Race Reports 2015
Weekend Race Report: Chris Brown Duathlon
2:32 PMFinally, a champion winning feat!
5k - 30k - 5k
After weeks of rest and base training following the National Championship race, I finally began in on adaption bricks, tempo, and sweet spot training to ease back in on world championship training for Adelaide. Only a few weeks in and my first race for the second half of my season was up: the Chris Brown Duathlon in Tulsa on August 9. I didn't expect too much. My CTL was still waaay down from June, and I hadn't done any race efforts since then, even opting out of the always fun Draper Du in July just so I could have more rest. Nevertheless, my in-laws had visited the weekend before, and I was feeling mentally bolstered by their visit, if not physically so.
This race was pretty good distance, 5k-30k-5k, and would help to start to challenge me for the lengthier 10k-40k-5k in October. The course location is in Mohawk Park, near the Tulsa Zoo but not in it, and winds throughout its entirety, twisting and meandering in on itself along the tight paths in a quasi-figure 8.
I began the run as I tend to wont to do, near the middle of the pack, that way I'm not tempted to go out too hard, but I don't have to waste time trying to get around the runners slower than me, either. My coach Mark was there, and poked fun at me for that, but I'd always rather have a rabbit to chase than be the carrot.
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| I'm back there, chasing my bunnies |
Soon in, there were probably only 2 or 3 women in front of me. My pace was okay, not championship-level for sure, but not terrible either, a solid 7:30-ish, which for coming back from couch potato-ing I was okay with. The course was marked significantly better this year (last year all the competitors, save one, ran the wrong way on the course and added much distance to our collective dismay), and to my utter delight the Tom's and Air Assurance teams were scattered throughout, volunteering their time as course marshals, cheerleaders, and waterboys. It was wonderful to see familiar, friendly faces, and when they all saw me they cheered loudly, despite the fact I am on neither one of their teams.
I had an okay transition, realizing that without practicing it since nats I had to pause mentally to figure out exactly how to do it all again. Still need to work on committing that to pure muscle memory...
The bike is where I had significant problems.
It had become pretty warm by that point. The sun and heat had been beating down on the bicycles all parked in transition. Which had apparently worn down the tack in the electrical tape I use along the edges of my disc cover. Which had causde the tape to un-bind from the wheel. Which very quickly found its way onto my cassette and my rear brake. Which, only a few miles into the bike, became a giant friggin' headache.
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| Could that be a more unflattering angle? |
You can only guess what trying to output power against a tape-wound cassette is like. My chain jumped CONSTANTLY ( I cannot emphasize that word enough). Although I found it was slightly less constant as long as I held a super high cadence and decent speed, which made me feel like I was in the movie Speed, which wouldn't have been terrible if it wasn't for the windy course with its constant turns... My chain dropped several times. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at shifting the front derailleur to re-catch the chain, so I never had to dismount because of it, though it did almost cause me to wreck when it happened smack dab in the middle of a crowded downhill turn... The tape also managed to catch my rear brake assembly and pull it slightly to one side, although I frankly wasn't able to detect the power loss from it against the power being sapped out from the cassette/chain assembly, and only realized this after the race.
I wrestled constantly with the question of dismounting to remove the tape, or keep going.
I kept going.
Thank goodness I did. With the damage that tape did, there was no way I could have pulled it all off mid-race (even after, I had to have the mechanics at Schlegel's really clean out and re-assemble the hub of my wheel - it was really in there!). I figured as long as I was still moving forward, it was better than losing time to fix this particular mechanical. Plus, less than halfway through the race I had already managed to catch all the women in front of me. I didn't want to risk letting them catch again - they're fast runners!
With much praying, and much determination, I managed to make it back to transition, almost falling sideways off the bike as I failed to lift an exhausted right leg with enough clearance for the saddle...
I threw off my helmet, slammed on my running shoes, just remembering to rack my bike, and ran back out like a beast was on my heels.
Again, not my fastest second run, but not the worst. Holding a constant 7:42.
Race brain was catching up to me at that point. I was frustrated with the mechanical on my bike, and even more frustrated that my power had been so low (couldn't really be helped in this instance, but race brain). The heat had gotten to me and I had gone through the water on my bike much faster than anticipated, leaving me with no drink for the last several miles. I made sure to stop at the water stop on this leg halfway through the run, grabbing two water cups and gulping one while throwing the other straight onto my head. As I turned around I could spy Tall Pink, the chick who was going to contend with me the most for the win.
I had to hold her off!
Seeing her threw out thoughts of stopping alongside the path for a breather, and introduced thoughts of her coming from behind me the last mile and taking the win. A much better motivator, really.
At about 1 mile to go a cop on a motor came alongside me and asked a question. I couldn't make out quite what he said, and I couldn't really respond, so I just shook my head. He backed off, then came roaring up again a few moments later to ask more clearly "Are you running the individual or the relay?!" The word individual struck me as too hard to get out, so I just screamed back "ME!" For the first time, I realized that he wanted to lead me in to the finish line. Again, I thought of Tall Pink right behind me and prayed that I was holding a fast enough pace to get me there before her. The cop pulled in front and we made our way back.
1/2 mile to go...
1/4 mile to go...
Still no Tall Pink...
And there was the line! The cop pulled away right before I ran onto the finishing carpet and crossed. I was ecstatic. Felt pretty nice to know that for the first time I came away with not just the AG win, but the overall win!
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