Patriot Triathlon 2010

This was my first time doing a race down at the Rio Rancho Aquatic Center, they do a few races there throughout the year, the Spring Fling in April and the Jingle Bell in December there too. My race prep had not been the greatest, I’d only been back from a week in England for my brothers wedding about 2 weeks and had just about recovered from the over indulgence and excesses that brought with it. I decided to train right up to the Friday for this one and didn’t do a taper, I figured that I’d rather train a little harder with a focus on Elephant Man which is 2 weeks after this one. I even had a couple of beers the night before, something I never do before a race – some residual Englishness from the trip coming out I think! The venue is close enough to Los Alamos to do the 1h30m drive down that morning so we set off pretty early after grabbing a light breakfast and arrived there just after dawn. The parking was a little tricky with a full parking lot and no guidance on where else to park! Thankfully we still had some shreds of common sense and drove further down the road and asked someone at the race venue entrance who directed us to another lot 100m down the road which was about half full with plenty of space remaining.

After that it was a short walk to do the pick-up and get the chip, all of which was really well organized and ran pretty smoothly. Then it was racking the bike and having a look at the race. The racks seemed a little cramped and pretty tightly packed together, when I got my bike out for a quick warm up, I was knocking back wheels with the row behind me! The indoor pool swim was interesting, it’s a 25yd pool so its 16 lengths Splash’n’Dash style and the swim start is seeded time trial start. Thankfully you had the chance that morning to adjust your swim start position so I jumped up 30 or so spots as I’d given them my 50m pool time rather than 25yd time. This did lead to a bit of confusion and there was a little jostling for position in the line before the start as I wasn’t the only one trying to do this – the numbers were almost meaningless! The swim went pretty well for me, the lanes seemed a little narrow but thankfully I’d positioned myself well and didn’t have to pass or be passed during the swim.

T1 wasn’t the greatest, for some reason I spotted my bike and turned into the wrong side of the rack so I had to u-turn out of to get to my bike so I lost a little time there and then a photographer was capturing this magical moment at the end of the rack so I had him to navigate too! Anyway, I was soon ready and off onto the 15 mile bike which starts with a climb up and out towards the Santa Ana Star Center and through some mini-roundabouts which caused a little havoc when the traffic was slow moving. I confess that I did pass a car on the inside - hopefully I won’t get a barrage of emails for unsafe bicycle riding but I was in a race dammit! There were police or volunteers at most of these so it made things a little easier and finally it was onto quieter roads with much less directional assistance in a more industrial area. There were some spots where I had to search out cyclists ahead of me to see which way to turn. The gentle climb turned into a few rollers and a few more ascents upto about mile 8 or 9, then it flattened out into a residential area and it was downhill for a long stretch. The last mile was a pretty good climb up to the transition area and I had a horrible suspicion I’d be seeing this hill again on the run.

T2 went smooth and uneventful and I was onto the run. This started on the same stretch of road the bike did so it was a good sized climb before a left turn and more of a climb. Eventually the course diverted onto a dirt trail with a little more climbing and lots of sandy spots which led to pretty soft footing and seemed a little hard on the legs. Then there was finally a downhill section which I managed to get a bit of speed going for about ¾ mile or so. Then it was another left onto the same hill the bike finished on which I wasn’t looking forward to, I also seemed to get a bit of a headwind all the way to the finish so needless to say I didn’t really enjoy the run too much. It seemed like an Escher staircase where the downhill and the uphill didn’t really seem to add up.

Anyway, I got over the finish line in a reasonable time and was pretty beat by the whole race. It seemed pretty challenging for a sprint with a good number of climbs both on the bike and the run (the pool thankfully remained flat) and I kind of wish I’d tapered a little bit for it so I could crank a little more on the run, although I was really happy with my bike split. Afterwards there was a good amount of refreshments but the downside to starting near the front of the swim and it being a time-trial start was that there is a huge gap waiting for the results and the awards. Oh and it’s about exposed as it gets, not much shade and it was a pretty hot morning so we nipped off the Lowes and got a few things while waiting around but still didn’t escape the race site until about 1.30ish. Another thing - a few Triatomics got led the wrong direction on the bike, I don’t know the full details but I think it was a race official on the back of a motorbike who led them off. The official line is that it’s down to the athletes to know the course but to be honest with you, if I had a race official in front of me I would expect them to know where they were going and it would have been very difficult not to follow them. Anyway, a bunch of Triatomics were there and we seemed to do pretty well as a club bringing home some silverware and plenty of the new uniforms were on show too!