Well, fellow Tribe members, plenty of not so great news in this race report.  Why?  To sum my performance up in a nutshell – DNF (that is, Did Not Finish).  Yeah, you race long enough and it’s bound to happen.  Does to the pros all the time.  And there’s more ugly news in this report than usual.  But, let’s start at the beginning.

 

For those that are unfamiliar with this event, it used to be an Olympic distance event hosted by CGI Racing and run out of North East, Maryland.  This year they added a Sprint roughly half of the Olympic.  So, if you’re looking for these distances that’s close to home and easy to get to, this is such an event.  It’s only a little less than 2 hours away from Frederick, just northeast of Baltimore and it’s right off of I-95.  CGI does a pretty good job at running the event with a small prerace expo and free stuff (water bottle, swim tote bag) given out by some of the folks. 

 

Like I said above, they added a Sprint distance in addition to the Olympic.  Since I didn’t go the entire race, I don’t really have an opinion on whether this worked or not.  Not to slight newbies here (we all start out as one), but folks tend to crowd up during Sprint distances on the bike.  And there are various bikes out there competing, so there’s always a bit more inadvertent blocking.  So I was a bit concerned about this going into the race.  The course for the Sprint was mostly the same as the Olympic, just that each was cut in half.  From what I could tell, this did seem to work okay for everyone.

 

The transition area was first come, first served in your row of numbers.  So, you could pick a spot in the row instead of having to go to one you were assigned to.  I actually like that a little better as you’re not quite as crowded it seemed.  I was half way in between the bike out/in and the run out, so I thought that gave me an even chance no matter what.  And I got there early enough to get a half decent spot close to the end of the row.

 

As I said in last year’s report, we had to walk about 3-4 blocks to the transition area as there’s no parking allowed in the park itself.  This is one of the few things I don’t really like about this event.  It makes it difficult to go back for items that you may have forgotten and you had to haul everything including your bike in during the morning.  And of course, I forgot something and had to go back. 

 

BTW, on registration day, met up with Tribe members Dan Pfeil and Jason Senuta.  This was their first time at this event and I gave them a few tips that I learned from last year.  Then I met up with Mike Matney as I had brought his bike with me and we worked out meeting/time place for the next day.  Then I drove the bike course just to see if anything had changed.  Last year, there were holes in the road on this one section of the course.  This year, those were filled but there were still a good number of rough areas that I had to be aware of.  As I remembered, the bike course consisted of lots of rollers and curves.  But, it’s not really a slow course per se.  There are no real tough climbs and the hills are gradual but long.  So, you’re not really tuckered going and there are some nice downhills to hit the high gears with.  The run course is the same as the first part of the bike with the long hills.

 

Race day.  Weather was near perfect and was to stay that way.  Finally, an event with no rain, little wind, and nice conditions.  Looking out over the swim race course, the water is calm.  I was thinking what a nice day this was and the promise a decent event for me.  After the last three in either rain or heat, I thought I deserved one with decent weather.  The water temp the day before was said to be 76.  But, on race day, 78.8.  No wetsuits.  A good number of folks donned them anyway and decided to be safe though that meant they wouldn’t be in the AG scores.  The Sprint waves went first followed by the Olympics.  I was in the third wave in the Olympic and this meant 35 min after the start of the race.  Actually, this worked out okay in some ways.

 

Swim start is in the water and the course is basically and out and back with a dogleg left turn to the finish.  I knew from last year that I needed to focus on something over to the finish rather than the buoys coming back as last year I got confused between the two sets of buoys. So, I found a channel post that I was going to use to sight off of when I rounded the second turn buoy. 

 

When the horn sounds, I try to catch feet.  The water is very murky and I can’t see anything but my arms/hands.  I do hold onto a few feet for a while, but when I look up to sight, I find I’m heading right badly.  Well, that throws me off and I try to regain.  I realize at one point that I’m going out too fast and try to relax a bit more.  I still see a lot of my wave with me so I don’t think I’m doing too bad at first.  But, after I sight again, I realize I can’t see.  A mistake I made here is not to clear my goggles.  So, I’m stopping far too much on the first leg to see where I’m going.   Knowing this is causing me to lose my composure too.  As I finally round the second turn buoy, I really can’t see anything.  I finally clear my goggles and can see all!  I see the channel post and start to go for it.  Soon I see the yellow left turn buoy and I get a rush of anticipation to finish.  I’m really plugging I think and I pass a few people though the wave behind has caught me too.  I finally touch bottom and walk out of the water, grateful that the swim was over.  I really don’t like to feel that way, but it was a tough one today and I know I just made it tougher on myself than I really needed to be.  My time was 38:22, 2 min slower than last year and this looks like my HIM time.  Ugh.  Funny thing was that I was in the middle of my AG.

 

The run to T1 is long here but I’m jogging smartly and not cramping.  Now something for everyone to remember is to always check your Bike In/Out and Run Out areas from transition.  We had some Sprint folks running to us as we were coming in from the swim.  They had apparently not checked the transition area to see that the run was an immediate left after the transition area.  We got them squared away and turned around when it was obvious they were confused.

 

T1 goes okay for me and I complete it in 1:23.  This could’ve been faster as I had a little bit of difficulty getting in my shoes.  But overall, it went fairly well.

 

Okay, off on the bike and time to catch all those folks ahead of me in the swim (once again).  Climb the first hill and set off on the first downhill.  This is where it all starts to fall apart.   Shift into the 11 cog on the cassette.  A grating metal sound starts coming from the back wheel!  This is bad.  I don’t see anything obvious but I’m pretty sure it’s the cassette coming loose.  I downshift to climb another hill and everything is working better.  I upshift to go down the next hill and the grating sound is back!  Now I’m having some difficulty pedaling and the wheel is starting to stick.  I downshift and slow finding a place to pull over.  Take off the wheel and the cassette pops off.  I examine it and see that the first few cogs have rubbed part of their teeth off where they fit into the hub.  So, the gears are slipping.  Also, for some reason, the cassette top screw isn’t holding.  I try to put it back on and do get it connected.  I decide to limp back to a decision point here in the course.  I make that turn and stop.  With a bad cassette, I can’t realistically hope to finish.  And if the wheel freezes or something breaks, I could get hurt.  I think “I can’t finish”.  I hang my head on my bars and sigh.  But this is for the best.  I limp back in low gear and find a timing guy who gives me a ride back.  It was difficult for me to hand him my timing chip and hear him radio back that I’ve dropped out.  Once back in transition, I see the Sprinters finishing and the group of folks I was with coming into transition from the bike.  I pack up my gear, get my bike, and head back to the car.

 

Now, I come back to hopefully cheer on my fellow Tribe mates.  I find Jason and Dan at the finish already and I think that maybe I’ll stick around to see Mike finish.  Well, after a while, no Mike.  So, I think maybe he’s eating and head over with Dan and Jason.  Hmm. Still no Mike.  I go to transition and see his bike’s there and it looks like he already finished as his running shoes are there as well.  After a while, results are posted.  Mike is not on the list anywhere!  Now, while I was waiting for my ride back, I had heard of a crash on the course.  Remembering this, I finally go to the EMT area and ask if they remember the name of the person who crashed.  Yup, it was Mike.  A friend of Mike’s doing the duathlon at Lum’s Pond that day is there and we quickly find out info where Mike’s at.  Then we go and gather his gear.  I hadn’t really looked at his bike before to notice his shoes aren’t in the pedals.  Then the back wheel has leaves in the cassette and part of the carbon rim is crunched!  We get his gear and head off to the hospital.  Once there, Mike is sitting up and seems okay for the experience.  No broken bones and no stitches.  Mostly just a lot of scrapes, cuts, and bad bruise on his left thigh. 

 

Mike and I examined where his crash occurred and he figures he lost control while going over a manhole cover.  This is while coming downhill at 20 mph before a sharp right turn and he was switching his hands in preparation for the turn.  Apparently hit the manhole cover when switching his hands.  He kinda recovers but he’s in very awkward position and can’t reach his brakes to stop.  And he sees he will crash into a police car shortly if he can’t .  So, he choses to going into the ditch beside the road instead.  Next thing he knows, he’s looking up at a flashlight being held by an EMT.  The sad part is that he was 250 yards from the transition area. 

 

So with a feeling of disappointment, we make the trip back and hope for a better race next year.   

 

If nothing else, this is a big lesson learned to check always check your gear and never switch out equipment the day prior to a race.  That’s what I had done as I still had my 12-27 cassette on the back I used for Musselman.  I needed that there.  But, I wanted my 11-26 for this course as I knew it would work better for the long rollers.  I spin too much in the 12 going downhill and with the 11, I could still power downhill to build with some momentum and carry me through the small rollers.  The 26 would still carry me uphill without having to stand quite as much.  That decision cost me this race. 

 

Ending this report on a more positive note, Jason Senuta finished 4th in his AG and Dan Pfeil finished strong in the same AG as well.  Congrats to them!!

 

Â