Maumee Bay Tri Race Report, June 17, 2012

Maumee Bay is located 10 miles east of Toledo, Ohio where the winds come whipping off of the edge of Lake Erie. Each of the past 8 years racing up there has always been high winds on the course. I believe as an athlete, you just have to ignore the conditions and suck it up. This morning was no different with the weather conditions and winds. At least it wasn't raining. I got to the transition area around 6:30am and began to set up my transition area. The first thing I did was change my rear disc wheel and front tri spoke in exchange for my profile deep dish 80m wheels. The wind was blowing around 10-15mphs so I thought that the deep dish would be more appropriate than my disc wheel. However, after a brief warm-up I realized that my disc would be fine in the slight wind and changed both wheels again for the second time. It's a good thing that I got here early as usual. I was able to greet my fellow competitors while getting my gear ready in the transition area, Mark Lemmon, Brian Barker, Tom Lebuhn, Randy Lehrer. Others near my rack was Kurt Haywood and Shannon Kurek. The swim is located in a small lake 100 meters from Lake Erie, and the small lake is always a calm body of water great for an open water swim. I was able to get to the start line with Shannon, Randy, and Tom up front. They are 3 of the fastest swimmers in the elite group. I figure that I could go out fast and just stay slightly behind all three. After the initial fast pace, I was able to settle into a good pace and cruise to a PR on that particular 750m swim course of 11:35. I couldn't see the three swimmers in front of me but I knew that they were fairly close. Tom had a fast swim time of 10:28, Randy 10:37, Shannon 10:46, Brian 12:26, and Mark with a 13:29. I know that I always have to get enough distance from Brian as possible due to his fast transitions, bike, and run splits. The wind on the course wasn't really a factor and with it to my back I was just gliding around 27-28 mph; with the wind in my face I stayed above 22mph. I attempted to push it as hard as I could, but only came in at 35:07, but was still 30 seconds faster than my previous PR. That time provided me with the 10th fastest bike split of the day. Brian had the exact same bike split of 35:07 as I did and Mark had 36:07. However, Tom had the second fastest split with 33:24 but went off course and came back on. Shannon on the other had the fastest of the day with a 32:35. Randy had a time of 34:56 and was still out in front of both Brian, Mark and I. I had no idea where Tom was due to how far he was in front of us all. After a somewhat slow transition of :56 I was able to get out onto the run course and try to set a good pace. At that point, I was the 4th or 5th runner out of the course after hearing this come from the announcer, Mr. Rich Fowler. Within the 1st mile, Brian came up on my side running a good pace that I couldn't sustain. He just blew by me like I was jogging down the beach. At this point, I thought that I still would be able to catch Randy where he only had about a 1:30 lead on me. If I could only maintain the same pace I had during my workouts I would be fine, but it wasn't going to be today. At the 1 mile marker, I saw Tom heading back to the finish line in first place, I thought. He had at least a 1/2 mile lead on Shannon at that point, but I didn't think that Tom was that much faster than Shannon. This course is an out and back course so that you can see and time how far you are behind or ahead of your fellow competitors. At the turn-around Randy was still 1:25 seconds ahead of me and Brian was now 1 minute ahead and still pushing away from me. Finally around mile 2, I started to get stomach cramps again. I briefly stopped and put my arms above my head and then started to run again. Once again, I had difficulty breathing. However, after 100m I was running a good pace again. I estimated that this cost me 30 seconds at least for that stop, and finished with a 22:17. I still can't figure why I'm cramping in my upper stomach. My only guess is that I'm pushing so hard on the bike that my body is telling me to slow down on the run, due to a lack of speed fitness on the run. So my plan is to do more bricks during the week to get ready for the high intensity efforts on the run portion. My final time was 1:10:52. Almost 40 seconds faster than last year and a PR for that course, but my run was one minute slower than last year. If I could have only maintained my run I would have been close to Brian and Randy at the finish line. Randy did beat Brian by 7 seconds and I was 1:45 back of both of them. According to the final results, Tom was 1:45 ahead of Randy and Brian. When I asked Tom how he got so far ahead of Shannon, he stated that he went off course. However, he was still ahead of Shannon at the finish but the final results reflected that Tom was 3 minutes slower than Shannon. Overall, I had a great swim, average bike split, and a horrible run. 17th overall and 4th in the elite grandmasters. My next race is Morgantown, WV., the next stop for the HFP series on June 24. I plan to get up at 2:30am and make the 3.5 hr drive down there to race. Hopefully, I can correct my run faults for this next race and put in 3 good legs for a Tri.