Mach3Multisport.com

Last weekend,  I returned to defend my, ahem, championship at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Triathlon (chronicled here).  They were billing it as the second annual, but they've actually done several races on the base in the past.  It's just that everyone moves around so much in the military that nobody remembers all the way back to the 90s (or even last week).  I had no problem letting everyone believe that this was the second one and that I was, ahem, that guy who won the first one. 

Since my pre-race strategy worked so well last year, I decided to stick with it for this year.  This strategy consisted of making sure that none of the other fast guys around Tucson showed up--Brian is still recovering from his broken leg, Mike is training 175 hours a week in his quest to win a Kona slot at IM France, Gary is still off flying for Southwest Airlines, Don moved to Japan and Rick, who was sick last year (sweet), moved to Belgium--perfect.  I DID add a wrinkle this year though.  I cajoled two other guys from work into doing the race.  Both of these guys are pretty good athletes, but neither had any multisport experience.  I hedged my bet though--Scott is a former high school swimmer but he doesn't have a road bike (I loaned him mine) and Doug is a super-fast runner who also doesn't have a road bike (Mike loaned him his).  Doug worried me a little because he's a sub-18 minute 5k runner, but when I heard that he doesn't know how to swim, I figured I was good to go. 

As per the Orr family tradition, I shamed Bizzy and Erik into doing the race too despite their protests. 

On race day, we rolled up to the gym with all of our gear about 35 seconds prior to the start time--wouldn't want to waste any calories standing around--and got ready to hit it.  That's when we were told that the race had become a duathlon because the water in the pool was a toxic stew of chlorine and other various poisons.  This didn't surprise me considering they put chlorine in that pool by the dump truck full, but it DID disappoint me.  For the first time in my life, I was disappointed about a swim being cancelled.  Well.  My next thought was panic that I had talked a sub-18 5k guy into doing the race because he couldn't swim. . .and NOW THERE WAS NO SWIM! 

Despite having no swim, the race directors elected to still have 3 waves separated by 15 minutes.  I lined up with the first wave, and off we went.  I sprinted out in front of the rest of the pack and stayed there for the first half mile or so before Brian, the president of the Tucson Desert Heat tri club, and another guy passed me.  I caught the second guy about another mile down the road, and Brian stayed about 15 seconds in front of me all the way to the turn around where I finally caught him. 

As we made the turn around and started back (with a nice tailwind) I was thinking that there was no way any of those non-triathlon guys were going to be anywhere near us with the effort that we had just put into going up that slight incline into a headwind for 6 miles.  That's when I saw the Peloton that was only about 100 yards behind us!  Damn!

The nice thing about doing a rinky-dink race like this against people who don't know anything about triathlon is that you might have a chance to, ahem, win.  The bad thing is that no one, including the race directors, knew about the no-Drafting rule, so Brian and I were racing against a 5-man paceline.  In the spirit of sportsmanship, we rode all the way back to T2 swapping leads but always avoiding the drafting zone--morons. 

Even with Team CSC chasing us down, we managed to build up about a 1 minute lead going into T2 with an average speed a little shy of 23mph.  That's when the irony bug bit me on the backside.  You see, last year they put this race on with no real knowledge of triathlon rules or protocol.  After the race I wrote the race director (a super nice guy who put this whole thing on for no money and all on his own time) a nice e-mail thanking him for his time but suggesting a couple of things that might make the race a little more polished for the next time.  One of the key suggestions was to have a mount-Dismount Line.  In the first one, you could ride your bike all the way to your bike rack which was awfully convenient, but maybe not the safest setup in the world. 

Since we had showed up 35 seconds prior to the start, we didn't have a chance to check out any changes they might have made to the course for this year.  As luck would have it, they pretty much took every single one of my suggestions including the one about the Dismount line.  So, there I was rolling up to T2, feet already out of my shoes, ready to make a spectacular rolling dismount. . .at my bike rack.  What happened was that everyone started to yell at me to slow down for the dismount line which I suddenly saw a couple of yards in front of me. 

I grabbed both brakes and the back end started sliding.  I figured at that point I was probably going down in front of God and everyone, so I had nothing to lose by trying to get off the bike before it happened.  I swung my right leg around behind the saddle for the first time in my life (I usually bring it over the top tube), and miraculously stuck the landing.  However, with my weight suddenly off the bike and the front brake still locked up, the bike started to endo.  I was able to keep that from happening, but when it slammed back down, one of my shoes came unclipped (my chain popped off the chainring too) and wound up about 10 yards behind me.  When I went back to pick it up, the other shoe hit the ground and came unclipped too. 

After 53 seconds of running around like a deranged chimp, arms full of triathlon gear, I was finally out of T2 and running.  That's when I realized that I had no idea where the run course was.  I knew where the previous year's course had been, but I had suggested that they completely re-route it to avoid a major intersection.  As it turns out, they had taken my suggestion (there's that irony bug again).  Usually, OK always, I'm following someone else out of transition, so knowing where the course goes isn't necessarily a big deal.  This time, I had to practically beg about a half-dozen or so people to tell me where to go before I finally got some direction. 

Once I figured out where I was going, I started running and felt pretty good.  I thought I was all alone, and didn't figure there was anyone in the field behind me besides Brian who had ever done so much as a brick, so my lead was safe.  Brian had told me at least twenty times that he wasn't going to keep up with me in the run, so I took him at his word. 

That's when one of the peloton guys passed me and said, I'm not kidding, "hey, aren't you the guy who won this race last year?" 

Oh, MAN!  Insult, injury, and the whole banana! 

He put on a great show passing me.  He looked totally composed.  He had a nice, quick stride and a pleasant look on his face and he was running about a 6-minute mile pace.  All of this added up to "don't even bother trying to stay with me," so I didn't.  He ran out to about a 30 second lead, and then stopped moving away from me.  I even took back about 10 or 15 seconds just prior to the turn around.  I faded a little on the way back though and he wound up beating me by 38 seconds.  My final 5k split was 21:18. 

So, I didn't defend my crown, but in a fit of rationalization, I figured with the swim (my estimated time was 30 seconds faster than his) factored in, it would have been much closer.  Knowing the course would have helped too.  My T2 time was 53 seconds.  His? 9 seconds. D'oh!  I briefly considered that training more and better might make a difference, but I quickly came to my senses. 

Oh yeah.  He cheated on the bike too.  Ptooey. 

As for Doug, he ran a 20:08 5k--his first EVER run off the bike--which gave him a finishing time a mere 18 seconds behind me. 

 I made a mental note to make sure he never learns how to swim. 

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

holy non-runner
written by Holly, May 17, 2008

Well if you're going to be running all fast like that I guess some of us need to learn how to swim. Crappy, I liked being able to beat you at something

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment