Race Report, 2008 AG Nationals, Clearwater 70.3 Championships

A Tale of Two Races - National Age Group Championships, Ironman 70.3 World Championships, and Other Thoughts

These are a long time coming, Warning, this is very long and likely boring. Peruse as you choose.

My season has concluded with the completion of the abovementioned two races. The former occurred September 21st near Portland OR, the latter on November 8th in Clearwater, FL. Both events were superb, and I would heartily recommend either to anyone.

Both races require some level of qualification. The 70.3 requires qualification at a World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) branded 70.3 qualification event, and typically a top 3 or 4 in your age group will ensure a slot, but some events will roll the slots pretty far down the AG. In my opinion, the 70.3 is substantially harder to qualify for. I earned the 70.3 slot by winning my AG at Buffalo Springs 70.3 Ironman.

One can earn a slot to the AG national championships several ways. If you were a USAT All American the previous year you can automatically go, also you can go if you have ever been a member of Team USA and competed in an ITU World Championship event, or you can earn a slot by finishing in the top 10% of your AG in any USAT sanctioned event in the same year. I have all three qualification criteria.

The AG Championships is the premier event for USAT, and is probably the second most competitive age group event in the United States, after the Hawaii IM, and the 70.3 Championships are a new championship venue for WTC, the folks who own Ironman, and has quickly become a premier international age group event.

Going into the AG national championships I had hoped to go top 5 and to break 2:05. At Clearwater a 4:20 placed third for my AG the previous two years, so my goal was to go 4:20, which I thought was very reachable, and though if I had a great race I could go 4:15. I also wanted to be competitive with the top end of the AG.

One of the unique aspects of triathlon is the venue it provides for relevant, competitive adult athletics. This is achieved by the age group system which is very vibrant in triathlon, compared to other sports. Occasionally attending a national caliber race is a neat experience because of the buzz of expectation and anticipation that surrounds an event where a lot of talented and hard working athletes are going to put it on the line, head-to-head.

AG Nationals

The AG Nats were a bit of an afterthought for me, not a target race. I mostly wanted to do it because I have been racing well this year and thought I had a good chance to place well. Clay and I had been talking about going to this race for a while, but we waited to pull the trigger on the decision due to the race timing as it related to Mila’s birth and other normal life issues. The race venue was at Hagg Lake, a reservoir about 30 miles east of Portland, well out of the suburban sprawl. Most people stayed in a town about 15 mile east of Portland called Hillsboro. Hillsboro appeared to be an upscale and fairly new suburb with a ton of high end chain retail and restaurants. Nice to visit, fun to have all the convenience, but at the end of the day it looks and feels like a million other places. I still prefer Los Alamos to all that generic crap.

Hagg Lake was really nice. The lake is entirely in a state park and had a 12 mile road circumnavigating it, which the bike portion basically raced twice. The road undulates along the contours of all the lake drainages, but with the exception of the descent and accent off the dam, was very ridable, and made for a fairly fast bike leg. I would have to say, this was actually one of the more fun triathlon bike courses I have ever rode. There were a lot of very fast downhill sections, and most of the hills could be powered in the big chain ring, that along with the lake shore park-like setting made for a very enjoyable ride. The run was an out and back that also followed the lake road, but the dips that you could power down and up on the bike actually made for a very hilly and challenging run. The lake temperature was in the high 60’s low 70’s and very comfortable in a wetsuit. The entire park was closed to auto traffic, they even made the athletes park about 5 or 6 miles away and bussed us to the race venue.

We showed up in Portland about noon on Thursday, walked around downtown Portland for a few hours, checked into our hotel and drove out to the race venue to figure out how to get out there and to do a very short swim to get a feel for the water temperature. We ate dinner at good Italian restaurant that was walking distance from our hotel. The next morning we ate the hotel provided continental breakfast (a very good breakfast that I think USAT negotiated with the hotel for athletes) and drove out to the venue to check-in and check our bikes.

There are two kinds of folks in this sport, those that like to work out the day before a race and the sane ones. I go to races, big races, and see all kinds of fools biking, swimming, even running – and sometimes hard. I always wonder what they are looking for with that last minute workout, and if they ever find it. Clay likes to work out the day before a race. Since we were together, and I’m not really in a position to judge his performances, I decided to do an easy ride around the lake with Clay just to get the lay of the bike course. To foreshadow a bit, I have never had a good race after doing exercise the day before. I have now had three or four examples where circumstances led me to doing something the day before a big race, and each of those races have been bad races. We had an uneventful evening, eating at a PJ Changs that took forever to get into.

Race day dawned cool and overcast, with the first waves going off in temperatures of about 60 degrees. They did a good job of staggering the waves, sending most of the older waves off first and then pausing for 30 minutes before starting again with the younger waves. Each of the younger age groups (under 50) seemed to have between 70 and 120 competitors. The swim start was off a long dock that defined one side of a boat ramp allowing everyone to line up side by side.

I arrived with dreams (our dreams always exceed our goals, no?) of a top three placement in my age group, and thought if I had a great race I could do even better. I was hoping to go at least 2:05, or faster and thought my recent training indicated that the sea level course would let me rip it. I used the two weeks before the race as a planned easy phase such that I showed up well rested and ready to go.

I got out on the swim well, and noticed after about 3 or 4 hundred yards I was swimming side by side with a dude from my wave. I figured if we were going the same I might as well try to draft off of him. As is typically the case when I try to draft an open water swim, I spend more effort zigg-zagging around trying to stay on the toes and I would have been better off just swimming on my own. After about 10 minutes of this I gave up the drafting and just swam my own pace and own line. I actually passed the guy I was with exiting the water in about 21:30, at least thirty seconds slower than I was hoping for. Running up the boat ramp I heard someone say that I was the 5th white cap out of the water…made me feel pretty good at the time, but ultimately proved to be incorrect, I think I was 10th or so.

The transition is pretty strenuous, with a long run up a steep boat ramp and then through the actual transition area, which was well organized and had plenty of room, but was also pretty large. Got out on the bike okay, and settled in. I lost a little speed on a few of the first turns, not sure of how much speed I could carry, but not much. I got passed and passed a guy in my AG within the first two miles. Spent the first 5 or 6 miles finding my bike legs, and noticed that my rear shifting was drifting up the rear cluster. About half way around the first lap, I lost the ability to shift into the top half of my cluster and threw my chain twice. I lost some time trying figure out the shifting issue, and one of the times the chain came off I almost had to stop to get it back on the sprocket. After the race I discovered that my cable housing had frayed to the point of impinging the shift cable…a problem I knew was manifesting but did nothing about. Pretty stupid. Once I figured out the problem, I could at least deal with it. Despite all this I made pretty good pace on the bike actually passing one guy in my AG on the longest hill I was muscling up for all my worth (due to attenuated shifting in the easier half of my cluster). I finished the bike in the high 1:03’s and probably lost a minute or more with the mechanical, but was fairly happy with the bike.

I got through transition pretty well and saw I was sitting right at 1:28 a little slower than I wanted, but not by much and I figured if I ran a 37 I would hit my target of 2:05. At that time I thought I was sitting 4th or 5th, but was actually around 8th. The run was very hilly, and while I felt like my running had good depth, I really couldn’t spin it up, a problem I had been experiencing all year with the faster races….likely a by-product of the bigger volume and slower tempo work I have been doing this year. The hilly nature of the course wasn’t helping either, as I am not a very good hill runner. I passed two guys on the outbound and hit the turn in low 19 and then just bogged down the rest of the way. I got caught by two fellas in my AG about a ½ mile from the finish. I beat one of them but got out kicked the last 50 yds by the other. My run ended up low 39, pretty disappointing as I was certain I would go low 38’s or even 37 something. Physically I felt pretty good at the end, spunky even, but no speed.

I ended up 7th in my AG, going low 2:07, around 85th overall, top 15% of all the guys under 50 which is okay, I suppose. I beat some pretty good people, and was only 2 ½ minutes from placing top three in my AG. I was generally unhappy with my performance, and thought I left a couple of minutes out on the course. The one good takeaway for me was the fact that while I wasn't really that fast, I felt very strong throughout the entire race, and didn’t really feel that extended afterward….hoping that was a harbinger of my physical state for the 70.3 championships 6 weeks later.

New Mexico had a good showing with 7 or 8 athletes from our state showing up. Clay ended up the top NM finisher in 2:06, after getting a penalty somewhere out on the bike. Clay was pretty bummed about his race, only feeling good about his swim. Steve Hall from Albuquerque went low 2:07 beating me by a couple of overall slots. As it turned out Steve, Clay and I were all within 10 overall placements of each other. The other NM folks we talked to all seemed pretty happy with the day.

They gave us a hat, a coat, a couple of shirts, an organic energy bar and we got a pretty lame BBQ lunch after the race, plus we were forced to watch the Elite National Championships for a while, which would have been okay if they were also giving us cold beer. Since they were not, I had other matters on my mind and Clay and I figured out how to skedaddle out of there.

I think if you registered early it would have cost $90 bucks, an okay value. All-in-all the race was well organized and a great event. The neat thing about races like this are the tight finishes and great competition, seconds count and race day execution is pretty important. I would certainly encourage anyone to go, if only for the experience of top-flight racing.


70.3 Ironman

The 70.3 was in Clearwater FL, and I loved Clearwater. The northern end of the island is still pretty quaint, mostly dominated by older beach houses and not nearly as much upscale development as we found on the southern beaches. It was easy to walk around the town, there are just enough restaurants and stuff to keep you entertained, and regular grocery store shopping is pretty close. There were several state parks nearby and the beaches were nearly pristine. My family rented a beach house for a week and made a vacation out of it, inviting my father and his wife. The cost of a week rental is not cheap, but not expensive either and we had a house that was located at the end of a cul-de-sac that directly accessed the beach. The early November weather is almost perfect. High 70’s low 80’s, cool nights, and it isn’t crazy busy that time of year so the beaches were not at all that crowded. Also, while the water is getting cool, it is still warm enough to play around in, some. We found Clearwater Beach to be family oriented enough, but a couple could also have a lot of fun.

The primary venue was basically downtown Clearwater Beach in an park and pavilion area that was adjacent to the beach. There were a fair number of vendors, and the organization was outstanding. They had a lot of volunteers, each of whom was cheerful and seemed very excited about the race. I thought the organizers made each athlete feel special throughout the check in process. There are neat little touches, like personalized numbers that have your first name on them, so throughout race day people would cheer for you by name. The race packet consisted of a fairly generic shirt, but without much advertising, a fairly nice pair of Foster-Grant Ironman sunglasses, an event booklet and a little nylon backpack to put it all into. Finishers received a hat, a towel, and a very nice finishers medal. Post race they fed us pizza, rice and beans and other typical stuff. The post race awards ceremony included a buffet style dinner and a pretty glitzy awards show.

The swim was a narrow rectangle that headed straight out into the Gulf made a 100 yd turn and came straight back into the rising sun. It was warm enough that I could get by with only my Desoto Bib-John, which is a more comfortable wet suit configuration for me. The run was a two loop affair that ran the athletes across a causeway that connected the town of Clearwater with Clearwater Beach and through some neighborhoods in Clearwater. The route was bone flat with the exception of a steep, short causeway bridge we ran over 4 times, that probably gained 50-75 feet of elevation. I actually found it to be just enough of a change to keep my muscles fresh. The bike course is somewhat notorious for drafting and inflated times I would give the race organizers very high marks for carving a very safe bike ride that plows right through the middle of a very busy suburban screed. Bikers had one entire lane of traffic devoted to the race, and the police were very good at maintaining traffic control at the numerous intersections. The ride is almost completely flat and would make for very fast times under almost any conditions, however the situation of this particular race make for very, very fast rides. There is drafting, and lots of it. The draft packs form almost organically, and are hard to marshal because the race lane is filled with athletes, and the other lanes typically have snarled bumper-to-bumper traffic making it nearly impossible for the race officials to get around the course. I think they focus on the pro’s and everyone else is left up to themselves. This is a course that definitely rewards runners ahead of bikers/swimmers, but it still seemed that within the age groups the best people more or less rose to the top, so the frequently maligned format probably doesn’t matter all that much at the end of the day.

Joining me were Dan Rees and Amy Regan. Dan was in the middle of a monster race schedule that started with IM Lake Placid in July, IM Hawaii in October, the 70.3 race, and ended with IM AZ in late November. Through all that Dan qualified for Kona in Lake Placid, and set a half iron PR in Clearwater, and had his second fastest IM in AZ, going around 10:24, give or take a couple, a pretty impressive schedule that would have broken me into a million pieces.

We had to drop off our bikes the day prior, and this race also utilized transition bags, disallowing anything on the ground around your bike. The bags were mounted on long racks that were ordered by number. Between the bag racks and bike transition was a changing tent, one for men one for women. We were allowed to attach stuff to our bikes, as long as nothing was on the ground. I chose to mount my shoes, but put my helmet and sunglasses in my transition bag, figuring I could save a little time by putting my hat and glasses on as I ran to the bike. The bags were color coordinated so we had a blue bag for the bike transition and a red bag for the run transition. They were clear to provide that mnemonic at check in, and I am sure every athlete coming out the water was saying to themselves “blue is for bike” over and over. Race morning I got there early enough to pump my tires and make sure everything looked good figure find visual clues for my bags and bike.

The racing started at 6:45, with Dan and my wave going off at 7:55 or so. We were in the second to last wave, each wave had a 5 minute cushion. The last wave was all the men in their 20’s. I figured the AG winner was going to emerge from that wave since there are usually fast as shit ready to turn pro 22 yo dudes at races like this hoping to make a yearend statement to potential sponsors. My main early goal was to at least beat most of that first wave of 20 yo’s out of the water.

Amy was in one of earliest waves almost an hour before Dan and I. Dan and I had prearranged to meet at an impressive Ironman 70.3 “sandcastle” that they had constructed, 10 or so minutes before Amy’s wave, with the idea we would go up to their hotel room for a few minutes to relax before our wave.

We hooked up at the prearranged spot, watched Amy take off, and headed up to the room to perform the AM duty, and change into our wetsuits. We came back down to the beach about 30 minutes before our wave to swim a little and get ready for the race. The water was not too cold, and I decided on the bib john without the vest and swam around for about 10 minutes. We were basically warming up right next to start corral, so we could watch a couple of wave starts to get the best starting beta. They started the swim with a 10 or 15 meter beach run into the water, and the water got thigh deep pretty fast making it hard to run, but it stayed thigh deep for 30 or 40 yards. The folks that got out the fastest started with a dolphin dive, and just kept standing up and diving until it got too deep to do that anymore, so I decided that I would execute that maneuver at the swim start.

About 10 minutes before our start I got into the start corral with the other athletes and just tried to stay loose and not get too nervous. Dan decided to drift to the back of the wave, so we bid each other good luck and got ready. They gave us about 2 and a half minutes to get lined up and ready. I went down to the water, splashed some water on my face and upper torso and shouldered my way into the front line. When the gun went off I executed the dolphin technique and quickly separated myself from the guys around me, once I started swimming I had only minimal contact and was clean away with not many other red caps in front of me.

One of the best aspects of our altitude adaptations is the sea level swimming! I have learned that I can just drill the swim, and won’t really get very tired. Since I was so disappointed with my nationals swim I really focused on moving forward and executing proper technique. The swim was pretty straight forward, I didn’t hit too much early wave traffic, and the only real chaos was the return leg into the rising sun. I came out of the water in 27 minutes, 10th place in my AG. There was a pretty big spread of swim times, with the bulk of guys in my AG coming out of the water in around 30 minutes.

Transition could have been a little smoother, but it didn’t go too bad. They had wet suit strippers that yanked the wet suit off. After picking up my blue bike bag I grabbed my hat, glasses and race number and handed my swim stuff to a volunteer who put it all in the blue bag for me to pick up later.
I got out on the bike feeling good and started working. I was immediately passing folks, was passed by a guy in my AG, who I paced off for a few miles until I was passed by two guys from the wave that followed mine. As they passed us, I followed their tempo and paced off of them. They were keeping a stiff pace, but sustainable. Shortly after the first water hand-up at mile 16 or 17 we were swept up by a large fast moving group of young guys and men from my age group. There were likely 15-20 when I was passed, and the group acted like a vacuum cleaner just roaring by everything in its path and picking up new riders here and there. I tended to stay at the back of the pack trying to at least honor the spirit of the drafting rule, but even 20 feet back you get a heck of a draft when you have 30 or 40 people riding in front of you, and there were 5 or 6 other people trying to the same thing.

The ride continued in this fashion until the second water hand up at about mile 35. It was on the uphill side of a long causeway bridge, the most significant hill on the entire course. I don’t like to carry a lot of extra stuff with me and plan on getting fresh liquid every water hand up. I had difficulty making the hand up, and being in the back of the group got gapped by the group. I quickly caught back up and noticed that the group had actually been split in two, and I was in the second pack. Someone told me that the other guys had actually surged through the hand-up….smart move to break things up. I made a strong move up the cause way to catch and made a pretty decent dent up the hill, but realized I would have to bury myself to pull them all the way back on the flats so I eased up to see if anyone else in the second group would help. Nobody came through, so I figured what the heck, and I rode the rest of the way with the second group. As it turned out that first group put about 3 minutes into us, which would have been pivotal had I been aware enough to mark the surge.

The remainder of the bike was uneventful, and I ended up executing the bike ride in 2:13, around the 20th or 25th fastest ride in my AG. Looking at the results it appears most of the guys who finished in the top 25 of my age group came into T2 in one of three groups that were each about 3 minutes apart. The group I came in with was the middle of these groups and I exited T2 in 10th place. Interestingly, the winner in my AG was in the 3rd pack and used a fantastic run to take the win. looking at the results it looks like the officials did a good job of breaking up the 35 year olds and 40 year olds, each of whom were split into two waves. Not so much with the guys in their twenties, or my AG which got a huge boost from the younger AG behind us.

The ride at Clearwater is a bit cartoonish due to the large packs. The suburban nature of the course makes it tough for the race marshals to get around, the ride is pretty flat, and there are a lot of good athletes pumped onto the course in a fairly short period of time. I think it is kind of unavoidable. This race has a bad reputation for drafting, and I knew that coming into the event. I figured that the race would be won in the run and I focused my training to be able to come off the bike and run well. I had been doing a steady volume of tempo brick runs all late summer, where I would go down to the track, which is right behind my house, after long rides and basically pound out 5k-8k tempo runs. My goal was to run 4min/k which would give me a sub 1:25 run....a time that I thought would be competitive.

I hit transition-2, they had volunteers grab your bike for you so you could run straight to the red run bag, go to the change tent and put your shoes and hit the run. As I exited T2 my time was 2:45, I was well within my goal. Kind of amazing, but I had no feeling of the bike in my legs to start the run, nothing. I felt really good and settled into a pace that felt easy and sustainable. I like to be feeling like the run is easy-going early on, because the last 30-40 minutes of the 1/2 iron run can get pretty gruesome.

I was moving well and mostly passing folks, stopped at every water station and gurgled a throat full of water, pouring cold water on my head to try to stay cool. I was passed by a few young blazers and one guy in my age group at about mile 2 or 3. That guy ended up winning my age group by running a 1:19 or so.

I turned the first loop in around 42 minutes, and I was under 3:30 total time. I was beginning to believe that I was going to have a pretty special day. I thought the 4:15 goal was pretty solid, and maybe I could break 4:10. On the outbound leg of the second loop I started to feel a little crappy. Somewhere between mile 9 and 10 I really started concentrating on bearing down and maintaining my pace. right past mile 11 I passed a guy (Peter Kain) in my age group that I know is very good, and I figured that I must be in pretty good posistion in my age group. I put the hammer down as hard as I could go the last two miles and finished in 4:10:22, and as it turned out I was 3rd in my AG, 2 min behind second and 3.5 minutes behind 1st. I was very happy with my race.

Dan ended up going 4:41, setting a PR in the middle of a very impressive run of three ironman races (including Hawaii and two sub 10:30 performances) and this half ironman race. Amy had a great race, finishing fourth and breaking 5:00 for the first time (I think) She ended up at 4:51. They give awards to the top five, so both Amy and I got to go on this pretty big stage to collect a fairly cheesy Lucite M-dot shaped award. After the award ceremony, we drank beer and everyone except Dan said whew, glad this season is over.

That's it. My primary competitive goal for 2009 is to win my age group at Buffalo Springs again, and go to Hawaii. If I go to Kona I will try to break 10 hours and place in the top 10 in my age group. My secondary goal, if I don't qualify for Kona at BSLT is to go to the World Duathlon Championships in North Carolina and place in the top 3 in my AG.