Beaverdam Race Report....A mixed bag

I feel like I have to start out this race report by acknowledging the weather yesterday- absolutely crazy!  By far the most adverse weather conditions I have ever had to cope with while racing.  But of much greater importance than any insignificant race- more than a dozen people in North Carolina were killed in the storms that swept through the state on Saturday, and I certainly have been thinking about the damage that was done and the lives that were lost.  

I am not building up the external conditions as an excuse for a sub par performance in this race report.  Far from it, as I actually feel like I managed the conditions fairly well, but the weather definitely played a role in the race for a lot of people yesterday, but more on that later.  

Beaverdam was the start of my 2011 triathlon campaign, hopefully marking the beginning of a summer filled with  personal triumphs and continued growth as a pseudo-athlete.  I had a short list (2) of goals for the day going into this olympic distance race, but as I write this I guess I can say that I didn’t accomplish either one of them.  Earlier this winter when I was mapping out the upcoming race season, Coach Williamson and I decided that the Beaverdam race in mid April would be an excellent place to test my early season fitness.  The primary goal of this race would be to get a baseline gauge of olympic distance swim/bike/run splits while mixing it up with some of the good local competition.  Although I feel like I put forth a solid effort, giving all I had to give on the day, the strong winds and wet course didn’t really allow for me to get an accurate snapshot of my 1.5k/40k/10k fitness.  My secondary goal for the day was to win.  Not to ruin the suspense, but I didn’t do that either.  Actually not even close.

On to the actual race.  I was stoked for the swim, while dreading it at the same time leading up to the starting gun yesterday.  I was pretty fired up to actually swim hard for 1500m, because I have been working really hard on my swimming this winter.  I realized last fall that if I ever want to make it anywhere in this sport, I needed to make improving my swim stroke a priority.  It feels like it has been a long winter/spring of waking up hours before the sun, flogging myself repeatedly in group workouts with much more aquatically gifted athletes.  Anyway, so I was ready to RACE this swim- but I was not so excited that the lake on race morning was measured at 61 degrees!  I’m from Florida, I’m used to floating in the Gulf of Mexico like it is a warm bath- 61⁰ is nuts!  Well, I had a rotten swim- and it didn’t have anything to do with the water temp.  I somehow missed out on connecting with the lead pack in the first 400m, and after that I just couldn’t seem to find a rhythm.  I couldn’t hold a straight line, sighted way too often, and spent pretty much the whole swim trying ineffectively to reconnect with the lead pack of 3.   

After a sluggish T1, I was off on the bike to hopefully chase down a few of the fast swimmers.  The wind from the looming squall line had been picking up all morning, and it had a pretty big impact on the bike course for all the competitors yesterday.  Ask any cyclist and they will tell you that there is something very ungratifying about putting massive effort into the pedals only to crawl along on a windy day, which at times felt like exactly what we were doing out on the bike course.  There were several racers that had a hard time with bike handling in the windy conditions, and I actually saw one poor dude with  a disc wheel get blown right off the road into a ditch!  Thankfully I was able to avoid any catastrophies on the slick, blown out course.  Coach D has had me riding lots of big miles to prep for some upcoming longer races, so I felt pretty confident that I could mash pretty hard and still have some legs for the run.  After pressing hard on the bike and a much cleaner T2, I had picked up 3 spots heading out on the rolling, 2 loop run course.

The run was solid but fairly uneventful except for the rain, which started and stopped a few times while I was out on the course.  Being a winding, two loop afair, I had several chances to see how much of a time advantage those ahead of me had.  I fought hard with the eventual 5^th place finisher, overtaking each other several times before he faded at mile 4.  I tried hard to reel in some other peeps on the run, but to no avail.  I started the run in 4^th place, and that’s where I finished it, coming home with a 38:08 run split.

All in all, I am satisfied (if not pleased) with my efforts yesterday.  It was a tough day to race, but I didn’t give in to myself or the conditions.  I am coming away from this event keenly aware of some things I need to work on, and I was eager to get back to work today.  The Gulf Coast ½ Iron Triathlon is 20 days from today, and I will need to put forth a stronger effort across the board.  Congratulations to everyone who raced at the Inside-Out Sports Olympic at Beaverdam, it was an experience I won’t soon forget.  A huge thank you to all the race volunteers, as well as the FS Series Race Production crew- who put on another great event and managed to keep all the athletes safe.  Another big thanks Brooks Running, Durata Training, and my wife Leigh.  Without you guys I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do this stuff.

Thanks for reading….