End of Season Recap and Boilerman Race Recap

It has been about 2 months since my last post, so I figured I would quickly sum up the rest of my road season, briefly talk about my short track season and then finish off with a little recap of the Boilerman.

First off, ICC/Superweek went fantastic! I ended up racing 8 out of the 16 days, which was more than I anticipated. With ToAD not going entirely to plan in terms of upgrade points and watching my buddy Tristan tearing up the fields at Superweek, I tried to jump into every Superweek race that I could. I had way more luck during Superweek than ToAD and ended up taking 4th overall in the Cat 4s. My results from the week plus all of the racing this season earned me enough to upgrade to Cat 3! I was stoked! My goal for the season was to earn my upgrade from Cat 4 to Cat 3 and I did it! With a little gas left in the legs after a long season, I decided to go race the NEW Wheeling Weekend up north as a Cat 3, so I knew what I would need to work on in the Winter to be competitive as a 3 for next year. While I did not do as well as I would have liked, I was able to sit in the field and mix it up a little in the sprint. Not bad for a first couple races as a Cat 3!

Over the last few weeks of the season, different people suggested that I race the track to really up my game on the road. Once I learned I could use my own geared bike on Monday nights for practice and then borrow a bike for Tuesdays, I went down as much as possible. Great learning experiences and great people. I will definitely be spending more time at the track next year!

Now, onto the Boilerman. The Boilerman is an Olympic/International distance triathlon (1.5km swim/40km bike/10km run). Kari really wanted to do an Olympic this year to see her progression as a triathlete, so we selected this race partly because it is relatively inexpensive, I was the Race Director for the '04 edition, and it is at the end of season not conflicting with my road season. We decided on this race in June (I believe) and I set Kari's training plan over July 4th weekend with the goal of her doing the race in 2:28:00. It was ambitious, but I thought if she stuck to the plan that it was very achievable. Unfortunately, time did not work out like we were anticipating for her, so we backed off her goal to 2:45:00 and modified the training plan.

With road racing taking the priority for me this Summer, I did not start my triathlon training until my road season was winding down. Thus I only spent about 8 weeks prepping for the swim and 6 weeks prepping for the run. Not ideal, but I knew that my cardio system was good to go thanks to my weekly average of about 200 miles riding per week. I just had to cut my riding down a bit and add in some swims and runs each week, focusing on speed, to remember how to swim and run and do it fast.

Training went pretty close to schedule with some of my runs and swims surprising me with how fast I was able to go at moderate distance. Unfortunately, I was unable to really prepare for it like I would have liked by doing all of the distances at speed without rushing things; however, that was not in the cards, so I just had to rely on my ability to suffer to get me through.

We got to the hotel around midnight Friday night and quickly tried to get some sleep before the alarm went off in the morning. Due to hang-ups involving breakfast and getting ready to go, we got to the race course about 40 minutes later than I wanted to, so no warm-ups for us. We only had time to check in, set up our transition spots (we chose to be next to each other), get body marked and walk to the swim start. I ran into an old friend who was on the Purdue Tri team with me when we were both students, so that was great catching up briefly. For the swim, I was in wave 1 and Kari was in wave 2. One of the really cool things about the Boilerman is that it draws a lot of the best collegiate racers from around the Midwest, so the competition, while small, is usually pretty stiff. The start opened much like I expected with a lot of guys ripping on fast swims. I tried to follow feet whenever I could; however. this was not always possible. While there were a lot of fast swimmers, many of them were unable to swim straight lines. I was swam into (head perpendicularly into my chest) several times. It was bizarre. I finally settled into a groove and set about the task at hand. I exited the water in 10th place with a time of 22:42.6. My goal for the swim was 25, so I was well ahead of my goal (not that I knew this because I don't carry a timing device on my person during the race). The run from the water to T1 is a rather long uphill jaunt through fairly tall grass. I could tell that the lack of warm-up was affecting me and I took one of the longest T1s of my life to get wetsuit off and out on bike. Once on the bike, I had to spend the next 5-10 miles to get my legs to be willing to suffer and do some work. After that, I settled into a nice groove and got to work trying to turn around the performance of the first few miles. I was thinking how nice a warm-up would've been. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now, but power through and make the best of the situation. I exited the bike in 16th with a time of 1:05:18.4. My goal for the bike was 1:05:00, so still on track despite feeling like crap for most of the day. I had another slow transition to throw on some socks for the run. Normally, I race triathlons without socks and end up with some bloody feet as a result on the longer races. I wanted to avoid that today. I felt like it was a good decision. I left for the run trying to keep my pace in check. The last thing I wanted was to run too fast the first mile or so and pay for it later, since I haven't run longer than a 5km at speed in a long, long time. The first 4 miles of the run snake through a neighborhood which the changing scenery kept me fairly interested. When I hit the grass by transition to start my final 2 miles or so of running, I was feeling pretty good and started picking up the pace. I do enjoy running on dirt for some reason, lots of fun. On the final uphill into the finish, I could see the clock for the first time all day. The number read 2:16:00. I started cheering because I knew I was only about 100 yards away and about to demolish my PR at this distance (2:56:00) and goal. My goal for the race was 2:18:00, but I knew that if everything went well (warm-up, weather, etc) that I could challenge 2:10:00. With how the morning went, I thought I would be lucky to break 2:20:00. I ended up crossing the line in 2:16:31.2 with a 45:12.9 10km (my fastest 10km ever and only 12s off my goal time of 45 min)! I was stoked!

My dad came to watch Kari and I race, so after I finished I went to find him and look for Kari. It was great seeing him there as I entered and exited transition and for the last stretch of the run. I could not see Kari's bike as I ran past transition and was starting to wonder if she was having a really crappy day. After I grabbed a slice of pizza, a banana and some drink mix, my dad informed me that she was about to finish the 4 mile loop and could see her coming up the road. We cheered her through transition as she went off for her last 2 miles. I spent some time catching up with Chase (he took 4th on the day) while we waited for Kari to finish. As she made the final uphill kick, the time on the clock read 2:39:00 and she crossed the line in 2:39:47.2 (plus she got to subtract the 3 minutes between waves). Thus she crushed her goal of 2:45:00 with a finish time of 2:36:47.2! Fantastic for her first ever Olympic distance race and she smashed my previous PR by 20 minutes! Holy crap! She did awesome!

I took 25th out of 177 overall and 8/25 in my age group, and Kari took 76th overall and 5/15 in her age group. She was very happy with her results until they were posted later and she learned that she was the 13th fastest woman and 9th place was less than 1 minute ahead of her (she was delayed on course by a truck for a little bit). Still, I think she did great! Definitely a great way to cap off the season!