Timberman weekend report

Another Timberman has come and gone, #8 for me. Although it was strange to not participate in the half, it was also kind of fun to do something different. The weekend began on Friday afternoon when I made my way to the Fast Splits tent at Gunstock ski area, home of the race expo. This was after an hour-long recovery bike ride in overcast skies and soupy humidity brought on by a hurricane that was just brushing us by. The tent was like a sauna for about an hour or so... until the wind picked up and the storms came through. Just as I was waiting in line to pick up my race packet for the sprint the skies opened up and without warning it started pouring. That lasted about 3 minutes. Then it happened again, this time for a bit longer. I had found myself back in the tent only to become trapped when the torrential rain, nearby lightning and loud thunder stranded everyone under whatever cover they were nearest while we all waited out the storm, wondering how long it would take to pass. Thankfully, it finally did stop and we were once again free to roam the open field without fear of being soaked. My relay partners for Sunday's half showed up and we picked up our packets for that and then drove down the street to get some dinner before heading home to get some rest.

For whatever reason I didn't sleep very well, but that can't stop you from racing. The applesauce still had to be consumed though. Since the sprint is much smaller there is no reason to leave at a ridiculous hour of the morning, so my friend Kevin, who was staying with us and doing the half, dropped Trent - another friend staying at the house - and I off a little after 6 when we easily got a pretty good parking spot at Ellacoya. It was still very warm and humid, but at least at that point it wasn't raining. Transition set up was minimal since of course it was just a sprint and I didn't need all kinds of nutrition or anything, no socks, no glasses since it was so overcast and might rain, so there wasn't a whole lot to do except talk to my friends while we all wondered why we were putting ourselves through this.

Of course my wave went off way after most others. No matter how they do it, I'm almost always way down the line. The waves were set to go off 6 minutes apart, although I have no idea why. The swim would take just over that for most participants, why did we need so much time between them? Well, I'm not sure if that was the reason, but somewhere along the line, just after someone commented on how calm I looked, I overheard that they had apparently changed it to 4 minutes between each wave, so I was heading off a bit ahead of schedule. I was worried when my teammates Cait and Chrissie weren't among the women in the water as I lined up at the start, but they made it with a bit of time to spare.

The water at Ellacoya is amazingly shallow for an amazingly long way out from shore. This meant that had I chosen to, I probably could've walked the course. After some dolphin dives to at least make it look like I knew what I was doing, I discovered that many people in the waves in front of us had elected to do just that: walk the course, or at least stand for a moment to collect themselves. There was also the usual crowd of breast-stroke kickers, their flaying legs always seeming to aim right for my goggles. For whatever reason, I chose to avoid these obstacles by swimming further and further to the left, away from the buoys. Although I felt like I was swimming strong, I exited the water in a time that would suggest otherwise, probably due to the fact that I made the course much longer than it needed to be. My coach still wonders what the heck I do when I get out on a swim course because my training times apparently indicate I should be swimming a lot faster. But oh well, still plenty of race to go.

T1 was quick enough without stuffing gels in my pockets or adding the sunglasses. I hopped on the bike and had a surprisingly hard time clipping in before I finally took off. I have no idea how to redline for a whole race. I spent the time wondering if I should hold back a bit or if I really was supposed to go hard enough that I thought I might throw up the entire time. I just tried to go fast, feeling that the deep breathing I was doing was enough to indicate I was going hard enough. It was raining a bit, but nothing terrible. Unfortunately I found myself continually trapped behind people and cars. There were cones lining the roads at points and a surprising amount of traffic. At one point a truck passed me and then moved over to the right to turn, forcing me to go around to the left. After the turn around I and a few others had to pass a school bus on the left for the same reason. I got trapped behind a car as I was going downhill, but he wouldn't pass the much slower cyclist in front of him, but there wasn't enough shoulder for me to pass him on the right. Eventually I passed him on the left as well. The scariest part was as we were approaching a fork in the road, going downhill fairly fast and approaching a line of stopped cars. It wasn't until I was dangerously close that I realized how close to the shoulder they were, and how there were a couple of much slower cyclists already there and there wasn't enough room for me to squeeze through, and not enough time on the rain-slicked roads at my current speed to come to a complete stop. I was forced to hit the brakes as hard as I could without skidding out, frantically calling out, "on your left! On your left! On your left!" The woman I was approaching started yelling at me, as though I could do anything about my closing speed except maybe slam on the brakes and flip over my handlebars. I somehow managed to slow down just in time to fall in behind her, and when the road between the shoulder and the stopped cars opened up a bit, she moved over and let me by. That was NOT a fun section of the course. I wound up averaging a pitiful (for me, especially in a sprint) 20.6mph on the obstacle course known as the bike route.

Off with the shoes, off the bike and into T2. The shoes were on quick, grabbed my hat and number and took off, trying to at least look like I was moving fast. The course is a slight uphill most of the way out to the turn-around and that makes it a slight downhill on the way back. I ran for probably 3-4 minutes before I started to feel like crap. I was breathing so hard I sounded like a fat kid trying to run the mile in gym class. The road kept on going up and I was definitely not enjoying myself, but I wanted to go as hard as I could. I saw Cait coming back the other way and at that point all I could do was stick my tongue out, indicating my exhaustion while she returned a similar facial gesture. I approached the first mile marker and looked at my watch. 7:34. What? You have GOT to be kidding me! I am starting to taste blood in my throat and all it got me was a 7:34? I ran the first mile in Lake Placid in 7:25 and felt like I was effortlessly floating. I practically gave up right then and there, but kept my eyes focused on the runners coming back in the other direction, wondering when I was finally going to reach the turn.

I finally made it and turned to run back, so close to the pain being over. This downward slope made things a whole lot easier, and I approached mile 2 and looked at my watch. 6 minutes had passed since mile 1. I don't know if the mile markers were screwed up, the uphill/downhill affected me more than I realized or if suddenly I was amazingly faster, but that definitely made me feel better. I had also realized that not only was I passing tons of people, but I actually never got passed on the run course. For me, that is amazing. I even got complements. Hah, those people obviously just don't know any better.

I neared the turn towards the finish line and did my best not to slip on the grass. I considered trying to really kick it in for the final stretch, but I quickly remembered that I have no kick, so I just kept on running until it was over. It hurt, but the pain was gone quickly and of course I wondered if maybe I should've gone harder. I certainly could've done better on the bike if it weren't for all of the people weaving and trying not to get hit by cars. It was kind of fun though. I wish that all of my speed workouts could just be short races, it is so much better than trying to go hard on my own.

After the race we were all confused about who came in what place, so basically I didn't know until they announced my name that I had won my age group. This, of course was after they had taken out the first two who had come in second and third overall. This was my first taking home of the big Timberman syrup. Tim and Cait Snow of course were the overall winners, Cait came in 5th out of everyone including the men. Jesse, my coach, came in second. My relay partners for the next day, Leslie and Trent, came in second and third respectively in their age groups. All in all, it was a pretty good day. And to make it even better, the rain had stopped.

We packed up our stuff and got something to eat before coming back and resting a bit for the afternoon. Of course you can never really get too relaxed because there is that annoying bike drop off thing to deal with. I hate that part. It poured on the drive over, but luckily stopped for the unloading of the bikes. By the time we got back we only had enough time pretty much to make dinner, get our stuff ready and relax a bit in front of the TV before we went to bed.

We had decided that we would leave the house at 5am. The park opened at 4. Under normal circumstances, I myself would've likely planned to arrive by maybe 4:15 at the latest. I know what a nightmare parking there can be and I always feel more relaxed just getting there and geting that part taken care of. I can always take another snooze in the car once I'm there. I am often ridiculed for choosing to leave so early. Since this wasn't my big race and I wouldn't be swimming anyway, I let others dictate when we would be leaving. We made the left on route 11 at about 5:20am, and almost immediately came to a dead stop in a huge line of traffic. I knew how far from the park we still were. I knew what a bad idea this was. But I guess it was good to experience it so I know why I do what I usually do. I figured the best thing to do would be to just wait it out since of course everyone in this long line of cars had to get to the exact same place. I wasn't stressed or concerned, I knew I had plenty of time since the relay wave wasn't until 8:10 and of course I was just the biker anyway. Luckily my breakfast was also right there in the car.

Apparently my friends who usually chose to arrive after me said that it had never been so bad. Maybe Timberman has gotten just a little bit too big for the venue. We waited in the line for 45 minutes or so, finally approaching the entrance to Ellacoya. A cop was coming through and knocking on everyone's windows, telling us to go to Gunstock and take the shuttle bus. Great. It looked like we were about the 10th car in line to get shut out. Oh, well, next year when I am really racing I will absolutely be one of the first cars to arrive.

Trent dropped off Kevin, who was doing the whole race since he was just our runner, and we continued on the Gunstock. I was getting worried as we were driving there since there were very few cars in our little group and I wasn't positive we were going in the right direction. Thankfully every few minutes we'd pass another school bus and I felt more confident that we were going where we needed to. It was surprisingly far away, but we got there and parked. Leslie, our swimmer, called and was there and ready to go, thankfully, and also informed us of the insane lines for the porta-potties - more evidence that maybe the race has gotten a little too big. Lucky for us, we still had time to use the real bathrooms at Gunstock with no lines before we hopped on the bus.

It was nice not to feel stressed before the race, especially when we arrived a bit after 7. It was almost eerie though when we got there. Many of the racers were out doing little warm-up runs, nobody seemed to be heading towards the water. Normally at that point you probably wouldn't even be allowed in transition anymore, and yet there were people everywhere. It didn't make sense. Finally it became clear when we found out that apparently there was a bad car accident that had taken most of the police and happened on the bike course, so the race had been delayed, although nobody knew for how long. Someone said they wouldn't be surprised if it was 9:00 before we got started. Well, I guess it didn't matter that much that we were late. There were even still people there ready to body mark us.

We finally got into transition and I got to check my bike, that had of course been soaked overnight. It wasn't raining that morning, and didn't look like it would anytime soon, so that was good. Some of the pros were even still just sitting in transition, so nothing seemed particularly urgent, not that there was much for me to do. Thankfully though, they announced that the race would soon be starting, and after all of that, it was only about 30 minutes late. Not bad considering what we had walked into.

I didn't have much getting ready to do at that point, considering the relay wave went off an hour and ten minutes after the first wave, and I'd be starting probably somewhere between 30-35 minutes after that, so we walked down to watch the swimmers go off. I found a porta-potty with no line by walking out on the run course, finding out that the downside to not doing the swim is that you can't pee in your wetsuit at the start of the race. After a very long wait, Trent and I watched the second to last wave go off before heading back to transition so I could get ready. It was cool to be in there with all of the athletes coming through. We got to see some of our friends come in as well, including Kevin who gave us an emphatic, "that sucked" as he ran by. Well, that would be his normal response given his feeling about swimming, but something about the way he said it made me think that this was no normal bad swim for Kevin. And when I did the math and figured out his swim time, I realized that it was even worse than usual for him. I just hoped his day would get better from there.

We finally decided to head over to the relay pen and wait for Leslie to come through. A few of the people in the relay came through with amazing times, like 24 minutes. What's it like to swim that fast? How do they do that? It didn't feel like that many relay teams had come through when suddenly I spotted Leslie running past the wetsuit strippers (because of course she didn't need them) and stopping in front of us, bent over and breathing hard like she had just swum as fast as she could. Nice. The chip was mine and it was time to hit the course.

I wasn't really that excited about the race. Truth be told, I have a really hard time getting "pumped up" for just about any race. I can't stand the waiting around before. But once I get out there, things change very quickly. I knew I had 56 miles to push hard, pass as many people as I could and have no consequences since I didn't have to run. I didn't run into nearly as bad the traffic issues as I had the day before in the sprint. The course seemed a lot easier this time around. I only wished that I had taken the time to start counting the people I was passing from the beginning once I got out there. I was worried that by going off in the last wave it'd be lonely out on the course. It definitely wasn't, as there were hundreds of people for me to get by.

It was far too early when I saw the pros coming back in the other direction. I saw one trapped behind a truck flying down Marsh Hill, trying to whistle loud enough to get him to move out of the way. Although there is plenty of room out on route 106, there isn't much shoulder on the other roads, so if you're stuck, you're stuck, even if you're a pro. That sucks sometimes. At least it didn't happen to me that day.

The time flew by, and I think I only got passed 3 or 4 times. Once was by another relay guy in a 1-piece time trial suit and some weird-looking aero bars with his elbows so close together they were nearly touching. The only thing that really annoyed me out there was this one guy who I was about to pass who took a gel and then just tossed the wrapper up against a guard rail, nowhere near an aid station or anything. Seriously? How hard is it to hang onto the wrapper until you get to an aid station? I wished there was an official around.

I felt like I was working in surges, like I would get a good rhythm going for a while, but then I'd have to dial it back a bit. I'm still working on getting my hill climbing back, so I was losing speed there but getting it back on the flats and downhills. At one point a random dog decided to join in the race out on route 106, only to drop out and run across the street after having run alongside the bikes for probably a quarter-mile. He was pretty speedy.

The miles ticked away and before I knew it, I was approaching the park, trying to hammer out that last bit of speed. Of course, no matter how many people I passed, there wasn't enough time to pass all of the slow people in front of me, so when I got into the no-passing zone before the turn into the park I was stuck behind this woman who not only thought she needed to go 12mph downhill, but nearly needed to come to a complete stop to make the left back towards transition. Come on, lady, I have relay team members who need me! The only good part about that was it gave me the opportunity to take my shoes off on the bike so I could run through transition in bare feet instead of my bike shoes. I was off the bike in 2:32 after averaging 22mph. I was immensely glad that I did not at that moment have to rush off and try to run a half marathon, so I happily handed my chip off to Trent to let him do it.

Of course, if you know QT2, you'd know that the day never ends when you finish your race. I had actually been thinking a lot about that earlier in the week, that if I wasn't on the team I could just worry about the races instead of always having to go off and run some more or bike late at night after returning home from a race. I'll admit this is my least favorite part of the program. However, in this case, it wasn't so bad. I had to do a 1:10 transition run at that point, so the easiest thing was just to head right back out on the course, only I wouldn't have to worry about trying to go fast. It was hot and humid at that point and I saw more than one person stopped and sticking their heads underneath the hoses people were nice enough to set up in their yards. I also actually saw two separate people get mad at kids who squirted them with hoses, and one guy yelling out, "please don't get me wet!" Seriously? You're worried about getting wet in a race where you start by swimming in your clothes and spend the rest of it sweating profusely and dripping water and Gatorade all over yourself?

I got to spend the run cheering on my friends and not having to worry so much about the fact that my legs felt like crap and I was running incredibly slow. I saw Kevin heading in the other direction and he was only able to say that it wasn't his day, and I felt really bad for that. Later we learned that he had bronchitis, so at least there is a good explanation, since he was certainly in a position to have a good race. Luckily there is always next time.

I finished up my run and confused a lot of people while I was out there. I also wondered if people got confused seeing the "R" on my leg and wondered why any team would choose me to be their relay runner. Trent ran 10 minutes slower than he ran last year and told us he would do, and we spent a lot of time ridiculing him for costing us the co-ed relay team crown since we had come in second. Of course, it really wasn't that big of a deal. I would've been lucky to have had a 2-hour half marathon split given the conditions. We got some food and I got back in the water to do the open water swim I had completely forgotten about the day before. The water was gorgeous and warm, so I just swam in my tri clothes and it actually made me feel a lot better. The awards were given and that was pretty much it. Another Timberman weekend was over. I can't wait to do the whole race next year and hopefully actually be ready to have a good race rather than just getting through it after Lake Placid like I have in the past.

I drove home in the rain and almost immediately had to head out for yet another 1:10 run. I told you, it never ends! I think I finished up at about 6:45. The run actually went pretty well until there were about 7 minutes to go and I suddenly felt like I might just fall over and have to hitchhike home, but luckily I made it and I could finally relax. I guess this means that summer is almost over.

The rest of the week has been spent training, as usual. The weather was still pretty nice for the most part and I even had some good workouts. Yesterday included a 10x400 on the track in which I actually didn't completely fall apart by the 7th repeat. I mean, I spent the rest intervals doubled over against a fence, but the point is that I pushed myself and hung on until the end and did it better than I did in the lead-up for Placid. Today's swim speed workout wasn't so great, but I'll take what I can get.

Tomorrow brings a long ride in a hurricane. This one will probably not be fun.