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Race Result
Race Report:
The Race:
Saturday - Mandatory race briefing at the host hotel.
Packet pickup.
Rack bike
Sunday - 6:00am Olympic distance start
6:30am Sprint distance start
9:10am Elite men start
11:45am Elite woman start
The clear benefits of this race are racing in DC and watching the pros go at it. The swim is in the potomac (yes, that is a benefit!) The bike and run take you through the streets of DC. The finish line was very cool.
However, there is some pain involved. The mandatory race briefing, packet pickup and bike racking on Saturday takes up a good portion of the day. Battling DC traffic is no picnic on a weekend. The 6:00am race start is a bit early.
Pretty nice technical T-shirt.
Water and powerade on the run.
The post race food was mac-n-cheese, bagels with cream cheese, peanut butter, jelly, water ... that's about all I saw.
My Race: 2:36:17
Woke up at 3:30am and went through the normal routine. Had a honey wheat bagel and some fig newtons for breakfast. I arrived at Kona Kev's house around 4:15 and car pooled into DC with Kevin and Cascio. The drive into DC was pretty quick. It was very cool walking around DC before the sun came up. It was a little strange not seeing anyone around until we got to transition.
The transition area was humming. The music was blasting, the sun was coming up. Dan Hicok was out snapping some pictures. The RATs were out in force.
Close to 6:00 we all started making our way down to the river. We were lined up in the staging area when they announced that the start would be delayed about 15 minutes. Bummer. Race nerves were kicking in and I was ready to go. Soon enough the first wave took off, followed by the Para wave, and then my wave.
Swim: 32:53
When I jumped in, it felt a bit cold at first but was really quite nice. The water was very brown from all the rain but it smelled clean. The swim was an all out brawl. I don't know what it was but there was lots of bumping and fighting for position. The wave after mine seemed to catch me pretty fast and it seemed like the entire wave swam right over me. The swim out was against a slight current but it wasn't strong enough to have to fight it. There were times during the swim when I'm certain that I would have panicked if I didn't have my wet suit on. I'm still not that comfortable with people climbing on me during the swim. After the turn around, and the swim back under the bridge, things seemed to loosen up a bit and I had some room to myself. The swim exit was a nice carpeted ramp back up to the dock. As always I'm happy to get out of the water and just like at Reston, I saw big James there cheering people on.
T1: 3:09
T1 was a little slow. As I went to pull my bike from the rack I noticed a bird made a deposit right on my seat. Hmmm. Nothing to do but hop on and ride it.
Bike: 1:13:38 (PR Finally a ride over 20mph!)
What a strange ride. Out of Transition I heard some loud cheers from the Ortons! A mile or so into the ride I hit a bump and my water bottle popped out. Grrrr. It was early in the ride so I figured I would need the water and I didn't want to litter the course so I looked behind me, pulled over and went back and got it. As I was riding I tried to squeeze my water bottle cage in so it wouldn't happen again. On the way out the Whitehurst Kevin came flying past me. I was baffled how he was lapping me already but as he road by he said he panicked on the swim so I figured he was still on his first lap. Coming off the Whitehurst I saw a major pot hole at the last minute. By the time I saw it, it was too late to swerve around it. My mountain bike instincts took over and I hopped over it. It was beautiful. I went from thinking I was going to crash and trash my bike to the adrenaline rush of hopping over it. I never tried to do a bunny hop on my road bike before that moment. At the end of the first lap another biker was heading into transition which confused me. Then I saw runners which confused me even more. Finally, I remembered their was a sprint going on at the same time. Duh. There seemed to be a lot of riders who were riding towards the left but not passing anyone which was a little annoying. Several times during the first lap I got stuck in a bit of traffic and didn't have the confidence to pass people who were only going a little bit slower than me. During the second lap I decided that I was going to pass people if I could and not worry about using too much energy only to have them pass me right back. I remembered the big pot hole and made sure to go wide on the turn to avoid it. I looked behind me to make sure I wouldn't block anyone and started going wide when I saw a volunteer frantically telling me to slow down. I was confused for a moment because the turn wasn't that sharp but as I entered the curve I saw some bikers down to the left and a biker strapped to a stretcher on the right. I'm guessing they hit the big pot hole and had a pile up. I hope everyone is ok.
T2: 1:20
Nothing special to report. In and out as fast as I could.
Run: 45:20 (PR)
I felt pretty good on the run. The crazy weather got cloudy, a few times it sprinkled and one time it got really really windy and rained hard but it only lasted a few minutes. On one of the out and backs I saw Kevin. He didn't look like his normal self. I told him to step on it and he said he wasn't feeling well. Soon after I got to the turn around and realized that Kevin wasn't too far in front of me. At that point I knew he was hurting. I got closer and closer and passed him around mile 4 or so. I was hoping I could pull him in but it wasn't in the cards. I give him a lot of credit. He did a great job sucking it up and getting to the finish line on a day when he clearly wasn't himself.
Overall I'm very happy with my race. It was definitely a fast course but I'll still take the PR on the bike and the run.
I raced on feel. I didn't have a watch or bike computer. It was interesting. I think I'll do it again.
I had a blast hanging out with the family and with my fellow RATs watching the pros. I finally got to meet coach Debbie and once again want to thank the Kunkel crew, Cascio and the Mackems for setting tent and bringing the treats!
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