We traveled to Milwaukee on Thursday for, in many ways, the amateur USAT event of the year as the weekend included both Olympic and Sprint National Championships. I had earned entry into the qualifying Olympic event a few times over the past year and decided to make the trip, and for the fun of it, I decided to race two times in as many days. We arrived in the humid and warm Lake Michigan city and took our chance off the bat to get ourselves a famous local beer and some Wisconsin cheese. Cheese is good everywhere, of course, but the cheese curds at Lakefront Brewing on this trip are especially worth the trip.
Olympic Race Recap:
I had a distinct plan for the Olympic race, it was simple, just don't mess up the swim so bad that you can't bike and run yourself back into some contention! While I can't say it went perfectly to plan as I came out of the water 6 minutes behind the leader, I did PR by a massive 4 minutes for the 1500 meter distance on the year and heightened my chances to put out a good time if I could manage on the bike and on my feet. Catching the feet of other competitors throughout the swim undoubtedly assisted my time and I was ready to rock as I ran to transition stripping off my wetsuit.
I went out HARD on the bike, maybe too hard in retrospect, but this is a national championship and I would be damned if I didn't at least try for it. Well, because of my aggressiveness early I continued to find a fast rhythm as my power jumped up and down as I sought out more people to pass. The course was surprisingly difficult with the crosswinds on the bridges which were the de facto hills on this course. After the final turn, to head for home, I began being passed by a few cyclists who I had powered by earlier in the course. I realized my speed wasn't quite where I wanted it to be but thought I must be struggling more than expected. We approached the final "climb" and I was really laboring and the road was awfully rough. It was at the crest of the hill, when I thought I had my chance to fly downhill into T2 that I realized what had been wrong the whole time. I was smashing out watts on the descent and unable to breach 30 miles per hour, low and behold, my rear tire was flat and my poor carbon wheel rim was doing all the rolling while the floppy, deflated rubber attached to it did it's best to drain my chances. I came in on the bike about 4.5 minutes slower than desired and averaged 24.6 mph on the 24.8 mile course. I was happy to get off my disable 2 wheeled vehicle and onto my own feet, and that's where the fun began.
Now, I can't say I was in the shape I wanted to be for a 10k entering this race as I don't think I was near my running only PR, but I knew that running was my both physical and mental strength in a triathlon. I took off at a steady pace and did my best to hold off the rib/chest spasming I have continued to experience after T2 in races this year, luckily, I had my amazing wife to adjust my spine at 4:30 in the morning, which greatly reduce the level of the tightness. I exited T2 in 25th place, and over the next 6.2 miles ran myself into the last spot on the podium moving up 15 spots to 10th.
A very happy 10th place finisher crossed the line.
A Thief Chase:
To many this is their favorite story of my weekend. To Jess, she calls this my 2nd of 3 races.
I used Race Day Transport, so between the races I checked my bike back into Race Day to hold until I could check it into the Sprint Race Transition. It was an hour or so after my finish of the Olympic race and I sat on the grass next to my bike rack to replace the flat from the race. It was peaceful as Jess and I chatted about the race and my parents waited outside transition for our much needed trip to lunch (and famous Milwaukee beer - gotta get that from the source PBR). Suddenly, one man was yelling at another - it was the head of Race Day Transport following a young man out of Race Day's personal trailer. The arguing escalated and as Jess and I sat on the grass we thought nothing of it in general despite the obvious oddness of the situation. Then, as I fed my tube into the tire, "Stop HIM", "SOMEBODY STOP HIM" echoed under the trees. Jess and I look up to see the young man running through the fenced in area of Race Day with multiple smart phones in his hand. He sees that the front entrance is blocked - and shoots up a side path - the exact one where Jess and I are sitting. Jess is between him and I and goes to grab him. He shruggs her off, accelerates and uses his free "non-cellphone" hand to launch himself over the chest height fence. Now I am not sure why that "SOMEBODY" had to be me, but before I knew any better I run past Jess and jump the fence in pursuit. Unfortunately, my tired legs didn't respond well to what was on the other side. Race Day had all of their rain tarps laid out outside of the fence and as I landed and attempted to accelerate they grabbed my ankles like Devil's Snare (I know you know the reference). Now you can picture a guy launching into a chase only to immediately face plant. I usually take pride in my athleticism, but maybe that is why I needed the ego check. I quickly push to get up, and guess what?... that's right, the Devil's Snare struck again. Now I'm mad, and in a blink I was up and moving with determination. I'll give the beer-gutted asshole thief credit (notice how before he was a young man), he had an good burst of speed and got away from me to start as I weaved behind him through a row of tractor trailers over the grass. Then we hit open field and the folly of stealing from a group of endurance athletes must have become apparent to him. I closed the ground on him shouting "stop him, stop him!" to the oncoming pedestrians. I mostly received confused and noncommittal looks from the first few groups, but the next group of good samaritan guys stood in front of him and we blocked him in. No one, including myself, committed to violence or physical altercation as I wasn't about to risk getting stabbed. Instead, I paced with him, ready to finish the pursuit if needed. Soon, a group of guys rode their bikes down from Race Day and helped keep him from attempting another run as he panted "I just need to catch my breath". He was constantly calculating his escape but made one last attempt too late. The final group to arrive was a group of 4 police officers who put him on his stomach in handcuffs and boy was I happy to get that part of my day over with! I came out of it with a nice cut on my left leg, an opening of my recent bike wreck hand and arm wounds, and a little anger it took me that long to run down the jerk. He's lucky I fell twice I keep telling myself. Haha, anyways, it was a story I will remember and the swelling has gone down/the cuts are scabbed over, so the physical memories will soon be distant.
Hope you enjoyed the story! Onto the Sunday Sprint...
Sunday Sprint Recap
I was a little sore/swollen/tired entering Sunday. Saturday had been a good day and I was thinking "Why the heck did I sign up for the Sprint?" I was happy to see the smaller crowd and it reduced my stress to have a much smaller swim wave. The gun went off and *smack*pull*punch*grab*push* ... this small, supposedly less competitive group of athletes had a bunch of purposely violent swimmers! I struggled to find a rhythm and find fast feet like the day before. I came in from the swim at a much slower pace than the twice as long Olympic and had a lot of work to do if I was going to get myself onto the top-5 podium of the Sprint Race.
I felt that I could push the bike, especially with a newly inflated back tire, to get back into the competition. Boy, did I struggle. I pushed and pushed and pushed but struggled to hit the times I thought I was capable of when coming to Milwaukee. My bike legs were by far the most disappointing of the weekend, but I did continue to move up on the bike to get myself into the top 10 to enter the run
Today was a good run day. I had none of the pain and spasms that had limited me in my previous 3 races and I knew I had to take full advantage. I began to turn the screws during the run and continued to feel stronger throughout the race as I ran down 4 athletes for ... 6th place and 7 seconds too slow for the podium. What a fun weekend. I really think I did earn my recovery week of diet cheating and sleep.
Downtown Milwaukee is a beautiful place with the river walk and contains world class amenities including museums, art centers, and breweries!
