I want to start my race report by thanking the UC Davis triclub for putting on such a fun little triathlon on Sunday. I had a wonderful time, the course was very well marked, and everyone that participated had a big smile on their face. I signed up to do this race last year, when it was in February. Race weekend was the stormiest of the winter, with winds gusting 40+mph, torrential rain, and it was something like 42 degrees. A truly HTFU race, and after watching most of guys from the first wave come off the bike with road rash I unHTFUed and got a pastry at Peet’s Coffee. This year we could not have had nicer weather.
Having said that, it’s a real bummer this race was scheduled on Easter. I’m not particularly into Jesus so I didn’t think anything of signing up for a race on April 12, but when I told my girlfriend about it (she likes coming to these things to cheer me on and take pictures, I’m a lucky man) she said no-way because of church, where as it turns out in the middle of the sermon the Priest told a blond joke, I’m not kidding. I have to believe that either due to family commitments or Sunday services, this triathlon lost out on a lot of participants.
Moving on, the alarm goes off at 5am and I roll out of bed to make breakfast and coffee. My wave is scheduled to go off at 10am, so I think I’ve got plenty of time to digest the two bagels I lightly burned (just the way I like it) and have a nice leisurely meal. I drive out to Davis from Oakland watching the sun come up while going past the C&H Sugar factory next to the Carquinez Bridge, and it’s beautiful. When I get to Davis to pick up my race registration, I find out they’ve changed the wave starts, and I’m now going off at 8:40; D’oh! I cramp really easily when I race, and I typically don’t have any solid food race morning, so I was concerned about issues on the run.
“Fiddlestix,” there’s not much to be done about this so I go about setting up my transition zone and get ready. This race is a West Coast Collegiate Triathlon points race, so the college athletes get their own waves first and the transition zone is “closed” when their waves start at 8am. I find a spot on the rack, set up my towel/stuff, and go for a quick jog to figure out the run-out. When I come back I neatly set up my shoes for T2, put on my helmet and take my bike out for a warmup. I go out and promptly get lost on the bike trails through Davis’ campus. No big deal, I’m just learning where the course goes before it gets started. When I come back somebody has put their bike in my rack spot. Again, no big deal, I just passive-aggressively slide their bike off to the side so I have my spot back.
The swim portion of the race is in the UC Davis Pool, which is something like 80 yards across, so I guess they can have a both an olympic and 25 yard pool with the bulkhead in place, or maybe it’s for diving. Either way you swim five laps around buoys for a total of 750 yards. You have 17 minutes to finish the swim, at which point you are helped out of the water and set off on the bike course without penalty if you don’t finish. When my wave went off, there was the usual jostling for position and I ended up swimming wide around the first few buoys. A fast swimmer in a blue trisuit goes off the front and I try my best to stay on his feet for the swim. He turns out to be a great swimmer, winding his way through lapped swimmers like a salmon swimming past grizzly bears and we exit the water together.
Running out to T1, the announcer says “and here come our first swimmers from the mens open wave, watch out for that yellow stuff, it sucks.” I tell Mr. Chinook he did a great job as I try not to run over these textured yellow bumps that hurt your feet, put on my helmet and jump on my bike as fast as possible. I spent a lot of the offseason in the weight room and put in a big big base (for me anyways) and have been excited to see if it pays off. My coach told me he never used any kind of electronic equipment when he raced (he won a few duathlon world championships so I figure he might know what he’s talking about), and he usually ended up either in the med tent or passing out when he finished, so going as hard as you possibly can is the order of the day. I start pushing out a good effort and put some big distance on my Steelhead friend. After a while I can’t see the Sockeye behind me so I’m thinking “things are going great, gut out the pain and I just might finish first!” This is my first time leading a triathlon on the bike course for any significant duration. The bike course is a flat lollipop loop that goes through campus a little, then out into the surrounding farmland. You will not find a flatter bike course in a triathlon in California, I guarantee it.
The problem with the all out approach to racing is it’s not the most elegant way to go. I’ve got snot pouring out of my nose, sweat coating the inside of my sunglasses, and I can hardly say thank you to the course volunteers/overtime earning CHP at the intersections telling me where to go I’m panting so hard. My legs are screaming, there’s a crosswind so I keep getting blown all over the road, and there’s a new problem I’ve never encountered before: When you’re in the lead, there’s nobody to chase! Holy smokes, what am I going to do? I keep looking over my shoulder and I don’t see anybody coming, so I keep stomping on the pedals hopeing I’m going fast enough. I come back in to transition after completing the 18 mile bike in a little bit under 42 minutes. That’s about 26 mph! Man I’m stoked!!!
T2 goes by quickly and I’m out on the run. At this point I’m catching the women’s collegiate wave that started before me, so at least there are some people out on the course with me. The run winds through the arboretum at UC Davis, going past the cow pasture (there’s literally a herd of cows on campus, no joke) for 2 miles to the turnaround. There are a few sharp turns here and there with a little bit of elevation change, but it’s basically flat and fast. I get my legs turning over well enough to start developing a stitch in my left side. Crap.
The only cure I know of for a stitch in the side is to start breating when you’re stepping off the foot opposite of the side of the stitch. So in this case, my stitch is on the left side, so I enhale and exhale when I put my right foot on the ground, and eventually the stitch relaxes. My legs are actually starting to feel pretty good at this point so I give a little more gas. I get to the turnaround at 11:30 and don’t see second place for another 1:15. Woohoo! I’ve got 2:30 on the Coho, so he’s got to run 4:30s to catch me in the next 2 miles!
I start giving signals to the other dudes coming at me from my wave, trying to tell them they’re in third, fourth, fifth, etc… They all think I want to give them high fives, which I don’t understand until they’ve passed. Damn, I always like it when the leader of a race I’m in gives me props, I should do the same.
About three quarters of a mile from the finish line I’m starting to relax a little when out of the corner of my eye I see a dark haired person coming up behind me, and holy smokes they’re going fast! I pour on the gas and they’re still gaining quick. I start to redline when they pass, and it turns out to be an asian girl riding her bike to the library. I tell her I thought she was another runner and she laughs at me. The finish line is looming at this point, I can hear the music on the P-A, and the announcer is calling out the finishers coming through the shoot. I put on my biggest smile, try to wipe my face off a little and sprint to the line. When I stop my watch it reads 22:57 for the run, and 1:19:17 for the whole race. My “finishers medal” was a blue easter egg w/ UC Davis Triathlon written on it. Odd.
I ended up winning the open male division and got second place overall after a member of the UC Davis Triclub beat me by about 3 minutes. I figure he’s got home court advantage, so I can’t be too upset about that. I highly recommend this race, it’s super fun, easy to get to, and aside from the problem with the start times, it’s a very well run affair.