Missie Vess – Fort Ritchie Triathlon – Sunday, August 6, 2017

Dave has done the duathlon at Ft. Ritchie for a number of years, but I had never had a chance to try the triathlon. I signed up for it this year because when I signed up for Raleigh 70.3, I had my sights set on going to 70.3 Worlds in September and figured that Ft. Ritchie would make a good tune-up race should I qualify. And even if I didn’t qualify, it would be a fun, “local” race to take on. As it turned out, I did qualify for Worlds, and Ft. Ritchie did work out to be a great tune-up race. Saturday evening, Dave and I dropped the kids off to spend the night with his parents, since we would be leaving really early the next morning to drive out to the race. Ft. Ritchie offers the option of camping at the race venue the night before for pretty cheap, but with no night before racking, we opted to drive the ~90 minutes to the race venue Sunday morning. We got up about 4am Sunday morning. I had some yogurt and grabbed a couple instant breakfasts and a banana for later. We packed up our stuff, put the bike on the car, and were on the road by 4:45am. The drive out was uneventful and we were there in plenty of time for check in and set up. Check in is inside the Community Center and there are real bathrooms there that can be used. They also let you shower there after the race, although I wasn’t able to partake of that benefit. Transition is on the other side of the community center grounds, a short walk away. I had decided to race in the Open/Elite division, so I scored a transition spot right next to the bike in/out. We didn’t have assigned spots, just assigned racks, so I took a spot that had my bike facing towards the bike exit. There were only 3 of us ladies and a couple men racing open/elite, and everyone was really nice, talking and sharing experiences as we set up transition. I put my shoes on the bike and used rubber bands to hold them flat. I filled my aero bottle with my mixture of Cytomax + maltodextrin and added a second bottle of the same on the down tube. For an Olympic distance tri on a relatively cool day, I wouldn’t go through both bottles, but I would go through at least one. Since it was a calm day, I put my helmet on my handle bars with the straps hanging down and my sunglass in the helmet. I laid out my running shoes, visor, race belt, and a small hand flask on my mat. I sprayed both bike and run shoes with tri slide. After getting body marked and getting my timing chip, I was good to go. Swim: 21:24, 1:26/100m The water temp was measured as 74 degrees, so wetsuit legal. I would prefer colder to be comfortable even in a sleeveless wetsuit, but would wear it anyway for the extra speed. The lake is pretty small, so the swim for the Olympic is a 2-loop swim. You have to get out after the first loop, run along the beach and down the dock and jump back in to start the 2nd loop. My wave was the 1st Olympic wave (Open/Elite and Men under 40), but the 5th wave overall. At Ft. Ritchie, the duathlons go first and then the sprint triathlon and aqua bike and then the Olympic tri. Between the sprint and Olympic waves, we had about 10 minutes to warm up if we wanted. I got in and swam a short warm up and then got out to wait for our start. The start is in-water and the water is fairly shallow with a really muddy bottom. With all the people in the water, there was a lot of churn and silt kicked up, so there was no visibility right near the shore. When the start signal was given, I took off with the other front swimmers, trying to put distance between myself and the rest of the pack. The man and the women who went on to be the overall winners quickly pulled ahead of everyone. I’m not used to being left behind that quickly, so I thought I wasn’t having a very good swim. But, I have to race my own race, so I just settled into the best pace I could. The swim course is counter-clockwise and very easy to sight, so I was easily able to stay on a straight line to the first turn buoy. The 2nd leg is the shortest, so I was quickly upon the 2nd turn buoy and turning for the 3rd and longest leg. It was along the 3rd leg that I started catching the last of the sprint swimmers. Not a lot of traffic, and plenty of space for passing. I turned the last turn buoy and made for the beach. Found the exit easily, jumped up, ran along the beach and the pier with one other guy. We jumped back in almost together to start the 2nd leg. I liked having the swim broken up by the short run, but I also didn’t like it. I was getting really hot by the time I jumped back in, so I felt really sluggish starting the 2nd loop. I just put my head down and tried to keep my strokes long and strong. I pulled ahead of the guy (I talked to him after the race and he said he drafted me until I pulled ahead during the 2nd leg of that 2nd loop). The 2nd loop was much more crowded with Olympic swimmers on their first loop, but there was still plenty of space for avoiding them. When I rounded the final buoy, I was relieved to know the swim was almost done. I love swimming and it is my strongest discipline, but I was so hot in the wetsuit by then and wanted to be out of it. I finally reached the beach, hopped up and headed for transition. Despite feeling like a slow swim, my time was actually on par with my best swim times for an Olympic (wetsuit legal) race. The woman who won, swam an 18:01! T1: 0:53 T1 was uneventful. I had to run the whole length of it to get to my transition spot, but since it’s a small race, it wasn’t all that far. Wetsuit came off really easily. I put on my helmet and sunglasses. Grabbed my bike and took the ~3 steps out of transition. Bike: 1:15:20, 18.3 mph I worked some the day before the race on my flying mount and was feeling more confident with it, so gave it a go. Stumbled a little with it, but didn’t crash, so I’ll take it as a starting point. Only problem was the strap for my right shoe ended up coming out of the fastener, so I was fiddling with it coming out of the park, trying to feed it back in through the guide and failing miserably. I was losing time, especially since I had hit the first uphill by then, so I finally resigned myself to just ride with one shoe unfastened. I quickly realized that I had misjudged the first hill (it was longer than I expected) and I knew I was in the complete wrong gear. I tried to shift to my small chain ring, but was pedaling too slow by then and my chain dropped inside. Crap. I was able to unclip my left shoe, but because I never was able to fasten my right shoe, I had to just take that foot out of the pedal. I popped the chain back on, but then had to yank my shoe free, fix the strap, put it on, and then try to remount on the hill. I finally got going, but probably lost at least a minute with all of that. Oh well. Time to recover. I spun up the rest of that first hill. It was definitely harder than I was expecting and I was breathing really hard by the time I crested it. But, luckily the next 6+ miles were all downhill. The course is mostly an out and back with one small lollipop loop and another short out and back with a U-turn at the end. I was having a great time riding aero and just going as fast as I could. The road is straight with good visibility, so I felt pretty comfortable going fast. I bottomed out with gears since I was riding a compact and I think I topped out around 33-34 mph. Dave told me he hit 40+, but I just don’t have the mass to go that fast  After the long downhill, the course starts to get into the more technical turns for the lollipop loop. The roads were pretty clear, but there was loose gravel on several of the turns, so I was careful on each of the turns. I also had never ridden the course or even driven it, so was a little slower than I might have otherwise been because I wanted to make sure I got all the turns right. There were some ups and downs, no real flats, but nothing super hard either. I finished the lollipop and turned for the short out and back and that was another fun downhill, but it ended in a U-turn at the bottom, which really kills the momentum. Once done with the U-turn, that starts the loooooong climb back to the finish. All that really fun downhill was now a really long uphill. I jumped to the small chain ring and just settled into a gear that I could push, but didn’t feel like I was destroying my legs. I was watching my power just out of curiosity and was holding steady between ~200-220W. I passed quite a few people from either the sprint or the duathlon. There were a few false crests that made you think you were almost finished with the uphill, but you really weren’t. I finally reached the end and it was a short downhill back to transition. I pulled my feet out of my shoes, swung the leg over the side and was able to jump off without killing myself. Success! T2: 1:02 Threw my bike back on the rack. Slipped my feet in my shoes, grabbed my visor, race belt, and hand flask, and ran out of transition. Thought I would have been a little faster, but shoes didn’t slip on as easily as I hoped. Run: 44:59, 7:16/mile I put all my gear on as I started the run. I like to run with a hand flask because it is easier for me to drink from that than to mess with the water stops. I was really hoping for a good run. I knew I would never catch the woman in front of me – I hadn’t even seen her on the bike anywhere, but I had seen the woman behind me on the short out and back. I figured I had at least half a mile on her at that point, but had no idea how we compared on the hill back into town, so didn’t know if she had gained on me at all. I settled into a comfortable pace and didn’t look at my watch at all. The run course is a 2 loop course and it’s a little rough with a lot of torn up road sections and some gravel paths, so I had to pay attention and be a bit careful with how I pushed. When my legs get tired, I am prone to stumble over uneven terrain. Shortly after exiting the transition area, you reach the first uphill. It’s fairly steep, but not real long. Just when I would feel like my lungs couldn’t take any more uphill, it would level out and eventually turned into a downhill. Around the 1.6 mile mark, you hit the next uphill, which is even steeper than the first, but still fairly short. Once you crest that hill, the rest of the loop is either downhill or fast, so I could push it a little bit more. I was careful not to push too much on the first loop because I knew I had to do the 2 hills again on the second loop. Just as I was reaching the end of the first loop, the first place man lapped me and headed to the finish. Shortly after I started my 2nd loop, a DC Tri Club woman passed me looking really strong. I was 99% sure she was only on her first lap, but she still provided motivation to not let her stay in front of me. I hung out behind her until after the 2nd hill and was finally able to overtake her on the long downhill and pulled further ahead as I approached the end of the 2nd loop and headed towards the finish line. I didn’t see her behind me at the finish, so she must have been on her 1st loop. I ended up 2nd place overall. 1st place was about 12 minutes ahead of me and 2nd place was about 5 minutes behind me. I wasn’t able to stay for the awards ceremony because Dave and I had to book it out of there to get home in time to pick up the kids from a birthday party. I had time to check the results, talk a little with the 3rd place woman, get my stuff from transition, change, and grab a little bit of food, but then had to go. Bill Yuknis picked up my award for me, since we both work at Goddard and he could easily get it to me (thanks, Bill!) It was a good race and a fun day. MMTC had a lot of presence at the race and on the podium. I would definitely do this race again. I think I could do better on the bike having done the course once before. Next up is 70.3 Worlds. I’ve heard they’ve made that race even more challenging, just for Worlds. The swim has been reversed so you don’t get the current assist that has become trademark of Chattanooga races. The bike course also has a ~5 mile climb near the beginning, so Ft. Ritchie was definitely good practice for that.