Location: Chattanooga, TN
Date: July 12, 2009
Placing: 21st Overall, 4th Master, 1st 45-49
Race Photos
Results: Click Here

Well, after looking at the final results, I was tempted to simply write "See last 60 triathlon reports" but if results was the whole story there would be no such thing as epic tales of triumph and tragedy. I got to thinking this weekend about how racing has changed for me in the last 29 years. As a matter of fact, I thought about it WHILE I was racing, which in itself is a major difference. For about the first 5 years I raced, the world was a blur while the clock was ticking. The only things that existed were the competitors around me and the sound of my heart beating in my own ears. It's like the whole thing happened in a black hole. As the years went by, I slowly reversed that phenomenon. Nowadays, I see and hear everything; the people, the landscape. I never know where Janis might be, but nowadays I always manage to see her and hear her. The best example of this was when I heard her voice out of thousands - standing six rows deep in the last 2 miles of the Boston Marathon. I didn't even know she would be there and yet I somehow heard her and saw her. Ocassionally, this awareness slows me down because I can lose focus; but you'd be surprised how sometimes it can speed me up because I think clearer and plan better as I race.

Another way things have changed over the many years is the way I manage stress before an event. On a scale of 1 to 10, my nerves before a race used to be 11. Now, we're down around a 2 or 3. I think that's because what most peole stress about isn't the actual physical effort. For goodness sake, we do that every day. No, it's things like 'do I have my number?', 'will I forget my helmet?', 'will I miss my start?', etc. I've been racing so long now that I could get ready practically in my sleep. If I miss my strart time? They'll just put me in at the end. If I forget something, I'll make due. As a matter of fact, I rarely take a spare tube and tools with me on the bike anymore at races. These days, I arrive at the race site and in 10 minutes, I have my chip, my body-marked and my transition set up. Gee - now what am I going to do for an hour and a half? We stayed a mile from the transition area at this event and learned a back way into the parking area. 15 minutes after we left the hotel, I was already done with everything and waiting around.

25 years after we created the 'Dr. Doolittle Death Loop', Bob and I are still at this stuff...ask me about the death loop some day...

They had buses taking athletes to the start about a mile away but that seemed like even more stress. Janis and I - along with my teammate Dan and his wife Becky - opted to walk/jog to the start. What a great way to relax before the race. We arrived at the huge fenced in field but I opted to sit outside of the area where it was calm and quiet. This was to be my first ever 'time trial start' for a triathlon. We were to go in order of number every 3 seconds starting at 7:30am. At number 614, I estimated I would start just after 8:00. I did about a 2-mile run at about 7:25 for my warm-up then sent Janis on her way back to the transition area. I got in the slow-moving line to the dock when they called the "600's". You couldn't even see the dock or the water until you were on top of it because we went from the field - across a running path - through some heavy trees and BAM! There it was. No time to admire it; we were hearding at a rapid rate. "Watch your step on the ramp" said the first volunteer...10 feet later..."put on your goggles". I had thought I would have a chance to sit in the water for a few seconds so I never cleaned my goggles. I was looking at the world through fog-colored glasses. "Be careful when you jump in and start swimming along the dock" said the thrid and final volunteer. All of this happened in a matter of seconds. As soon as I got into the water, I 'shuffled' along the edge of the dock. The official starter, timer and a referee were at the end of the dock calling out numbners as one of them entered the numbers into a small hand-held device. I wonder if that dev..."614!...Go!". Say wha?

Does anyone see a brick tied to my leg? Because I'm running out of reasons for swimming half as fast as...or twice as slow...you get the idea.

The first minute or two seemed to be confusion in the water. It was instantly obvious that even though people train for these events day in and day out, they somehow are unable to correctly estimate their swim time (your number corresponded to your estimated swim time - fastest to slowest - within your age group). Fortunately, the river was plenty wide enough and about the time I was free and clear was about the time I realized that I hadn't started my watch. The first time ever that I've forgotten to do this. I was so not ready for this type of fast moving start that I had no time to think about it. Although I don't use a computer on my bike, I do like to have my timer going for two reasons: 1. I set intermediate time goals for the race, and 2. I've been doing this for a long time and I learned many, many, many years ago when doing bike time trial races - always time yourself because it is the ONLY way to be sure that there was no error in your finish time. I remember times when the timing would get messed up at an event and there would always be a few guys who would say, "that's not right - I know I did faster than that". If you didn't time yourself, then...no, you don't really know, do you? Giordanelli Rule #872: Always time yourself.

I remembered glancing at my watch as I stood in line to start and it was 8:08am. So I went with the assumption that I started at 8:10 by my watch. As is customary, I had written my time estimates for Janis before the race...

Swim: 28:00
T1: 2:00
Bike: 1:01:00
T2: 1:00
Run: 37:00
Total: 2:09:00

Now is as good a time as any to remind the studio audience that the Olympic-distance format is my worst because it is weighted more towards the swim than other triathlon distances (1500 meter swim, 25 mile bike, 10k run). I knew this going in but several friends were attneding this one, the swim was point-to-point WITH the current (although not wetsuit legal), and there was money to the top 3 Masters racers.. Plus the bike was a mile longer than normal. Not a bad set of reasons I thought. After looking at last year's results and evaluating my fitness I concluded that I was fit enough to break 2:10 and that should put me in the top 3 Masters and the top 15 overall. Not too shabby considering I planned to give everyone a 'free 6-minute' card in the swim (or so I thought).

Back to the swim...It was a nice swim without much chop in the water and also not much congestion from other swimmers. The view of the shore was rather nice and I enjoyed that we swam under 3 bridges because it gave you 'mini-goals' to aim for as you went. Much like my good experience up in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, I managed to catch the draft off another swimmer for a good 5-10 mintues before she darted away - presumably to catch the draft of another swimmer herself. As soon as I got behind, I could see us catching and passing people who moments before were staying right next to me. I hated that she lost me but I had a feeling she definitely helped me out for a while. I tried to grab another swimmer's draft near the end but they swam in all different directions and I gave up after about a minute. For the 2nd time in as many triathlons, I exited the water NOT feeling a bit disoriented which was good because the trip to transition was moderately long and included a lot of stairs. As I entered T1, I wondered if my friend Bob - whom I grew up racing bikes with in Texas - was still ahead of me. Bob had started about 1:30 ahead of me at the dock and I joked that I would try to catch him by mile 8 of the bike.

With 1300 bikes, I made sure to memorize some landmarks that would take me right to the correct row and had no problem finding my trusty steed. Giordanelli Rule #512: Pick some landmarks to ehlp you find your bike (try not to pick people; people move) Here's a good example of my race awareness...as I ran to exit the trasition area with several other athletes, I saw one of them running with their helmet on backwards. Too funny. I heard Janis somewhere in the crowd just as I clipped into my pedals and took off - remembering first to glance at my watch - 8:41 and change. Hmmm based on my start estimate, that's a little over 31 minutes. What I didn't know at the time was that my start estimate was off and I had actually hit my first two times nearly right on: swim = 27:19, T1 = 2:00. I was 41 seconds haead of plan. Unfortunately, there was no bonus for guessing your EXACT transition time.

If you are not a really fast swimmer, the first 200 yards of the bike leg are the most dangerous 200 yards in a triathlon. They really need a seperate chute for those people who think that having their riding shoes on their bike is faster than simply puttin them on in transition. Aside from the most seasoned of triathletes, these people are going to kill someone someday. I narrowly escaped with my life today as I darted past one of these riders and they were so focused on getting their foot in their shoe that they basically made a 90-degree turn in front of me. They were doing about 5mph - I was doing about 27. After making it through what I call the 'land mine' area, I tried to settle into a pace but had trouble getting my legs to respond. It didn't help that we did a lot of up in the first few miles including a pretty nasty hill around mile 3 or 4.

The bike section was on a highway - which I loved. People were spaced out fairly well and I always had plenty of room to pass. The terrain was like rollers on steroids. There were no 'climbs' to speak of, but the road was either going up for a mile...or down for a mile (or more). It wasn't until about mile 5 that I suddenly clicked into fast mode. I had just seen my teammate Dan on his return trip on the other side of the highway. Every mile, I just kept feeling better and better. The mile markers ticked away rapidly as I continued my normal trend of passing the masses. Just as we were in sight of mile 8...I caught my friend Bob. Gotcha, Bob! I grunted a 'good job' and Bob responded in kind. I reached the halfway point - mile 13 - in a little over 30 minutes. Unfortunately, even though I felt good, it was a hair more uphill and headwind coming back in. I had missed my opportunity for an exceedingly fast bike split in the first 5 miles.

As is always my plan, I slipped my feet out of my shoes on the last downhill (much easier than putting them on while riding) and made sure to ride all the way up to the dismount line. Giordanelli Rule #84: At the turnaround and the finish of the bike, you came in way to0 slow if the volunteer doesn't yell at you hysterically to slow down. I ran out of transition with my race number, my Rudy sunglasses and an esspresso-flavored gel in hand. My watch read 9:44 and change. Which I thought put me at about 1:34:xx. I told Janis if I was going to break 2:10, I definitely needed to be running by 1:33. I was more than a minute off; bike = 1:02:57, T2 = 1:08. I had lost 2 minutes to my estimate on the bike and was in actuality now 1:16 slower than my estimate.

"Oh hey, Janis; just gimme a sec to put on my gla...OK. Never mind."

As I rounded the first corner out of transition, Janis yelled to me. I would have posed for her picture but I was busy trying to put on my glasses and number. The first half-mile was a fairly good climb. I like this because it means we get to finish with a good downhill. That first half-mile was also the only section that was wide open. Shortly after cresting the hill we made a sharp left and then ran up a flight of stairs that took us to a jogging trail that we had just run underneath. I had an 'innocence of youth' moment at this very point. I had run past most people at a pretty good clip on the way up the hill but when I crested, I could suddenly hear footsteps right behind me. When I reached the top of the stairs a 19-year-old kid ran around me (I know this because his age was written on his calf - as all of our ages were). For a moment I thought "wow, he's obviously a runner". But I was wrong. Apparently he was one of those people that I meet on ocassion that has a certain idea in their head about who should be able to beat them. Apparently, a 45-year-old man was not supposed to be ahead of him. About 10 seconds after he passed me, I passed him back as he was now in major oxygen debt. He probably took 4 or 5 minutes off his time by doing that...

The run felt like it often does at this point in a tri - I didn't feel like I was going real hard...but I didn't feeel like I could go any harder. On the trip out and back, I spent all of my time: 1. dodging people, 2. Looking for people I knew, and 3. trying to determine from the racers numbers if anyone was running close to my time. This last thing was really impossible and it would have been easier to count the blades of grass as we ran by, but it certainly kept my mind busy. I don't remember my turnaround time, but I do remember thinking that it was not as fast as expected. The slow descent that was not so bvious on the way out, became blaringly obvious as I neared the end of the return trip. With about a mile remaining I simply decided that whatever my time was going to be, that's what it was going to be. I shuffled a little bit more up the final hill knowing that I was losing a little more time but hardly caring. The final downhill into the finish inspired a half-hearted effort to gain a few seconds but I was done racing a mile or so back; run = 39:45.

Here I am pretending that none of it hurt at all...easy to do with a downhill finish.

I already knew that I had missed my time mark but the reults delivered the sad news that 3 Masters had finished ahead of me - all from the 40-44 age group. For the first time that I can remember, I failed to finish in the top 5 overall or the top 3 Masters. Today, I would roll down to taking an Age Group win in the 45-49 age group. For a guy that is very numbers and logic focused, today's race was certainly one of misperceptions and ill-logic. For starters, my swim was the only discipline where I met my goal; and I felt good about it. But I never expected all three Master's winners to beat me by 7 minutes in the swim - and at 27:19, I never thought my time would be 654th! Oddly enough, I don't blame my swim for any lost places. Sure it's a slow time and it's frustrating, but I expected it. My run truly failed me today. Nearly 3 minutes off my estimate. And in an opposite turn of events, this 'terrible' time was 18th fastest overall? I almost ran the same pace today that I ran for my half-iron event 2 weeks ago. (6:24 pace vs. 6:31 pace). Had I run up to my expectations, I would've finished right at 2:10 and in the top 15 overall. But I didn't. Giordanelli Rule #151: No matter how long you look at the results, they will not change.

To help me out at my next traithlon, I made a list of things I could do better:

1. Swim faster
2. Ride faster
3. Run faster

Race Notes:
* I crossed the line just as they were announcing the pending rain storm which suddenly became clear to me in the distance. I had just enough time to grab my bike and head to the car. Janis, myself and my bike were safely in the car for about 10 seconds before the sky opened up with a steady rainfall. I guess you could say I also finished just ahead of Mother Nature.
* The venue was really cool and Chattanooga is a nice place - maybe worth a few extra days next time.
* Although disappointed with my run - and a bit slower on the bike as well - my Bike/Run split combined was the 5th fastest. I'm still looking good for Duathlon Worlds as well as my next half-iron race.
* Some more amazing swim stats: Only 5 people in the top 200 had worse swim times than me. The next best placed behind my 21st? 140th. Fastest swim of the day? 17:06...so much for the fast guys only taking 6 minutes out of me.
* Tons of shout-outs at this event for the crew from G'Vegas (Greenville, SC): Dan Moss (teammate) - 5th Overall Male, Gail Katouff - 1st Overall Female, Ashley Long - 8th Overall Female. Thems some fast people I hang around with!
* Also congrats to my longtime friends and hosts from Atlanta Bob & Sue. Bob placed well enough in our age group to qualify for Nationals and Sue WON the women's 50-54 age group!
* And just a 'hey' to a few good people I has the pleasure of chatting with while I was there: John O'Brien, Ted and Stephen Harvey (you've got great potential, Stephen) and of course the Neurath's 'ontourage'...you know who you are.

Next up: Xterra 7k Trail run - Greenville, SC (Tentative)