Lake Powell Triathlon

Once again, a late race report.  This was the last race of the season.

My wife was very excited to go down to Lake Powell, especially because our very good friends, Ben and Mandi, had just moved to Page, AZ (where the race is located) and I able to sneak in a triathlon during our visit.  Anyone that knows Page would wonder why anyone would move there. He is a school teacher however and was teaching at the high school, and they love it. So, my wife was very eager in fact to go down and visit them.

I was exited because this would be a great way to finish off my season because I had a break in the middle of it. I was building up to do my very best there. I had PR’d at the Saratoga Springs 10k two weeks before the race and felt great.

The week of the race I found out that Brad Gilson, a very tough competitor, would be there racing. He had just recently returned from racing in Budapest, Hungry at the Olympic Distanced World Championship. He was a very strong biker. I figured that I would need a perfect day and it would be possible to beat him.

Before the Race

We got to go down a little early to spend some time with our friends and had a blast learning about the town and the Native American Reservation near by. We saw the high school’s homecoming parade and went to see the canyon that leads out of Lake Powell.

The night before the race I went and checked in and then scoped out the transition area. I tied a plastic bag around the bike rack to reserve my spot, but of course that didn’t do a very good job and the place was taken by morning.

That night we realized that if my wife, my son, our friends, and their son, were going to come to watch that they would want to come about the time the race started. So, they would all take our SUV and I would take their small truck. I didn’t want to lay my bike down in the bed of the truck, so I tied it down so that it stood up, like motorcycle strapped in the back of a truck. I would then leave by myself early in the morning to be prep-ed for the race. This switching of cars turning out to be good for me, but not so good for my wife and friends. In the morning I left early with no problems, but later when I called my wife to see if they were leaving the house yet I found out that they couldn’t get our car started. The battery was dead and they had a tough time finding someone to jump them. It would have been very hard for me to find a jump at 5am. Later that day we had to get the battery replaced.

Swim

The day started off cool, as with most triathlons, and some clouds that, at the time, did not look very ominous. It would later rain during the bike and run.  I took my 1st Endurance PreRace (a drink mix with caffeine and taurine).  This would be the first triathlon testing it out.

We had quite the swim field with Brad Gilson there and especially Wes Johnson. The 35 and under age groups started in the first wave (I had talked Brad into telling the timers that he would go in the first wave so that we would know where each other were at in the race). As we took of a group of 4 or so quickly pulled away. The gap turned into 4 minutes which was not good! It has opened my eyes to my need to focus on my swim again. Wes Johnson actually came out in just under 18 minutes, but due to an injury, had to pull out of the race after the bike. Brad was in a group of three that came out around 19:30 and then I came out in 23:24. Brad is quite a bit faster swimmer than I expected.

T1

Transition starts with a very long and steep climb up the boat ramp and then into the actual transition area. I got my wetsuit off quickly and zipped out on my bike with the fastest transition time of day; 2:06.

Bike

The first few miles of the 2 loop bike were a subtle uphill that culminated with a steep uphill of about a mile. This wasn’t too bad to just cruise through in a low gear. I think by now I had passed two out of the four people in front of me (but one of those still in front of me was Wes). Once at the top it flattened out I could get some real speed. However, while cruising along my right aerobar extension vibrated out of its receiver. It was still connected by the shifter cable, but I had to hold it from just hanging down and hitting my front wheel. This made the 3 mile descent and curves back to transition… and a whole other loop… very tough. I tried to do my best with what I had. I had to take a little extra precaution because of the extension issue and the drizzle that had now begun. I’m not sure how detrimental all this was to my bike time. Bike time was 1:02:11. Brad had a blazing fast bike time of 56:18.

As a follow up on using the Zipp 808 Firecrest Carbon Clinchers, I thought they were very helpful.  I had reviewed them in an earlier post and they handle very well in windy conditions and they are faster.  There wasn’t really any wind during this race, so I didn’t feel any difference.  As for being faster, I’m used to riding tubulars which are lighter, so I think they offset each other and I was neither faster or slower (also, it is hard to notice what is supposed to be a 15 second improvement over a 40k).

This is what it looked like after it started to rain.

T2

Bike-to-Run transition went smooth and once again, fastest T2 of the day: 37 seconds.

Run

It is hard to make up a gap of almost 9 minutes, but at the time I did not know that. I pushed hard from the get go. I knew I was at my best running ability ever, so why couldn’t I bridge the gap to Brad?!  After a few hundred yards I looked back over my shoulder and saw another athlete about 200 yards back.  For some reason I didn’t worry.

As a follow-up on the PreRace that I had used, it didn’t seem to help on the swim and I had a lot of problems on the bike, so I wasn’t able to feel a difference.  On the run, however, I was able to push hard throughout the whole run.  I think PreRace doesn’t really help you to run a lot faster than your normal ability, but allow you to keep your fast pace for longer.  I’ve decided next time I want to try taking it at the beginning of the bike instead of before the swim.

I felt like I was going fast enough that I would be gaining on Brad and so when I got to the aid station near mile 2 I asked them how far ahead the other guy was.  They said “like 15 minutes”.  I knew this couldn’t be true because he would already be coming back… and that was just crazy!  However, within a few minutes I saw Brad on his way back.  Sure enough he had an enormous gap.  I figured at that point that it was virtually impossible to catch him, but I was going to do my best anyways.  On the way back I got a side cramp and slowed for a few minutes, but then picked it up again and in the end I had my best run ever.

I ended up placing 3rd overall because there was another athlete in the second way that pulled in before I did.  Run time =39:21,  Final time = 2:07:41

Below are two pictures of my son waiting during the race.  Very cute.

Fun Facts about our Drive Back

We had quite the adventure on our way back home.  We staying with our friends through Sunday and after seeing off our friends, we got a late start.  I was tired and hadn’t fully recovered from the race.  We made it to Panguitch and decided that was as far as we could go that night.  We figured it wouldn’t be worth paying much for a hotel because I needed to be back at work early in the morning.  We searched around the town and found a small motel and my wife called the owners.  It was small enough that they didn’t even have an attendant at the motel, they would just come down if someone called.  My wife negotiated our stay to $30.  I thought it was a good deal.

We went to bed quickly, and got up just as quickly.  We headed out about 7am.  About 20 miles into our drive it started to snow.  We turned on to hwy 20 heading to 1-15.  Just as the road was going to head over some foothills the snow began to stick to the road.  We didn’t really know this until our SUV started to fishtail!  We slid to the right and then left into the oncoming lane (luckily no cars were coming), and then finally slid back across our lane and off of the road where we finally stopped.  Our hearts were racing and we looked around to make sure we were all ok.  Lochten’s car seat was tilted over.  We were very thankful that there were no other cars on the road and that the embankment was very shallow.  Also, that there was no guardrail or rock wall to run into.  I guess a rear-wheel drive car is not a great car to drive in the snow.  We had a little bit of trouble getting back on the road, but after getting a running start we made it up over the embankment and onto the road.  We were extremely cautious after that.  We have since bought new tires for our car.