Mark Yost – Rev 3 Quassy Half – Sunday, June 4, 2017

OK, it’s time to start the race reports again. I fell off the wagon a year ago, partly due to the website transition speedbumps and partly due to laziness. But I am strong believer that one of the strengths of our club has been learning from each other’s experiences, and one of the best ways to do that is through race reports. So, here we go. I switched to Rev3 Quassy 70.3 in 2014 from Eagleman because I decided it was a better prep course for the Lake Placid Ironman. Both are special in different ways. Some might say each offers a different kind of hell. With Eagleman, it’s usually the suffocating heat on the exposed run. With Quassy, it’s 3800 feet of climbing on the bike and 950 more during the run. I’m sticking with Quassy for the foreseeable future. Rev 3 does a superb job organizing the race and it’s located in an amusement park with plenty of parking and stuff to do for the family. The swim is in a beautiful clean lake, the bike course is almost constant climbing or descending (sometimes steep and curvy), and the run course is mostly shaded on pleasant back roads with hellacious climbs. Matt and I arrived mid-day Saturday after spending the night in a hotel near East Brunswick, NJ. In the past, we’ve made the entire drive on Saturday but it makes for an early morning. The most important night for sleep is Friday night for a Sunday race, so we slept in Saturday morning and made the easy drive to Middlebury, CT to complete packet pick-up, bike check and the race briefing by 3 pm. This year we stayed on points at the Courtyard in Waterbury, about 15 minutes from the race site. It was close and had a good Italian restaurant nearby. Transition opened at 5:15 a.m. race day. We arrived around 5:30 a.m. to get parking a short walk (50 meters) to transition. The lot fills up by 6 a.m., but all of the parking is within 200 meters of the transition area. The weather was perfect. Mid-50’s at the start, no wind and low/no humidity. The temps never got higher than the mid-to-low 60s, and it was initially sunny then clouding over slowly as the day went on. Swim: 33:36 (1:35/100 yards) (9/28 AG) Although we were initially scheduled for Wave 4, the 55-59 old farts were moved up to the second wave with 40-44 year olds at 7:05 a.m. Brian Eisentraut said hi shortly before the beach start. The water temp was 64, so it was easily wet suit legal. The water was brisk, but fine. Tinted goggles are a must because in the past the middle leg of the triangular course was directly in the sun. This year, they altered the course, making the second leg longer but more to the northeast and no longer directly into the sun. The wind was calm and the lake was like glass. My keys were, as always, find a good draft and maintain a straight line. I did both. The water was clear, there were plenty of drafting opportunities, and it was easy to sight. My training swim times have been slow, so my time surprised me. Later I learned that everyone was fast and that the Garmin 920s were reporting a short course of about 1900 yards. I emerged about where I always do in the swim: about 1/3 of the way back on the age group. T2: 2:06 After disastrous transitions at Kinetic, I resolved to simplify and it worked. I moved well coming out of the water and up the ramp, leaving my goggles on (I can see better with them and it keeps both hands free to work the wetsuit off). This is the first time I had worn the new short sleeve Xterra (ditching the long sleeve BlueSeventy) and it came off easily, with no hang ups on the timing chip or ankles. My shoes were on the bike, so it was just a matter of putting on the sunglasses and the helmet, and I was off. No socks so barefoot to the mount line. I started the bike 6th in the AG apparently passing 3 faster swimmers during transition. Before I mounted, I did take a few seconds to down two Gasilla tabs, organic over the counter anti-gas pills. I have tendency to swallow air during the swim and it comes back to haunt me late in the bike or early in the run in the form of painful gas stomach aches. Bike: 3:02:32 (18.4 mph) (4/28 AG) The bike course is fast and furious, except when it’s painful and agonizing. It’s never boring. The roads were in fairly good shape, but always have to watch for the random pothole, sand or debris. Much of the bike course is like the Catoctins northwest of Frederick: short, steep climbs with plunging curving descents. Part of it is more like the Shenandoahs: from mile 23 to about mile 30, it’s a long steady climb with a few level stretches for recovery. I like the bike course. A lot. It’s never boring. I rode Matt’s Felt DA instead of my IA4, hoping I’d squeak a few minutes off my time since the DA is so light and climbs easily. It’s not as good as the IA4 descending, and I didn’t use my Zipp 404/808 wheelset because the cassettes aren’t compatible. I pulled always from people climbing, but they generally flew past me on the descents. I was two minutes slower this year than last year, confirming that is more about the motor than the chassis. I’m undecided which bike to ride for the Lake Placid Ironman. Nutrition and hydration were easy. I carried one bottle of tangerine Gatoride, switching to the course Gatorade when it ran dry. There were fluid stops at miles 15, 30 and 45. For nutrition, I went through 3 gels about every 45 minutes. The mistake for the day. Ignoring the rule not to do something for the first time in a race, I skipped socks in T1. I’ve gone sockless for 56 miles before (but never 112), but today I was wearing new shoes in which I had not ridden long sockless. Blister city on the tops of several toes. I moved up two more places during the bike, but only remember seeing a spry 56 year old named Paul Vella pass me at mile 32 after the long climb. T2: 1:25 I slipped my feet out of the shoes about 40 yards from the dismount line and came in listening to Matt. T2 was inconsequential, except for whatever GU or slime I stepped in. The toes were bleeding, but only on the top so it was no problem for the run. Not much to do: Helmet off, and shoes and number belt on, I grabbed my gels and stomach meds, and I was out. This transition was much smoother than Kinetic, where I emerged from T2 wearing my bike helmet. Yes, at the Kinetic Half, I was that guy. Fortunately, no photographers to memorialize that one. Run: 1:36:07 (7:21 pace) (1/28) The run started slow. I stopped at a portapotty outside of transition to dehydrate. That’s not a bad thing. It usually means the run will go well, because I hydrated well on the bike and because I’ve just released some ballast that would slow me down. The first half mile is uphill at Quassy as you start the loop around the leg. My legs felt heavy, but I shortened my stride and tried to keep a quick cadence. I still have carryover fitness from the Boston Marathon and had a good half marathon at the Kinetic Half in May. I just told myself to relax and it would come together. It almost didn’t. I felt that old familiar stomach ache emerging around the end of mile 3. At mile 4, I took two Gasilla tabs. Mile 5 was my slowest mile as the pain intensified. But I could feel it receding and by mile 7, it was gone. By mile 7, you’ve completed the upper loop of the figure 8 and are almost back to the Quassy amusement park, but then you turn south for the bottom loop. Mile 8 is a steep downhill into the bottom loop, and I was able to run sub 7 easily. Mile 9 starts a long painful uphill, which ended sweetly as I passed Paul Vella just before Mile 10. Mile 11 is a long downhill and I was able to run most of it sub 7 to put some time and distance on Paul. The last mile is the hardest. It’s a long uphill, with a steep curving climb back to Quassy, then a few hundred yards of level highway before a short downhill finish. I kept nutrition simple. Two gels, one at mile 4 and one at mile 8. Waterstops every mile or so. I took Gatorade when my stomach allowed it, otherwise water which has a tendency to settle my stomach. They also offered coca cola, but I save that and/or Red Bull for when I really need it at the Ironman. The finish is excellent! Unlike Ironman, Quassy let’s you finish with family, with friends, with strangers and with dogs. Free finisher picture as you cross the line. Matt, who volunteered for the swim start and finish line, took my finishing picture and met me at the line. (He was going to race the Olympic, but ended up volunteering when his coach nixed his plan to race anything beyond sprint distance for the year). I crossed in 3rd place in the AG, finishing in 5:15 just ahead of Paul for a second consecutive year. The winner of the AG went 5:05 and #2 went 5:09. Rev3 is far better than Ironman in terms of post-race food. Hot food from a grill, including veggie burgers. There’s beer for the brave, water for the rest of us. Quassy is a winner, even if times are slower due to the brutal nature of the bike and run courses. We’re going back for 2018. I’ll probably go back to socks and the IA4 for the bike portion.