Cary Long Course Du was 2014’s national championship
race. I was excited to make the 3.5 hour
journey east to have some competition. I
looked at the start list to see if anybody big was registered and saw last
year’s amateur champion was registered. This
made me excited because it was sure to be a solid race. So I decided to take a half day at work on
Friday in order to get to Raleigh in the early afternoon. This way I wasn’t going to feel rushed to get
things done. There was some awful
traffic just west of Raleigh where it seemed that there were 14 accidents! Just absolutely crazy. I am a big person on hitting time cuts that I
set for myself. If I set a schedule I
like to stick to it. When I deviate from
the path I can feel the frustration building.
The important thing here is to realize this change in your emotion and
take steps to mitigate the frustration.
I just do the classic take a couple deep breaths and usually will relax
me.
I ended up getting to Inside Out Sports, location of packet
pickup, around 4pm. The hotel was 20ish
minutes from Inside Out sports. I got to
the hotel, unpacked the car, and was battling with myself if I wanted to
actually do a shakeout run. Shakeout
runs are not crucial but I like to do it as a tradition and to facilitate some
recovery from sitting in the car for 3+ hours.
I watched some of the Amgen TOC TT which got me motivated to go for a
little run. I only went for a 2 mile
easy jog and threw in a couple strides at the end. This made the legs feel good and the mind
feel clear. After that I finished
watching the ATOC and Peter Sagan killing it on the TT bike. Then I drove over to NC State campus area to
grab a bite to eat.
Race Day:
I woke up at 0440 and immediately prepped my race day bfast:
oatmeal, peanut butter, cacao powder, chia seeds, Beta-Alanine, annnddd most
importantly coffee (nasty hotel coffee at that). I made it over to US National Baseball
Training Center (start area) at 0545.
This gave me just over an hour to prep and warm up. I was only looking to get a 20 minute warm up
in because the race was a longer one. Well… turns out that an hour was not enough
time for me. I pulled out my race wheels
to find them both flat. Both of the
innertubes were shot. I hadn’t even
ridden on the tubes and they couldn’t hold air.
So I frantically switched out the tube on the disc. A nice man came up and offered to help with
the front wheel but he didn’t really know what he was doing. I definitely appreciated the attempt though. I decided to scrap the HED front wheel and
just went with my Bontrager 50mm deep wheel in order to still have time to
warmup.
Run 1:
I guess last year’s champ didn’t show up because the pace
went out really conservative. I was
expecting 5:30-5:40 pace for the front group.
Turns out I was the front group… and only had to go 5:45 pace to have a
big gap going into T1. The run was an
out and back course along a bike bath.
The first quarter was flat but with some sharp turns and a ditch
crossing. The second quarter was all
downhill which meant the third quarter was all uphill. The course was tough but
I knew I had the fitness to carry me through it. I entered T1 with a 30ish second lead which
was nice because it meant I could take my time with the transition.
Bike:
The bike was very uneventful. I followed as close as I could to my power
plan and just kept increasing my lead steadily.
I caught up to up to the sprint distance lead just at the end of the first
loop. This was a great boost to me. After that quick boost I was let down by one
of my gels popping out of my between the arm aero hydration system. L I still had another
gel left for closer to the run but it would have been nice to have that extra
gel starting into the run. I entered T2
with a massive lead over second place. I
think I was somewhere in the range of 5-6 minutes ahead of the second place
guy.
Run 2
I hopped off the bike and knew the first half mile was going
to be a slower trudge. My left knee was
bothering because of a poor cleat fit. I
had experimented with the position a couple days earlier and it gave me some
knee trouble. The knee pain went away
before getting out of the parking lot. I
was far enough ahead of second place that I didn’t push the second run. I kept it around 6 minute pace until the very
end. Once I entered the parking lot to
finish I slowed down to almost 7 minute pace.
I was really glad for the win but wished that last year’s champion had
been there to test my fitness. The
organizers of Cary put on a great race and I will definitely be coming back
next year.
Lesson Learned:
I want to occasionally throw in a summary of lessons learned
or basically the moral of the story.
1.
Prep all equipment the night/day prior. This will allow for a smoother morning and a
more relaxed morning.
2.
Get to transition earlier than an hour prior so
you can ensure good position. I was
stuck in the back of the transition rack.
This will cost precious seconds in a close race.
3.
Listen to slowtwitch when they say three gels
can’t fit in your hydration system. You
will lose one gel 9 out of 10 times.
