YMCA Indoor Triathlon

500 meter swim -> 12 mi bike -> 3 mi run

April 10, 2010

I woke up probably earlier and more excited than I should have for this race, but after a horrifically cold winter I was excited as could be to race another triathlon. Time could not pass fast enough as I ate breakfast and got everything ready to go. It seemed anticlimactic to head out for a triathlon without a bike and to only go as far as the local YMCA: the site of 40% of my training. Still, I arrived about 7:50, just in time to watch the first wave go at 8:00.

Norton and Kellie were both racing; Norton at 8:00, Kellie at 8:45, so it was cool to watch them. I cheered them on for a while, learned what I could about the “course” and the dynamics of the event and otherwise kill time. Eventually time clicked to within an hour of my wave start at 9:30, so I pounded a 5-hour energy, dropped all my casual clothes off at my locker and started my warmup. I feel like I got in a great warmup on the spin bike. Managed to grab the closest bike to the stairs, get it adjusted to fit my body, found my gearing and did my cardio warmup by 9:15. I didn’t get as much of a swim as I would have liked, but felt it sufficient to get my arms ready to go.

Before the race started, I couldn’t help but ask around to figure out who the competition was. There were a lot of dark horses on the participant’s list, but one guy that got vouched for was a guy named Nicholas. He was a lean, middle aged runner friend of Kellie’s. Evidently, he’s got a relatively healthy resume of marathons in the low 3:00s and has been racing for years. I don’t know anything about his bike or his swim, but I mark him and hope he doesn’t run away from me. He’s in a late wave, but manages to get it switched to mine, which I don’t think was wholly coincidental. :-)

As soon as the cue was given I lock into my pace. I feel my form is solid and know based off recent training that my pace is true to the distance. There are three lanes with two swimmers apiece, with Nicholas and me on opposite sides of adjoined lanes (two swimmers between us). Right off the gun, he starts to slowly pull away from me. His pace is only seconds per 100 faster than mine and the swim simply isn’t long enough for him to gain much ground. I lost touch with him after about 200 meters, but managed to find him again at about 400. Don’t know if he slowed down, I sped up or if he just never made the distance I gave him credit for. I felt great about my pace, which happened to almost uniformly match a female swimmer right next to me on my side of the opposite lane. My flip turns made a noticeable difference, with me gaining a half a body length on her with every one. I dropped her into my drafting zone on the last turn and caught sight of Nicholas about 1.5 body lengths up on the last 25. I managed to pull within a half a body length by the wall and we exited the water with essentially the exact same time. Having nothing more to do than to slip on my running shoes, I pounded him in transition, beating him to the spin bikes just up the stairs by the better part of a full minute.

Swim: 7:56 (1:35/100m)

Transition: 0:45

I’m the first one to the bikes, so I assume I’m the first out of the water; I find out later this isn’t the case. Nicholas trickles in right as I get locked into place and begin to spin, but I don’t know how much ground I’m able to make on him. Swimmers slide in one after another, but I don’t pay them much mind. This is, by far, the strangest triathlon I’ve ever done. The spin bikes are hooked up to bike computers that tell you your speed. Speed is based upon how fast the wheel moves, and wheel speed is based upon cadence. A glaring omission: gearing. Essentially: race strategy is to put on as little gearing as you can safely spin, rev your legs up to 100+ rpm, and hold it as long as you can. Nothing like outdoor cycling, to which I and just about every triathlete on the planet is accustomed. It doesn’t take me long to find my pace, which ends up being a laughably inaccurately fast 22 mph. It’s extremely difficult to gauge my speed relative to anyone else’s as everyone’s legs are churning at blurring speeds.

I’m pretty convinced Nicholas is in front of me and is pulling away. If it were as easy as dropping a gear and chasing him it would have been one thing, but my legs just don’t spin much faster than that. He continued to “pull away” from me for about 20 minutes before he started to cramp. I kept up my whirring while I watched him slow to a stop, dismount and stretch for two or three rounds before he gets back on and starts again. I KNOW I’ve put a significant amount of time on him, but how much? I have to wait until T2 to find out. Other than occasionally flashing my mile marker to my timer and cheering section, there just wasn’t much to do other than struggle to control my breathing. With about a mile and a half left, the unthinkable happens: some heavyset, older guy in a cotton t-shirt and cheap basketball shorts slides off his bike and makes his way towards the treadmills. I’m flabbergasted, but am left with nothing to do other than pound out the last mile and change and hope to find him on the run. Finishing up, I make a flying dismount off the spin bike and bee-line it to the treadmill a volunteer has set up for me.

It’s all calibrated, save for me to hit the little green start button. In the time it takes me to press it, the black screensaver flashes on and I start wildly pushing on it to get it moving. It does, but is no longer set up to automatically turn off at the end of 2.9 miles. Nicholas joins me, literally the treadmill next to mine, and locks into his pace. I look at his vitals and he looks at mine: I’m at 8mph with .35 miles done; he’s at 8.5 and starting at zero. Thus, the cat-and-mouse stage is set; flanked on either side of me by a strong and proven runner and a come-from-nowhere cycling king running at 6.5 mph with over 2 minutes under his belt.

Bike: 32:39 (22.1 mph)

Transition: 0:30

My heart rate is already over lactate threshold, so I match my pace to the treadmill and focus on my breathing. Admittedly, 8 mph (7:30/mi) is pretty ambitious when my predicted sprint pace is about 8:05/mi, but I’m lulled into the far too familiar feeling that my body can click along forever at my chosen pace; this feeling is typically followed by a very painful back half of the race. I’m glancing at Nicholas’s screen at bit too often and eventually find his time, pace and distance minimized. Well, rats; I minimize mine as well and try to go off my watch. At some point, I catch a glimpse of the cyclist on my left side, and he’s sped up to 7.5 mph. I don’t think I can catch him and start to race for 2nd.

The run was a blur of burning lungs, dry mouths and slow stopwatches. I tried to shoot water into my mouth every so often and towel off my face for little more effect than to give me some sort of additional sensory stimulation. The time clipped by slowly, I descended into exhaustion at roughly the same speed as Nicholas, but I continued to hold my lead. He turned his information back on, as did I for the most part, and slowly gained on me.

After about 1.8 miles I began to reach the threshold of what my body had to offer that day. I could feel the lactate building and knew that I was on the cusp of blowing up completely. Had I been closer to 2.5 I might have pushed through, but I didn’t think I could hold out that long. I tried shortening my stride, tried lengthening it, tried heel striking to mimic a lazier stride, but eventually peeled off. I lowered it down to 7 mph. Then to 6. I held it at 6 for about 15 seconds, caught my breath and kicked it back up to 8 again. By this time Nicholas and I were surrounded with spectators cheering us on. Kellie, ever the helpful one, kept yelling at us to pick it up, that we only had one mile to go, to quit “bird dogging” (evidently she meant looking at his screen) and in general voicing her expert opinion that we weren’t going hard enough.

“The Duel” as I like to call it, started at about mile 2.5; perhaps a bit before and a small slice behind me for Nicholas. Still, it was towards the end of the run. The cyclist who’d beaten us both to the run hopped off and was finishing up his last lap around the track. It was Nicholas and I left to fight for the scraps. Glancing at his screen, he was keeping up his 8.5 pace and I was holding with my 8. He had closed the gap quite a bit and was within a tenth of a mile to me. He kicked his pace up to 9 mph. Feeling like I had it in me with a half mile left, I kicked it up to match his 9. Seeing my move, he clicks his speed up one to 9.1. I follow. He goes to 9.2. I follow. 9.3. 9.5. He holds at 9.5 and I go to 10 (10 mph or 6 min/miles). I hold the 10 mph pace until my heart starts to explode and kick it back to 8.5 with .25 miles to go. Nicholas holds his 9.5 pace for a pregnant few seconds before he blows and lowers it back to 8ish. We are LITERALLY neck and neck as I hit 2.9 and hop off.

I sprint over towards the stairs and climb up to the track: one lap around is the last tenth of a mile and the end of the day. Nicholas finishes within seconds of me, but is unable to give any kind of chase. By the time we had both surfaced on the track, I had a gap of about 30 feet. By the completion of the first bend it had swelled to 50. Seeing that, I no longer felt the threat and sprinted it home, snapping the invisible tape moments before asphyxiation. I look down at Kellie and Norton smiling and giving congratulations in an utterly incomprehensible way. I just laugh, knowing we had put on quite a show; a race that close in a setting where people could literally watch every second of the race unfold.

Run: 22:26 (7:28/mi)

Total time: 1:04:16

Nicholas and I catch our collective breaths and become instant buddies. We walk a lap to cool down and talk about the day and its idiosyncrasies. I eventually find out that the guy who beat us both by over 2 minutes is in the beginner category, this being his first triathlon, and that I’m currently in first place of the advanced category; I don’t know if I should take it as good news or bad. I get further information that he is a former competitive swimmer since he was a kid. Evidently, he beat Nicholas and I considerably out of the pool, but had a pretty lax transition time, still allowing me to beat him to the bikes.

I proceed to hang out for the rest of the race. My time is beaten twice over the day, leaving me with 3rd in the Male Advanced category and 5th overall. Still good for a $10 gift card to Toot’s and a great story to tell. This is the start of my 4th season of triathlon, I’ve raced approaching 20 races to date, but I can honestly say this is the first one I’ve actually RACED. It’s an odd feeling, a good feeling. It does a good job at teasing me of successes later to come.