USAT Collegiate Club Nationals - Duathlon?

April 28th, 2018

The drama all started the Tuesday before, on the 24th, when an unbelievable email came from USA Triathlon, stating that all races this weekend have been shifted to a Duathlon (run-bike-run) format. "Heavy rainfall in Tuscaloosa the past two weeks led to the Holt Dam spillway gates being opened by local officials to avoid flooding. Heightened volume in the Black Warrior River necessitated that the gates remain open through race weekend, resulting in overly strong currents that were deemed unsafe for swimming." Not only was this extremely disappointing for me, a strong swimmer, it was devastating to everyone but runners (who can't swim), as they would not be able to see their hard work in the pool pay off. Not only that, but none of us had trained for a duathlon all year, as we were training for a triathlon. After some frantic phone calls, many of us were freaking out, unsure what to do about the news. 

Once the news set in, motivation was sideways, but the show must go on. Wednesday started with a 3:30AM wake-up to being our journey to Tuscaloosa once again. The day went just as planned and ended with a short shake-out run the get the legs back after 3 hours of driving and 4 hours of flying. Thursday began with an extremely wet and rainy run on the campus of the University of Alabama. A quick 35 minutes was enough to get the legs primed for the weekend. After some downtime and clearing up of the weather, we got out bikes and took a loop of the course, which was unchanged from last year. Although this year, we'd be biking off a run instead of a swim, which was too late to practice for. Big shout-out to Conrad Sanders, TriCat Alumni, current team EMJ member, and recent 70.3 St. George Amateur Champion for letting me use his Zenve wheelset ;) 

ready to send it

Sadly, we did not receive any Draft-legal spots for Friday's races, but since everything became a duathlon, I think nobody on our team was really disappointed with that in the end. After watching those races, it was all game-faces until the next morning. The rest of Friday was spent relaxing and walking around the campus with my parents and some friends. 

s/o to hannah for flatting, again

Saturday morning started with the Female race and then the Male race several hours later. The mass start in a narrow chute was not ideal, but with a chip start, it made it slightly more fair. Nonetheless, everybody pushed to be at the front of the corral. Before the start of the race, I poured a bottle of water over my head, because it felt wrong to start a race dry, even if it was a duathlon. The first run went out fast, as expected, but I tried to stay as relaxed as possible. One benefit of doing the same run twice was being able to find landmarks for the second run, where I knew from previous duathlons that the second run sucks. Going out in the first mile was always too fast, but I felt in control, which was more important than the time I ran. Once the first mile was complete, I tucked behind some other runners and tried to stay as relaxed and as comfortable as possible. The last two miles were very steady and split almost evenly. Running through transition without a wetsuit, cap, or goggles was something foreign to me (and probably most other people), but it certainly made for a fast transition. Sliding out of my shoes and clipping my helmet was all I had to do before I was running with my hog out of transition. (check out that first run on strava, here)

My mount was ideal, and probably my best flying mount to date, as my feet landed IN my shoes and they were basically already on. After a few pedal strokes, I reached down and tightened them and I was rolling out. 

Immediately, I felt good, which was a great sign. Without a swim, riding was certainly my best discipline and I knew that I had to capitalize on that. With a good first run under my belt, I had a strong feeling that my second run would not be better than what I had just done so a game-time decision was made to just send the bike and have little regard for the second run. Using that determination and frustration from the lack of a swim, I charged into the first portion of the bike. Admittedly, looking at my ride, I went out a bike too fast, but at the time it felt good and if I were in the same position again, I would do it exactly the same way. Coming off of the bridge, a little more than half way through a lap, I picked my head up, with my mouth up, and I felt something hit my lip, then the back of my throat and no, it was not a rock. It was a bug, which I tried to spit out, but it was too far down. Frantically reaching for my water to wash it down, I tried to remain as calm as possible after realizing I had just swallowed a bug. That as about as exciting as the first lap got, which was fast, and although I was not staring at my Garmin, I was certainly keeping tabs on it to make sure I wasn't doing anything on the first lap I didn't think I could do again on the second lap. At the first lap turn-around, I felt a little tightness in my right calf, but upon getting out of the saddle to get my speed back, it worked itself out and I was on my way again for lap two. Almost immediately, I realized my and three other riders were working together (legally, of course) and it was certainly helpful. Soon into the second lap, I knew I was riding with less steam than I had on the first lap, and tried to be mindful that as much as I didn't want to, I had to run again after this. The only good thing, and it wasn't even that good, was that it was only a 5.2k, which I could really struggle through depending on how the rest of the bike went. At the far turn-around on the second lap, I decided against the second run, and stormed back into town, faster than I did on the first lap. (Check out that fresh strava, here)

roll tide

Swinging my leg over my saddle to dismount resulted in a painful calf AND hip flexor cramp, which by no means were welcome. Without breaking stride, by the time I got to my bike spot, they both went away. After removing my helmet, and sliding back into my running shoes, I grabbed my sunglasses and race belt. Before the end of transition, my race belt and sunglasses were both already on, and it was time to suffer, more. The first half mile felt good, but things quickly deteriorated after that. The second mile of this run was probably one of the more demoralizing things I have had to do in a while, as I was looking at my watch and seeing a pace that was hurting much more than it should have. Seeing a pace for what was supposed to be a 5.2k, slower than I had 15-20k training runs at faster paces was extremely tough to deal with. Nevertheless, it was still a race and I had to push on. After what seemed to be forever, I was finally back towards the finish and with about 800m to go, I decided that no one else was going to pass me, and after what felt like a mile on legs made of lead, I crossed the finish line. Filled with mixed emotions of 'this race didn't count' and 'I'm so glad to be done' and 'that really sucked,' I took a moment on the ground to gather myself before being forced up by the medical staff, whom I had to repeatedly tell that I was fine, to avoid being taken into the medical tent. I had little time to dwell on what I just went through as my day was just getting started! (peep that strava, here!, and full results here!)

friends or something

After a few hours of trying to recover, it was time for the Mixed Team Relay, which was more of a track meet without a swim. It consisted of 4 members, 2 female and 2 male, alternating, each competing in a 1.0k run, 5.9k bike, and 1.1k run. Luckily, I had the ever important job of anchoring the team, by going fourth. Honestly, it's pretty self explanatory how this went. It hurt. All of it. It was a running sprint, then a bike sprint, then a running sprint, again. So if you really wanna know how bad it hurt, just ask me personally cause I do not want to relive it again right now. So here are each of the stravas, in order: run 1, bike, run 2.

MTR team!

Just a few words on this past year, which I am kind of bummed it ended the way it did, but also more motivated than every for next year. I was really looking forward to swimming, and improving 30 spots on my 31st place swim finish last year ;)  (which if you do the math, 31-30 = 1). I have no problem sharing my motivation and belief that I can have the fastest swim in the nation, and not being able to get the change to test that was extremely disappointing, but has me even more motivated to get it done next year. As far as the bike goes, just gotta keep sending it like I did this year, after improving about 5 minutes at nationals on the bike alone (with a run before this time). As for the run, yeah, I'm still working on it. And it is a struggle, but there cannot be progress without struggle.

Big ups to my parents for making the trip down to see and support me, as well as my team for a great year, despite the conditions, we made the best of it! 

What's next for me? Ironman 70.3 Boulder on August 4th! 

Anyways, thanks for tuning in, again. Roll Tide, and I'll see y'all in a few months!