3Sports Triathlon

19 July, 2008. We pulled into the parking lot of Shady Grove YMCA in Richmond, Virginia. At the last minute my friend Brian decided to join in on the fun and games, so he rode with me for the 2 hour drive from Falls Church, where we live. The 3Sports Sprint Triathlon was a pool-swim event, so it was centered around the YMCA. Normal sprint-distance triathlons are half the distance of an Olympic race in each event; a 750m swim, 20k (12.4 mile) bike and a 5k (3.1 mile) run. There are quite a few races however, that are even shorter, usually involving pool swims of laughable distances, that I like to call stupid-sprints. This was one of those races. The distances in the final two disciplines were the same at 20k and 5k, but the swim in this race was a whopping 300 meters; almost not worth getting wet for. We informed the front desk that we were with the race the next day and they let us in to check out the pool. Once through the locker rooms we were greeted by quite possibly the smallest 25m pool I have ever seen in my life, short of those little backyard inflatables. The "deep" end was 5 feet. I'm pretty sure I've seen bathtubs bigger than this pool. I have never seen nor heard of a race with a shorter swim, but standing on the pool deck I was seriously questioning how we were going to squeeze 300 meters out of this thing. The first triathlon I ever did was the only other race I've done that had a pool swim. The pool in that race was a much larger 50m pool, and that swim was one of the roughest, most insane swims I've ever participated in. This was going to be interesting.

This is an excellent opportunity to explain why I hate swimming in pools. You might be surprised to learn that it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm training in a pool six days a week. I love swimming. I just hate pools. It's the principle of it. Pools are to swimming what treadmills are to running and stationary bikes are to cycling. It's just not the same. Swimming in open water is natural, and gives you a powerful sense of freedom. Part of the reason I got into triathlon was because of the predominantly open-water nature of the swims. There is a sense of excitement and adventure involved, because open water is so unpredictable. The water in a pool hovers around a pleasant 80+ degrees. The water in mother nature's oceans, rivers and lakes can be so cold it literally shocks your breath away. Wind creates chop that throws textbook lane-swimming form out the window. Currents push and pull you off course, forcing you to swim at an angle relative to where you want to go. The absence of a black line to use as reference requires one to perfect an aptly named technique called "sighting," or lifting your head periodically to zero in on a buoy or landmark in order to stay on course. Unrestricted by concrete and plastic lane lines, swimming in a vast expanse of open water instills a sense of freedom and accomplishment; you are actually getting somewhere instead of endlessly bouncing off the walls in a 25m pool. Racing in open water forces you to adapt and improvise on the fly, whereas the monotony of the incessantly repetitive and predictable nature of picture-perfect pool swimming is enough to make you nauseous.

When we ran out of insults for the pool's diminutive size, we headed out the back door and walked along the matted corridor that would be our path to run from the pool to the transition area, located 50 yards away in the parking lot. After examining the layout of the bike racks and finding the bike and run exits, we met up with our friend and his brother and headed out to get some dinner. This friend of ours goes by the name of Jordan Chang, and he happens to be my biggest rival for a division first place in the Virginia Triathlon Series. Jordan is a short, compact, energetic runner. Notice I used the word "runner" to define him. This guy is a real runner, the kind who runs so much it makes you tired. He has competed and done well in numerous ultramarathons, and his short-distance speed is off the charts as well. He also happens to be ridiculous at triathlons, and is the president of the Virginia Tech Triathlon Team of which my friend Brian is a member, and is how I was introduced to him. If my strength is the bike, his is most definitely the run. When all is said and done however, we finish extremely close to each other, often just seconds apart, making races with him extremely intense and competitive. I had beaten him earlier in the year in the first race we did together at Smith Mountain Lake by a whopping 28 seconds, and he returned the favor at Yorktown, beating me by 15 seconds. I was looking to break our tie at this race, and was excited to duel with him again. After eating as much pasta as we could stomach we parted ways and Brian and I returned to our hotel to finish prepping our bikes and race gear before calling it a night.

20 July, 0500. After about 4 hours of sleep I opened my eyes to watch my cell phone vibrating off of the nightstand. Now officially 21 years old, I felt like more sleep would be the ideal birthday present. Ugh. Getting up this time felt like a chore, which is never a good start. I went through the usual routine of eating, warming up and stretching out in the shower, then getting dressed in my tri-suit and heading down to the car. After pumping up my new tires I was hoping would be less prone to flats, I very briefly took my bike for a spin around the parking lot to make sure everything was working properly. Satisfied, I racked my Cervelo with Brian's and we drove off to the YMCA. I set up my bike in transition and picked up my timing chip. Afterwards I met up with Brian, Jordan and his brother Joshua outside the pool to stretch out and wait for our numbers to be called up. The way pool swims work is they seed your start time based on an estimated swim time you submit when you register for the race. Jordan registered all of us with the same swim time, so we could race as close to head-to-head as possible. I would be first as 75th in the water, with Jordan 77th and Brian 78th. Finally we were called to line up and get ready to go, and we slowly made our way to the pool as athletes were started 10 seconds apart. Eventually it was my turn, so I jumped in the pool and got ready to launch. The starter counted down the seconds and before I knew it I was sailing down the pool, keeping my strokes long and strong. In what seemed like the blink of an eye I hit the wall and turned around, gliding down the shallow pool and getting pissed I was staring at a black line on the floor. By the time I hit the second turn, ducked under the lane line and launched off for the second lap all three of us were in the water. My form was pretty good, but I wasn't trying terribly hard. With only 200 meters to go, I didn't feel the need to. Another lap or two later when I hit the wall and was about to duck under the lane line I noticed a woman right on my heels followed closely by Jordan who looked like he was trying entirely too hard. He ripped his head up to sight and was practically foaming at the mouth. I generously let them pass me, and honestly hoped that Jordan wouldn't end up hurting anyone by the end of the swim. On the last 50-75m I felt Brian tapping on my feet, and played around with the idea of not letting him pass me, just to be an asshole. I concluded that course of action would culminate in an underwater fist-fight and rapid disqualification, so I paused at the last turn to let him go by. "You're a bitch!" he yelled in my face before he dove under the line and started the final lap. Oh that motherfucker... I let him have his moment as I switched my thoughts to nailing a speedy transition, sailing in the last length of that godforsaken pool. I erupted out of the water and sprinted out the open doors, following the mats laid out to the transition area. Mainly just happy to be done with that retarded swim, I saw both Brian and Jordan unracking their bikes and heading out of transition as I ran up to mine. Good, I thought, they're right where I want them. I ran to the mount line and jumped on my bike, ready to turn on the heat.

My problems on the bike started almost immediately. To cut down time in transition, I leave my shoes clipped in to my pedals and start the bike pedaling with my feet on top of my shoes. When I'm clear of hills and sharp turns, I slip my feet in to my shoes, tighten the strap then take off. This time, however, my shoes refused to let my feet in. What normally takes all of 5 or 6 seconds took probably 60. This is more than just a minute loss in time, because I could have been spending that time at twice the speed I was going. It also stopped me from taking full advantage of the first long downhill, so the time deficit was huge when contrasted with the simplicity of the task that caused it. Finally able to pick up the pace and put down the power, I hauled ass to the first turn. I tried to sprint out of the turn, and discovered my legs were not getting with the program. I felt off, and my body didn't feel peaked and rearing to go like usual. Some invisible limiter was stopping my legs from unleashing their full potential, so I tried to get into a rythm to warm and wake them up. This would never happen, after a few miles I was becoming concerned that I hadn't seen Brian or Jordan, who I needed to be passing very soon if I was going to build an insurmountable lead. After a few minutes I finally caught sight of Brian, and gradually made my way up to him. "You're a bitch!" I yelled as I sailed past Brian, returning the favor from the swim. I intended to sneak into his slipstream then erupt past him in a disheartening surge, but all I could manage was a gradual pass of unimpressive power. Oh well, I thought as I continued to move up the field, one down, one to go. I redirected my energy into powerfully accelerating forward in the hunt for Jordan. This wasn't working well and progress was frustratingly slow. My average power output was 220 watts, compared with my norm of close to 300. For those of you unfamiliar with cycling power output, that's a very fucking big difference, equal to around 3-4mph in average speed. False flats (very slight uphills), that I normally tear up like they weren't even there, were grinding me down to what felt like a snail's pace. I was still passing people, but hardly in the definitive and devastating manner I normally do. I realized I hadn't been paying attention to my hydration and took a few sips of my sports drink. Almost immediately I felt sick to my stomach. What the fuck is going on here?! I didn't have time for this bullshit, and I was getting extremely frustrated that the bike leg was more than half over and I still hadn't caught Jordan. Normally I have to pass him within the first 4-5 miles in a sprint race to ensure he can't catch me on the run. After several minutes of grueling effort, I finally caught sight of him ahead of me, looking strong. After painstakingly working my way up to him, I rode up directly to his rear, then executed a slingshot around him. A slingshot is where you ride up behind someone to take advantage of the reduced air resistance in their slipstream then use that to accelerate and shoot past them in a definitive and power-efficient pass. This short period of drafting is legal so long as you complete the pass in under 15 seconds. It usually never takes longer than 5 to 10 seconds, but this time I was stretching it. I gave 110% effort to this surge, literally everything I had but still couldn't manage a very impressive pass. I promptly burned out after this immense effort, and was barely putting any kind of lead on Jordan, who was obviously determined not to let me out of his sight. After a couple minutes of catching my breath and letting some of the burning lactic acid flush out of my legs, I recollected myself to try once more to put this mediocre performance to rest and pick up the pace. Motivated by frustration and rage, I managed to pull it off for about a mile up a false flat, increasing my speed to that which I normally only see on flat ground. But that impressive show wouldn't last long at all, and my legs shut down soon thereafter. Having expended my last surge of anaerobic effort, I was forced to sit up out of my aero position in nausea for most of the rest of the ride. I rolled into transition knowing my lead wouldn't last. I racked my bike, tossed my helmet, ripped on my running shoes, grabbed my run belt and practically moved the earth underneath my feet as I blitzed out of transition.

I saw Jordan coming in on the bike as I was running out, very close behind. I knew my victory was lost unless I managed to have the best run of my life while he had the worst of his. I did my best to make him work for it, but after about a quarter mile I realized that wasn't going to happen either. My body more or less shut down, and my pace slowed dramatically. By the first half mile I was reduced to a pace so slow that I only use it to run long distances of 12+ miles. My heart rate was through the roof, and my legs just refused to turn over. Around this time Jordan gradually made his way past me, then seemed to continually accelerate away until by the turn around at mile 1.55 he was out of sight. For the remainder of the run I just sucked it up and tried to hold it together, determined not to go any slower. I watched a couple other competitors I recognized from our age group pass me, and I knew that even finishing on the podium was out of the question. I ran back in to the YMCA and across the finish line, ducking under a low-hanging banner that was threatening to clothesline me. I slowed to a stop, then spotted Jordan already cooling down at a picnic table sheltered by a shaded pavilion. I walked over to join him, collapsing onto the bench beside him, and we waited for Brian. He would finish a few minutes later and join us under the pavilion. After we cooled down and rehydrated, we set off to help take down the race site, which we agreed to do in exchange for having our race registration fees waived. Jordan ended up winning our division, while I was forced to settle for 6th place. Since this race came right after my recovery from Buffalo Springs Lake Ironman 70.3, I did exactly zero high intensity speed training leading up to it, but I still should have been a hell of a lot faster than I was. As disappointed as I was with my performance, I can't get too bent out of shape about it. There was absolutely nothing I could do to make myself go any faster; my body simply failed me. Of all the days for it to take a nap, it had to pick this one. Oh well. I still had a great time, spending my birthday with good friends, duking it out in the sport I can't get enough of. Having known the outcome ahead of time, I still would have done it, and I suppose that's all that matters.