and were all set to go by the 7 AM start. Well, that was the Wave 1 start, anyway…as a slower-seeded guy, I had to wait around until Wave 9 starting at 7:32, and since we weren't allowed in the transition area after 7, I was standing there barefoot and shivering. But we were off, soon enough.
THE SWIM:
Luckily, the water turned out to be less cold than I expected, and in addition, I had a wetsuit! Yes, I splurged a couple of months ago and bought a (swimming) wetsuit, which not only keeps you warm in the water, but also makes you go quite a bit faster/more efficiently because it acts as a flotation device. (I didn't see a single person there who didn't have a wetsuit.) Perhaps partly because of that, and probably also because I've been training a bit, the swim felt really good: I kept up a reasonable pace for my standards and felt like I wasn't expending much energy, particularly in my legs. And, like in my previous triathlon, I really enjoyed the kicking, slapping and receiving of kicks and slaps that go along with having so many people thrashing about in such a small area--it's really gets your adrenaline going. I think I also did better with staying on course--seriously, it's hard to keep swimming straight in an open-water swim, when you don't have that nice black line to watch below you!
THE BIKE:
I still felt pretty refreshed after the swim, and kept up a great pace on the bike. In comparison to Wildflower, which had some nasty hills, the Tuscaloosa bike course was relatively flat and very fast. However, on the other hand, while at Wildflower I borrowed a friend's expensive, fined-tuned, carbon-fiber ultra-light bike, last weekend I was stuck with this ultra-heavy steel-frame clunker road bike that was manufactured by an American company (that has since folded) around the mid-90s at the latest. It was actually quite funny, some teammates were laughing at me the day before when they saw I still had my reflectors and kickstand on this bike…so I took a wrench to it and removed them to shed some weight (I think the kickstand alone was around 1-2 lbs!) but in fact there was another Georgia Tech guy with an old steel-frame bike like mine. We could have been the only such people at the race, though--triathletes universally have a drive to obtain expensive, optimized equipment. In any case, I felt I wasn't losing more than a few minutes due to my bike inefficiencies (now that the kickstand was off!) and was quite satisfied with my bike time.
THE RUN:
Though I felt fresh after the swim, I had been making an effort to keep up my pace on the bike (after all, being the longest event, it's the one that can most affect your overall time) and thus was quite a bit more tired as I started running. And, as is usual after biking that long, my legs felt like jelly for the first couple of miles. But as I ran, I started to loosen up a bit, and was able to increase my speed midway through. Running being my strong event, and other people struggling with the (actually quite tame) hills, I was continuously passing people. I had a strong finish, speeding up enough that I felt I couldn't have finished much faster; yet, thankfully, I came nowhere close to the kind of exhaustion I felt at the end of the marathon.
Overall, it went very well! I was the 8th finisher for Georgia Tech (out of around 18) and was within a few minutes of several other teammates. I significantly improved my time from Wildflower, in each event. In comparison:
| category | Wildflower | Tuscaloosa | difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swim | 31:58 (2:08 /100m) | 28:50 (1:55 /100m) | -3:08 |
| Trans. 1 | 2:38 | 3:33 | +0:55 |
| Bike | 1:23:02 (17.9 mph) | 1:11:07 (21.0 mph) | -11:55 |
| Trans. 2 | 2:29 | 2:20 | -0:09 |
| Run | 43:41 (7:02 /mi) | 41:55 (6:45 /mi) | -1:46 |
| Overall | 2:43:48 | 2:27:42 | -16:06 |
| No wetsuit, awesome bike, hilly bike course | Yes wetsuit, questionable bike, Less hilly bike course |
Placing:
Wildflower - Swim 1099, Bike 362, Run 119, Overall 304 (out of 2729)
Tuscaloosa - Swim 538, Bike 349, Run 205, Overall 348 (out of 892)
So that's the story: improved times in all events, huge time improvement in bike and swim, transitions are still horribly SLOW. Can't complain!
Now, for some pictures. Sorry about the quality of the race photos--I just hijacked the thumbnails from the photography site instead of paying for the high-def versions.
Transition area
Me on the trusty Ross Adventurer, recently decked out with some clipless pedals and more recently stripped of its kickstand and wheel reflectors
Oh yeah, I also splurged on a spiffy uniform!
Out-kicking a guy at the finish
The slow-moving and pretty Black Warrior River, site of the swim
We stuck around afterwards to watch the Olympic hopefuls race. It was fascinating to watch--yes, they were really fast, and their transitions were 0% wasted time, but in addition, they have a lot of strategy revolving around drafting. While our race was draft-illegal (I noticed that several people were docked 2 minutes or DQed for it), all international races are draft-legal, so that's how the Olympians raced. It's almost unfair, because, for example, in the men's race, one guy came out of the swim about 40 seconds ahead, and spent 3/4 of the bike alone in front while 3 guys formed a chasing pack, alternating drafting off each other. The guy in front eventually slowed down to let the other guys catch up, and he joined their pack, but up until that point he had been expending a lot more energy than the others. One of the guys from the initial pack then raced out on the last lap of the bike and held/extended his lead in the run to win.
The lead pack in the women's race.
The men's field, about to start.
The male Olympic hopefuls, churning up some water
The leading pack in the bike leg, after they caught up to the leader (the guy in red and blue.) The guy on the right ended up winning, and will be going to Beijing!
By the way, this was the second of three races in which the Olympic hopefuls can qualify for the 3 spots for Americans on the Olympic team. The top American man and woman in the Beijing World Championships last fall earned a birth, the men's and women's winners of this race earn births, and the "points leaders" (tallied based on placings in these 3 races) after the third race get to go. Oh, and this third qualifying race? The 2nd annual Hy-Vee Triathlon in Des Moines, IA, on June 22! (All right, Iowa!)
1 comment:
You look pretty muscular in those photos, Nate. It looks as though your investment in the wetsuit made a significant difference, And th\e fancy uniform makes you looks especially cool, so it was worth the investment, too.
Congratulations on a fine showing.
MOM
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