Barrelman 70.3

Who's the dude in flip flops behind me?

Sorry it is going to take a while to get to the actual racing in this race report. You might want to skip ahead.

I started this year with a new approach to Boston training and wound up with hip pain that sent me to the doc and left me with a needle full of cortisone getting guided into the joint by ultrasound 6 days before marathon Monday and talk of seeing a surgeon. That was a wakeup call. I stopped running, starting biking a lot and set a new goal for 2019 to finish every race I had already signed up for. I also announced I was done with racing. I meant it. Well, mostly I meant it. I'd still go to Boston every year that I was lucky enough to get in and Musselman because it’s awesome, but I was done turning myself inside out in training and on race do to beat the clock.

The year has gone great. I've spent hundreds of hours swim/bike/running and I've gotten a lot of great long rides in. I thoroughly enjoyed many miles running and biking with my neighbor John who was getting ready for his first 140.6. I met a new friend, Rae and have had some great conversations with her while running and riding. All of this joyful training, with and without training partners, left me looking to do something silly this Fall. I came very, very close to signing up for IMMD but after WTC bought Musselman I just couldn't give them the cash. Rae and Ryan were going to race Barrelman 70.3. I've talked about doing the race for years but never have. Barrelman was 3 weeks before the Chicago Marathon. Everything fell into place. I could put all of the high volume training to work by doing a stupid multi-week endurance stunt that starts with Barrelman, stops by Chicago 3 weeks later and finishes in Kentucky 5 days after that for a Ragnar with friends.

I got to the week before Barrelman feeling very confident. My training has been stellar. Non-traditional, but stellar. I felt strong. I'd lost 30+ pounds in 8 weeks by stopping bad habits. I was healthy. There were no aches and pains. I knew I'd be in for a big PR at Barrelman, but how big? People started asking me what my goal time was going to be. At first I resisted, but pretty easily came up with 4:40+transitions, so let's say better than 4:45. As soon as I had a time goal in mind, and with taper time on my hands, I wanted to start playing the "what if" game. Oops. I started getting race anxiety long before the race. I talked to everyone I could about race anxiety. I posted a QOTD about it to the RWOL Boston Marathon peeps. I talked to Rae about her 1 hour PR this Summer to better understand the mindset of letting yourself have a breakout race. I asked other experienced racers about how to handle the anxiety. After a day or so of asking for help I found clarity. Expectations created my anxiety and if I could let go of the math then I could expel that demon. I accepted that time is an abstract. I accepted that I was in the best shape since 2014. I accepted that I was going to have a great race, that I was going to race until empty, that I was going to chase joy and let myself be happy with whatever the clock said. A number wouldn't define me. Bad weather wasn't going to spoil it and great weather wasn't going to improve it. Whatever the day might bring, damn the circumstances. I was going to celebrate 2019 on September 22nd.

Saturday morning, I did my version of the Aussie Carb Load. A warmup, fast mile and way too much Gatorade powder. The mile was a 5:32. The fastest I've done as an adult. That was a good start. I drank 750 grams of powder with a little water added in, ate a breakfast sandwich and hit the road. Ryan, Rae, Mr. Rae and I were all going to share an Airbnb and agreed to meet at T1/Registration. I was watching for them and didn't realize that Rae and Mr. Rae were in line in front of me until we all got to the registration table and I heard a volunteer confirming their name. That was a pretty funny way to start. We hung out for a while, went to the mandatory athlete's meeting and connected with Ryan when he arrived a bit later. I did a mechanical check on the bike with a short ride, complete with jeans and declared the bike ready after switching out my faster deep dish front wheel for a shallow one because of the strong winds that were in the forecast. The 4 of us got in the car and drove the bike course. The bike course was very flat, as advertised, and while 97% of the drive yielded little value there were a few key places with road hazards that I was glad to see first hand. We checked into the house, had a nice home cooked meal (Thanks Rae!) and went to bed. I slept terrible. I must have gotten up 5 times to pee in the middle of the night and just had a hard time settling down. I think the 3 beers before bed habit I picked up during taper week was getting its revenge by keeping me awake.

Barrelman is a point to point course with T1 and T2 about 35 miles apart. We dropped Ryan's car off at T2 and all took my truck to T1 so we would have access to tools, a pump, etc. This was a mistake. It would have made post race bike collection a lot easier if we had left the truck at T2. Live and learn. I felt nice and calm race morning. The only problem I had to deal with was that my asthma was flaring up. I've had a bad cold that moved into my chest for about 10 days or so. I did everything I could think of to move it along, but I still wasn't over it by race day, so I had to take a puff of my inhaler a couple hours before the start. I hate the way that thing makes me feel.

I was in the first swim wave immediately after the pro field. For $10 Canadian you could buy your wave to the front so I did. I thought that was an awesome feature. I warmed up a bit with some fist swimming drills and hung out waiting for the race to start. I was very relaxed. 1 minute after the pros, they sent my wave off. The swim was in a canal and the conditions were great. Somehow I kept wandering off course. I wish I knew how much but my watch in triathlon mode didn't record any distance or GPS. Weird. I sang "100 bottles of beer on the wall" and was surprised how far in I was when I got to 0. I thought that was a good sign, but it wasn't. I was passing people, not a lot of people, but I was passing. Halfway through the swim I found an underwater cable that could be followed which was cool. I wasn’t killing myself to go fast but figured I had a chance to be around 36 minutes. I wasn't. I came out of the water at 39:11. I checked my watch because the swim was a big unknown for me. The disappointing swim validated my approach to race hard and not get hung up on times.

When I got out on the bike I started hammering it. It always amazes me how slow some athletes are on the bike. After all, these are folks that out swam me by minutes! At least it was nice of them to give me something to do and provide a slip stream now and then for a little legal drafting on my way past. It was a windy day. There were only a few miles when it was a pure headwind or a pure tailwind. The wind was typically coming from the side and front/back simultaneously. The first ~1/3 the wind was slowing us down but part way through that third I looked down and saw I was averaging 23.3 mph. Score! When I briefly got mixed up trying to set time goals, 23.3 mph was the overall average I had in mind and here I was holding that speed on the slow first third. As I got towards the end of that first third it got harder and harder to find people. I caught one cyclist very slowly and told him he was a hard guy to catch when I road by. A few miles later he passed me back and he was really standing on it. Cool. I've got someone to play with. I dropped back out of the draft zone and a few minutes later he slowed to drink. Tag, you're it. We went back and forth 6-8 times in the middle third of the course. I felt like I was at the Y on a computerized trainer chasing the ghost of myself from a previous fastest ride on the course. There was one turn in the middle of our cat and mouse games where I thought I'd taken a fast line through a corner only to find myself on a section of the road with a gravel spill. My "ghost" friend got a good jump on me. I tried to regain, but we hit a small paved path section and he started pulling away even further. We came off of the path, I took a terrible turn line and he was gone. Two more cyclists caught me. I dropped back for each of them but as soon as I got to the 12 meter mark I stood on it and regained them quickly. My "ghost" friend was now 500-600 meters ahead. Damn. We were coming into the only downhill/uphill on the course though. I tossed any fear aside and flew down the hill. Cool, I'm gaining on him. I kept speeding through the tunnel. I've closed the gap some more. I pounded on the pedals going up the hill. Getting closer. A short while after the worst part of the hill I got him! I yelled over to him when I passed, "I thought you were going to get away that time!". After a lot of fast, wind assisted biking I looked down at the bike computer, 24.2 mph. Hmmm, this could get interesting. Forget racing a triathlon. This is my last race of 2019 that includes a bike. 2019 has been defined by high bike mileage. This is now a bike race and I'm going to see if I can get that average up to 25 mph. For 5 years now, I've always wanted to beat the 1 hour mark for 40km (24.85mph). It is crazy talk, but maybe today is going to be my day to hit that mark and hold it for a whole lot longer. I just kept hammering the pedals and tried to keep a slippery position. I never saw my "ghost" again. The avg speed kept creeping up. In the last third of the bike course there is a beautiful long section along the Niagara River. I just kept picking people off and then it happened. A car passed me, which was fine, and then a second car. No big deal except as soon as they got around me they decided to stop passing any more cyclists. Those cyclists they weren't going to pass? People I was going to pass. I waited a minute and then screamed ahead, "Get out of the way!". The lead car's driver side window was only about 40 feet away from me. Nothing. Sigh. I moved to the right to see if I could get through. The second car immediately went from hugging the yellow line to hugging the white line intentionally stopping me from making a pass on the right. Jerk. I wasn't going to cross the yellow to go around. I yelled a head a second time. I got blocked on the white line a second time. Frustrating. After another minute or so I kept my mouth shut and just sprinted up the right. There wasn't much room but now if he was going to block the pass he was going to have to run me into the grass to do it. He didn't. I got around both cars and took off. I don't know how much time or speed they cost me. I'm just glad I didn't have to bike the last 5 miles stuck behind cars. I came into the dismount line way faster than I should have. I misjudged the distance. At the last second I slammed on the brakes, my rear wheel bucked up in the air and I skidded to a stop with only my front wheel on the ground. I got off a couple inches before a penalty would kick in. In a feat of athleticism, I kicked a bottle off my bike trying to get off. It rolled to a volunteer. I motioned to him to pass it. He did and I caught it while running away with my bike. The bike leg was 2:12 and depending on if you believe Garmin or the race timing I either averaged 24.9 mph or 25.2 mph. Either way, both averages are faster than 40km/hr. Score!

I transitioned to the run fairly quickly and just started running by feel. I didn't know how fast I was going and I didn't care. I was not going to check my pace. I did look at my watch 5-6 times to see how far I'd run, but never actually knew my speed. At around 1.5 miles in I saw Ryan coming the other way. I yelled something to him, but he didn't respond. This was at an out/back section. Hmm, I get to measure the gap. He had me by about 1/2 mile. That was closer than I expected to see him given my slow swim. This could get interesting. I didn't expect to beat Ryan and with him in the second wave even if I did pass him I was still 5 minutes behind but I figured before the race that I had a decent chance at beating his 70.3 PR so if I had a great day and he had an OK day things could get close. I just kept running as hard as I could. I was told there was no shade and was pleased to find that the course was about 25% shade. We were racing in full sun and the temp got up to 92F so any shade was a big relief. At about 2.5 miles in my race belt fell off. It was broken. The clip wouldn't keep the strap in. I slowed down so that I could measure it off and tie it around my waist. This took a while, but no big deal, it could be handled. I kept pushing a long and was picking people off occasionally, but there just weren't very many runners on the course yet. The stretch from around 4-6ish miles was the busy road that goes past the falls. They closed a lane for us which made normally bad traffic horrendous. I was outrunning the cars. There were a ton of corvettes in the mix and I couldn't help myself. The 3 corvettes that had windows and/or top down I yelled over to the drivers and asked, "hey you want to race?" They all laughed, some more than others. One guy actually passed me back but then I recaught him and shouted, "I think I'm the tortoise and you are the hair. I've to this." They laughed. It was a treat to see Rae and Mr. Rae as I was finishing the first loop and they were going out on their first loop. I wanted to catch them on loop 2. I got to the end of the first loop without Ryan in sight. That surprised me some. He must have been running really well in those early miles. I saw him again on the second loop at the out/back and I was gaining, just not as quickly as I had expected. I eventually

caught Mr. Rae at around mile 7 or so. I had let myself check my race time, did some quick math and let him know that I was on my way to a 20 minute PR. I kept chipping away at Ryan's lead and finally caught him with ~5k left to go right as we came into an aid station. I asked for ice. They gave me the bag with cold water and some cubes in the bottom. I didn't want to share, but I did :-) I took a handful of ice out and gave that glorious cold water/ice bag to Ryan. There wasn't a lot of course left so I figured there was no way I could get a 5 minute gap to beat Ryan. It didn't matter. I wasn't there for a specific time or place. I was there to race hard and find empty. The last 5k is almost all full sun and it was hot! I just ran as hard as I could. The km markers didn't seem to make sense and that made it a lot harder to budget my remaining effort through to the finish. Just, keep running hard. I was so happy to see the finish line come into view. I sped up. Somebody from behind went sprinting past me in the last 50 feet. I don't normally let people get away with sniping me, but this day wasn't about place or time. I literally patted him on the back as he sprinted by. I'd love to know what he thought about that. After crossing the line, I got dizzy. Really dizzy. I went straight into the medical tent. The babied me for about 30-40 minutes. I wasn't *that* bad, but I needed it. They were content to just let me chill, but I kept asking for service. Things like, "Can you check my pulse?" and "Does my sinus rhythm feel normal to you?" and "What is my blood pressure?" In the first 10 minutes I was intermittently crying like a baby. I think it was a combination of a hard bonk, finding empty and the emotion of executing a great race. I slowly got better but it took the full time before I thought I could get up without hitting the floor.

I was 19th overall. 4th, strike that, 3rd in my Age Group after a DQ and the official finish time was 4:36:57. BTW, the race was also the Canadian National Championships. I guess that makes me a fast Canuck :-)

I was happy to get out of the medical tent in time to see Rae, and then later Mr. Rae both set big PR's. Ryan got a PR too. Good times.

For some reason, my GPS didn't kick in until late.  I was credited exactly 0 yards for the swim