Combat Sprint Triathlon Race Report

I’ve gotten stuck in the rain on my bike a handful of times over the years, and it’s never really fun. It’s wet (obviously) and it’s hard to see. The road gets super slippery and the rain feels like tiny pebbles bombarding your entire body. Yeah, it pretty much sucks — at first.
But after a while you stop thinking about how much it sucks to be riding your bike in the rain. You stop paying attention to the water dripping off your nose and chin, running in rivulets down your legs, and pooling in your shoes. You realize how incredibly absurd the entire situation is. You’re outside. In the rain. Riding your bike.
And then, if you’re me, you suddenly find everything very funny. You laugh out loud. And you just keep pedaling.
I was standing by the side of the (indoor) pool this morning at 7:05, waiting for my turn to jump in and start the Combat Sprint Triathlon, when I looked out the windows and saw that it had started to rain. “This is going to be an interesting race,” I said to the girl next to me.
I’d gotten there about an hour before and set up my transition area just like last week at Silverlake. That system worked very well for me so I repeated it exactly. I wandered around before the race, picked up my chip, and talked to a bunch of friends and coworkers also racing. Bib numbers were given out in order of predicted 300 yard swim time, and my predicted time of 5:30 made me #106 out of about 350 participants. With each swimmer starting at 10-second intervals, I knew I had 15+ minutes after the race start before I’d be in the water.
The pool at College of the Mainland, where the event was held, is pretty small. Six lanes wide, 25 yards long, so the swim involved going down and back in each lane, passing under the ropes, and on to the next lane, etc. (One woman told me after the race that she saw swimmers cutting the course by passing under the lane ropes at both ends of the pool, effectively cutting the swim distance in half. Ugh.)
My turn finally arrived and I hopped in the pool in the wake of the girl who left in front of me. I ducked my head under water and popped up. “5…4…3…2…1…” came the call behind me. “Go!” I pushed off the wall and my race had begun!
I’m not really a big fan of pool swims. It’s nice to be in clean, clear water but the fact that you have to predict your time in order for the race organizers to properly seed the swim means that you are dependent on the people around you to list an accurate time. A lot of people fail to do this. Within two laps, I’d caught the girl in front of me. She, in turn, had caught the woman in front of her. After a bit of breaststroking and waiting for the opportune moment, I passed them both. Each of them slightly overestimated their time; with them out of my way, the water in front of me was clear of swimmers for at least 15 yards. I swam the second half in peace and exited with a swim time of 5:29.
Transition was a short jog from the pool, but leaving the swim meant heading into the rain. It had calmed to a drizzle at this point, but everything outside was soaked. I pulled my sopping wet socks onto my feet with a bit of difficulty and latched my bike shoes. With helmet firmly on head, I ran out to start the bike. The rainy, rainy bike. T1 time was 1:23.
As I headed out, I immediately felt cold in my wet, tight tri clothes. I warmed up after a mile or so though, and soon I found myself heading north on the I-45 feeder. My speedometer read 20+ mph and I felt like I was cruising. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, because the trees didn’t seem to be moving appreciably in any kind of wind. What’s going on?
I found out soon enough that there was indeed plenty of wind, even if the trees were impervious on this particular morning. As we crossed the highway and headed back south on the opposite feeder, a strong breeze hit me full in the face. For a moment I faltered — ugh, how can I ride in this wind? Then I thought of the Half Ironman. And the 20 mph headwind. That I rode through for 28 miles. Out loud, I admonished myself. “I rode through worse than this for 28 miles. This is cake.” And it was. Even when the drizzle turned into steady rain and my legs felt like they were being pummeled with gravel, it was cake.
The final few miles were heading back north and I was able to enjoy the tailwind once again. As I pulled back into transition, I was smiling, both at the absurdity of the rain and at the knowledge that I’d put in a solid bike leg despite the conditions. 15 miles in 49:00, or more than an 18 mph average. Heck yeah!
As I ran into T2, the rain had finally stopped but my stuff was even wetter than before. I changed shoes and started jogging out and woah — each shoe felt like it weighed 10 pounds. They were water-logged like never before. I managed to work out some of the excess liquid in the first half mile — either that or I just got used to having heavy feet, because I didn’t notice it so much as the run went on. T2 time was 1:07.
Lately I’ve decided that it doesn’t make much sense for me to hold back on the bike — because I’ve realized that backing off on the bike doesn’t really make my slow running pace any faster. Why hold back on the bike in the name of saving my legs if I’m going to run at basically the same pace either way? I’d rather push harder and save 3-5 minutes on the bike than hold back to save a minute on the run.
The only problem with this strategy is that it leaves me starting the run with legs that are deader than usual (obviously). I’m really proud of myself last week at Silverlake and today at Combat because I was able to keep my mental strength high enough to keep myself running for the entire 3 miles. Today I stopped only for water, and though my legs were hurting, I was able to push myself to keep running. Mile 1 was rough, but mile 2 and 3 were easier. I was even able to pick up the pace ever so slightly at the end. Run time for 3 miles was 32:43. Under 11:00 pace is good enough for me!
My total finish time was 1:29:43 — heck yeah, I squeaked in just under an hour and a half! And I beat my three coworkers that were racing (they all had faster run times, but I had faster swim and bike times). The girl who won the Athena category last weekend didn’t race today, so I won 1st place Athena! The prize was a big ol’ plaque. I’m going to have to clear more space for my hardware. 😉

When I first started entering myself in the Athena category, I felt a little guilty. Is it really fair for me to win an award when, if you put me in my age group, I’d be well down in the standings? I always felt a little embarassed to win an Athena award.
This year I’ve totally changed my mind. I’m eligible for the category, and I’m going to enter it. Let’s face it — I can’t keep up with another 29-year-old who weighs 70 pounds less than I do. Simply not possible. And I ain’t gonna be losing 70 pounds anytime soon either (nor do I want to.)
Nope, instead, I’ve realized that the Athena category has been really good for my racing over the past couple years. Because I know that I’m competitive, I train a little harder. I push a little harder. I’m a little more motivated to be the best that I can be.
And that is about the best thing that I could ask for.
All in all it was a great, awesome, rainy day.