Kansas City Triathlon - Race Report

Prologue
I was getting ready to pack up my bike into our Jeep the night before the race.  I was giving Sir Blanco a quick once over with my multi-tool, tightening bolts, checking the roll of the wheels, basically making sure that the bike was ready for the race tomorrow.  As I was spinning the front wheel, I noticed that my cyclo-computer didn't come on. It automatically turns on when the wheel starts spinning so it can record how fast the bike is going, how far, etc.  I thought maybe my fiddling had pushed the sensor on the wheel out of alignment so I fiddled a bit more to no avail.  I then discovered that the lead wire had split.  Don't know how, don't know why.  This was a bit disconcerting because you don't need a spedometer when you're racing, but it's nice to see how you're doing and how far you've got to go.  I decided this was either a bad omen, or it was my one equipment hic-up for this race and this just meant that everything else would go perfectly...we'll see.

Pre-Race
I woke up excited.  The alarm was set for 4:45am and I was up two minutes early.  I got out of bed and started my daily routine like it was any other day.  I shaved, showered and then went downstairs for a little breakfast.  The biggest difference was that I was wearing spandex while I made my bowl of oatmeal. 

Normally, I only wear spandex when we go out to eat.

Mrs. Gias got up just after I did at 5am as she had some pre-race snacks to make and needed to get our girls up and out of bed in order to get to the race site by 7:15am - the time I told her she should be there to see the swim start at 7:34am.  Of course, she's a trooper so she was up with a positive attitude making sure I was ready to go.  I gave her a kiss and hopped in the Jeep for my 25 minute drive to Longview Lake.

I got to the race site a bit before 6am and it was already pretty full.  There were way more people there than I anticipated so I quickly texted Mrs. Gias to let her know the parking situation was going to be a pain and then found a spot along the course route about a half-mile from transition to park the car. 

I walked in with a number of other racers and upon entering transition to rack my bike, I got body-marked.  They had assigned transition spots according to your bib number, which was nice, no fighting for spots.  I quickly went to my spot and set up my gear.

Next I had to get in the chip line, which was pretty uneventful and then on to the porta-john line.  I chatted it up with a few other racers about how this was their first race, or their 50th race and what to expect on the course.  It was nice to be one of the athletes jawing with the rest of the athletes about what we were about to do.

Before I knew it the announcement came over the sound system that transition would close in 15 minutes and a pre-race meeting wout start shortly thereafter.  It was time to put on the wetsuit and head to the beach.

I have to admit, I had some trepedation walking to the water.  I knew it would be cold and I'd never done anything like this before.  I thought the best thing to do would be to follow my plan and hop in the water to get acclimated to the temperature and try to swim a few strokes. 

I jumped right in and....damn...the water was cold.  It was 60 degrees and it literally takes your breath away when you first get in.  I tried swimming around a little and with the wetsuit on, and after a minute or two it really wasn't that bad.  Could I tell it was cold?  Yes.  Was it unbearable?  No.  It's amazing what 5mm of neoprene will do for you.

A few minutes more passed and I headed up to the beach to get near the start, it was about 5 minutes away.  It was at this point I saw my dad waving his arms from the back of the start chute.  I hussled back there and said hi to him and Mrs. Gias.  They told me the rest of my cheering section had arrived and were on the other side of the beach ready to see me pop out of the water.  They wished me good luck and I headed down to the edge of the water for the start.

The Swim
I lined up for the start of the swim with the rest of the males 30-49...that's a big group by the way.  They originally told us it would be by age group, then they decided to put the four largest age groups together for what amounted to a mass start...no idea why.  Anyway, I knew that if I swam like I knew how, I would do fine...although, those bouys looked pretty far away...and the water was awfully choppy from all the wind. 

Go!

It was a mad dash into the water.  If you've never seen a mass start for a swim race, there's a reason they call it the washing machine.  It's random limbs flailing everywhere, water splashing and churning, you get kicked in the face, you smack someone else's arm, someone grabs your leg, people are going sideways across your back...it's chaos. 

Oh, and the water is 60 degrees, taking your breath away and making it that much harder to breathe and focus on swimming.

I sighted the bouy about 600 meters out, but just barely, the sun was rising directly in the line of sight with the bouy making the glare pretty blinding.  I started stroking and sighting like I'd practiced, which, by the way, wasn't working at all.  I'd look up and stare into the sun for a second, just long enough to get kicked in the face and then try swimming again.  Even after we were out about 200 metersI was still having a hard time breathing and I could tell I wasn't swimming straight...at all. 

When I got to the midway point between the shore and the furthest bouy, about 300 meters or so, I panicked.  I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, I couldn't stroke regularly, I had the realization that I was already exhausted from the start and I wasn't sure I could continue.  I thought seriously about trying to get to the nearest paddle boat to have them take me to shore. 

It was terrible. 

All of my training, my delusions of grandeur of finishing the race, of having my cheering section see me exit the water, finishing the triathlon like I promised myself I would do, doing triathlons in the future, all flashed before my eyes in an instant. 

I told myself to settle down, catch your breath and get on it.  You're a good swimmer, you're comfortable in the water and you can certainly swim 1500 meters.  Quit jacking around feeling sorry for yourself, put your head down and go.  If you run out of air, switch to breast stroke for a while.  If your time is slower than your goal, do better next time.  You think you're going to drown, but you're not.  Forget about everything else and...just...swim.

I started making little deals with myself, just like I do when I'm in the pool.  Swim to that bouy and then take a quick break.  Do 10 strokes then site the bouy.  Say a Hail Mary breathing to the left, then say one breathing to the right. 

Before I knew it I was on the back stretch of the swim coming back towards shore.  Coming into shore was significantly faster than going out. I was almost in a rhythm, or as close to one as I could find, and I knew I could make it. 

Of course my rhythm was something like stroke stroke, kick in the face, turn slightly left, then back right, stroke stroke, repeat.  It was like some dark Philip Glass musical number about a slow triathlete. (Yeah, I just dropped a Philip Glass reference, deal with it.)

I think the biggest problem for my actual swimming was that I could not, for the life of me, seem to swim straight.  The wind was strong, the water was choppy and I was all over the damn lake.  I'm sure I ended up swimming well over 2000 meters with the crazy diagonals I was making.

Red is the actual swim route.  Yellow is the Geek's swim route.  "Well there's your problem..."

Was the swim a good one?  No.

Did I panic, get scared and feel as if I would almost drown?  Yes.

Did I drink so much lake water that hydration wasn't a problem?  Yes.

Did I finish it and smile for the camera?  Of course.

It was only later that I would learn that my piss poor swim time would still land me in the top 50% overall.  I've got to practice open water swimming...like...everyday.

T1
I hit the beach exhausted, mentally and physically.  The panic, the cold and the one mile (probably more) swim took a lot out of me.  Not to mention I was pretty shaken up from being so panicked in the water, I was just happy to be alive, but mad at myself for doing so poorly.

I ran up the beach and saw my full contingent cheering section for the first time.  Both my sisters with their husbands, Mrs. Gias, her mom, both my little girls and my dad.  There were cheers, signs and all kind of yells.  I can't tell you how much of a pick-me-up it is to have a cheering section, especially when you finish something like that swim which really had me dejected because I thought I was off to such a poor start. 

Hey moron, it's stuck on your watch.

I hussled up the beach trying to pull my wetsuit down to my waist where it got stuck on my watch.  Here's the thing, if you don't wear a watch when you practice taking your wetsuit off, but you wear a watch for your race, your're going to look like a one-armed idiot running into transition.  I was flailing like some kind of mental patient trying to get my arm out of a straight jacket...not my most graceful moment. 

I ran through transition area, which seems substantially longer when you're in bare feet across the uneven asphalt, and got to my gear.  My younger sister, her husband and Mrs. Gias had raced up the beach on the other side and were right outside transition giving me encouragement. 

I stripped down the wetsuit, this time catching it on my timing chip on my left leg.  Let's just say that Mrs. Gias tood a few too many pictures of the Geek bending over to get the wetsuit off of my left leg.  I'll spare you from having to look at any of those here.

I slipped on my shoes, sunglasses and helmet and was off.  I ran towards the transition exit and then hopped on my bike.

Wait a minute, where are my feet?

The Bike
I started the bike and my pace felt kind of slow (of course, I couldn't really tell because I didn't have a working spedometer).  I was tired and didn't quite have my legs under me yet.  I had used a lot more energy in the swim than I thought and my legs were already feeling a bit tired.

No biggie, just a 25 mile ride with 20-30 mph winds followed by a 6 mile run...who needs fresh legs?

Anyway, I started to ride and was still in my head about my swim.  I checked my watch and thought it was about 33 minutes or so, about 8-9  minutes slower than my goal.  Realistically, the goal should have been a bit more conservative, but, live and learn.  I was upset and dejected at my swim time and then with the bike seemingly starting so slowly I didn't quite know what to make of my race day.  Honestly, I was mostly worried about my cheering section having to stand around waiting for me to finish sometime late into the evening.  Yeah, a little dramatic, but hey, it's all in my head.

Not having a bike computer I had no idea how fast I was going so I just kept plugging along.  The course was a 12.5 mile loop we did twice.  The first 6-7 miles were on roads with a pretty significant headwind/crosswind, which really makes you work hard and go slow.  Then we hit a neighborhood section which was cool because people that lived there came out to cheer, but was not cool because there were a lot of tight turns that made keeping a decent pace difficult.

I almost look like I know what I'm doing...I should be an actor.

Luckily you come out of the neighborhood, hit one more massive hill and then...mile 10.  Manna from heaven.  It's downhill/flat for about 2.5 miles with a tailwind.  It literally felt like I was flying during this section.  The blacktop smoothed out, I found a gear I liked and just cruised.  It was awesome. 

Yeah, even my signs used my nom de plume...awesome.

The cheering section was out in full force when I finished lap 1 and it was again, like someone recharged my batteries when I saw my signs and heard them yell.  Best feeling ever.  I muscled through that first loop and checked my watch.  44 minutes. 

Wait a minute.  My goal time was 47 minutes per loop...I'm ahead of schedule on the bike...in this wind?  That's crazy.  That was a nice pick-me-up as well.  I mashed through my gears into the wind and neighborhood one more time gaining confidence the whole way, knowing that the last few miles I could do a bit of resting and still have a strong run.

T2
I rolled into T2 almost exactly in 90 minutes averaging a higher speed than at last weeks duathalon, which was half the distance of today's ride.  I don't know what it was, but something on the bike went right.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still SLOW, I was just a little less slow today.

I got into T2, dropped my helmet, racked my bike and made like a banshee for the exit.  I was tired and didn't have my legs under me, but I was ready to finish this thing.

Wipe that grin off your face, there's 6 miles to go!

The Run
As has happened to me pretty much everytime I start a run after a bike ride, the first mile is SLOW.  I'm pretty wobbly and trying to get a rhythm going is difficult for me.  Luckily at the top of the first hill about a quarter mile in, my cheering section was out in full force.  I had to smile.

The run course had one pretty decent hill, but for the most part was pretty flat running around the lake.  I passed a number of people on the run, which is weird for me because I am not that fast.  Luckily today I was consistent.  I kept my pace pretty even throughout.  My first 5k split was about 28 minutes and I slowed down just a bit on the second half (I know, I know...negative split your run...I was tired, leave me alone!). 

This is right at about the three hour mark...smile less, run more.

I saw my cheering section one more time on the trail towards the finish around maybe mile 5 or so. This is where you know you can finish but you just need a little bit of mind over matter to make sure you keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

The run felt like it went by pretty quickly and my knee felt great...which was a huge relief.  I got about a quarter mile out from the finish and noticed one more guy in my age group ahead of me that I wanted to pass.  I kicked it up as much as I could, which wasn't much, but I got to him and I think he tried to step it up for about three steps and then just let me go.  It felt good to finish strong and as I crossed the finish, my cheering section went nuts!

Of course this is the always flattering downstride picture where it looks like I'm losing to gravity.

Post Race

I walked slowly down the finisher's chute, got a bottle of water and my post race towell and made my way through the barricade to my family.  I went to chat with them, take some pictures and basically just enjoy a few minutes of the morning.  I told them all about how I thought I was going to quit 10 minutes into the swim, but how thinking about seeing them at the finish pushed me through.  I also saw a few people that I had trained with and shared a few war stories with them.

The hairy chest is a little gross.

I even ran into my coach and a few other "experienced" triathletes.  They made me feel pretty good (partially because I actually beat my swim coach on my swim time) and also because everyone was pretty much saying that the swim was terrible.  They all thought the water was cold, the chop made it impossible to navigate and that it was OK to have had a bad swim.  One guy even said he swam Escape From Alcatraz three weeks ago and that the San Francisco Bay was an easier swim than Longview that day.  That helped restore a bit of confidence for next time...

Cheering Section

After I finished the race I was looking for the awards podium because I was certain that I would easily win for best cheering section.  Who knew that wasn't a real award?  It doesn't really matter, because everyone there knew the Geek had the best fans.

My cheering section minus Mrs. Gias...somebody had to take pictures.

I've mentioned them above, but I have to give at least one more shout out to my fabulous cheering section.  They came out in full force for the beginning, middle and end of a three hour plus race on a Sunday morning. 

They brought signs, snacks and a fabulous attitude.  They were reason enough to finish the race.  

You guys are the best.  Thanks.