Troika Half IM, Recent Odyssey Results

Troika

Troika is Russian for "three things" or a "collection of three"...hence the name for a triathon.

Overall, 8th
Masters Win #6 this season
4:28 Overall time, respectable but dissapointing.

The good: Wow...82 degrees or so on the run, typically in the 90's so we got lucky there.
The bad: Crashed my bike on a corner about mile 8, hurt my left quad which is costing me now.
The ugly: Fell getting on my bike at mounting T1, bike falling on top of me as I fell on my back...then once on the bike, my gears were in the 54/15 or so, could barely turn over the crank so as I was jerking the gears into my rear 23, athlete having to go around me because I realize i am riding down the left side of the road out of mount area, distracted because of my gears. Ran off course on the run about 60-90 seconds and climbed a 40 ft dirt hill to get back onto the course..yeah, a bit annoying to feel like a "rookie" out there.

The Swim: 31:45
Expected to be a couple of minutes slow, as was warned by a previous winner there on race day.
Beautiful alpine lined lake though. Beach start so you run into the water. No complaints at all.

T1: Slow by 30 sec or so for obvious reasons

The Bike: 2:24.11, 287 Watts, rpm 78, 23.6 mph, 2200 ft ascent.

One of my slower rides, despite losing maybe a minute with the crash. Only real issue is I couldnt shift into my 54 right away so I had to reach down while cycling and pull the chain up onto my 54 ring manually. Not a big deal. The course is rolling almost the entire distance, with a 6 mile or so false flat heading out and back from the swim. The course is pretty fast though, as the net elevation loss is around 300 ft. Dont be fooled by the manipulation of the race sites graph showing a huge downhill toward the end of the bike. This course has plenty of downhill but the vast majority is preceded by uphill, some climbs significant, going under 10 mph. The sections of good 10% down grades in the final 6 miles or so contained pot holed roads and sewer grates, etc, so out of aero bars almost the entire time and swerving the bike all over the lane to avoid hitting rough pavement. However, dont be deterred by this..just go in knowing the bike course is normal or a bit quicker than most. The huge difference in this bike course to me is its spectacular Northwest scenery. I was glancing around admiring the landscape, the rivers, cliffs...just a beautiful ride.

T2: 38 seconds!
There were 4 pro males there and I was happy my T2 was in with them, as they were anywhere from 36-39 seconds. This is the fastest T2 I have ever seen. They catch your bike for you at the line. I left my shoes on the bike. They hand you an open bag and you throw you helmet into it and they take the bike and bag away from you as someone hands you your T2 bag. You sit on a chair thats right there, rip open your bag, put on running shoes and visor, grap your nutrition and run out of T2 which is 10 feet from where you are sitting. I dropped a nutrition bottle after I crossed T2 timing mat so went back to pick it up but no big deal.

Run: 1:29.41, HR ave 146 (high zone 4), max 165 (high zone 5)

No happy at all. The first 3.5 miles has deceivingly difficult uphill, as you take off T2 on the river, and pop out at 3.5 miles about 150 ft above the river. Hence my first mile at 7:45 and 15:15 at mile 2. At 3 miles, not very happy with 22:30. Hit my split on my watch here so I could "race" the next 9 miles, figuring I'd be an hour or so. Mile 4, 6:35...mile 5, 6:55, still going up a false flat and HR now at my max allowable, final beat in zone 4 and breathing heavily. At 5.5 miles the trail continues as gravel at a parking lot, and heads down to the river . I specifically remember looking on the pavement for arrows, or a sign to turn, of which there were none so I figured to run straight onto the gravel. I was thinking, why would they take the race onto gravel...I dont remember reading about that. Then 30 seconds into it, I saw the dead end coming as I approached the river. I looked up and left, and saw Matt Sealy (OA male pro leader) running up through the trees as I yelled "what the fu#$!!
So, I cut up a dirt bike trail right up the side of the ridge. As I popped up onto the trail, the second place male pro comes running by, looked over at me and said, "good job Dave" or "go dave" or something like that. I had met him last year at Grand Columbian ITU when he was trying to catch me as I was finishing the final 2 miles of the half IM and he was finishing the final 2 of his 25k for his ITU race (same course). I thought he was third place male (I was in second) so I kept surging on him. We laughed about it later after the race.
So, the run continued as a false flat to mile 7, then turnaround to run back. Legs were nearly trashed here and quad had sharp pain so I couldnt take advantage of the route back to the finish, which of course was only 6 miles back so less of a downhill compared to the uphill going out. Another reason the run times are a bit slow here.

I had managed overall 5th and was hanging on. I noticed the second place male master about 4-5 minutes behind me as he approached on my way back and I realized he'd have to run 5:40's to catch me if I ran 6:40's on the way back, which was not going to happen. 2 younger guys from Seattle then caught me by mile 8 running around 6:30 pace. I ran right to the side and back of the leading runner and ran 2 miles with them before I realized I was going to win the masters, and was quite happy I was going to be around 2:27-2:28 If I just relaxed in the final 5k. So, I ran in around 7 min pace to try to slightly baby the leg and held my position at 7th overall.

So that's it. Not overly happy with race. Watts typically over 300 which would have put my bike split closer to 2:20 and likely 4th overall. But it is what it is. I held 305 watts for several portions of the race but just didnt feel "right" in sustaining with my legs feeling a bit thrashed. The run...I let up mentally that final 5k but you dont always have that drive you want or need at times and that's ok. I was pretty happy with my time considering the day I had.

Ann? Well, a female pro showed up to this non-prize money predominatly age grouper race. Ann out swam and run her, and in fact Ann had the fastest run of the women by 4 minutes and 15th overall fastest run with her stunning 1:31.17
Anyone who ever runs this course will know just how fast that is. This is the second fastest time besides my 1:29 of any ironhead male or female as far as the race results go back, 2004. Anns 2nd overall time of 4:46...what?! 4:46... is the second fastest female time on this course other than yesterdays pro woman time of 4:36 since 2004, as far as the results go back.

She had an awesome day as the top age grouper, and there were 3 other top age group females out there yesterday. Ann was around 8th female off the bike and just hunted down each and every one of the other age groupers, which is amazing to me...to make up that much of a deficit on the run. Yeah the pro is 27 yrs old, but man if Ann was doing this when she was 27...uhhh, 32 years old she would quite easily have raced pro. God only knows what she would have run 10 years ago had she gotten into athletics earlier. Regardless, we are fortunate to just be lucky and healthy enough to race, as so many people never exerience a triathlon.

So, we have Emmetts Olympic race Saturday in Idaho. I will make the call as to race or not on thursday if my leg isnt feeling better. I'll watch and cheer Ann on though. I expect a few pros at this one as it has a little prize money. A race with prize money should attract pros....If I was fast enough to be pro, I would race only races with prize money. It's their livelyhood for the most part. Its a bit wierd to me however, that pros show up to a non usat triathlon, no prize money, small field, to race against 99 % age groupers. Dont get me wrong, Matt Sealy has IM Canada in 3 weeks and this guy needs to race a half IM event in his final preparation for Canada. So, yeah, he needed to run troika to get a good idea of where he's at. But I dont know about the others...I guess its a self esteem thing. I trained with pros in Florida for 3 years when I was a very fast runner, winning many local 5-15k races, and a few marathons. But, these pros (4 of them) would rarely jump in a race without prize money, and mostly age groupers. Why, they specifically would tell me that they leave those races for the age groupers, and they have plenty of pro races to compete in , which makes their sponsors happier. So, maybe runners are different. Even in a small sprint triathon here in Portland Saturday, an all womens local race...a pro showed up...and beat out a 17 year old female for the overall win. Why? Isnt there a race with actual pros to compete with anywhere? I guess not.

How'd this turn into a rant...

Some odyssey coaching results this weekend:
Bonnie Jensen posted her PR yesterday at Troika with a 5:02, a 15 minute drop from her prior PR at Boise 70.3 back in June. She took 7th AG at Boise, and 2nd yesterday F30 by about 2 minutes. A solid time going into her final prep for IMUK.

LeAnne Schrotzberger, 6:06, 9th F40, solid time in her comeback from a severe trauma less than 2 seasons ago. LeAnne is in her final prep for IM Canada and will expect a PR depending on conditions, and I know will be happy to be out there competing with her improving bike and run fitness, especially coming off a very big week just a week before Troika. Once rested, she'll bounce back strong.

Dave Lowe, winner of M60 with a 5:27, his second fastest HIM other than Clearwater 70.3 last year. Dave is finishing up his build to ITU long course world championships and will be competing on team USA with Ann and I at the end of the month in Amsterdam. Then, he will race IM Hawaii World Championships in October, his first Kona appearance.

Jorge Villavicencio. 12th M40 with a 5:06. This was a "C" race for jorge as he trains for IM Florida in November, and ran yesterday on an injured foot of which he'll recover after some PT.

Todd Beia, 14th M35 with a huge PR of 5:10. Todd is still building for IMAZ in November and is getting stronger each week.

Lets not forget Thomas Wood and Stacy Stern (4:56 and 4:59) at Vineman couple weeks ago, big PR's for both in their final prep for Ironman Canada!! Stacy secured 2nd in W35 out ot 129 and Tom 37th M40 out of 239.

Steelhead 70.3 this past Saturday included Ty Patton, 4:43, 76th M40 of 238 and Eric Stimach, 4:20, 21st M40 of 238. For both athletes, this was their first HIM event.

Jason Lester, who's official ITU WADA World Championship Olympic Distance placing of 2nd in M30 is a correction from the original unofficial result of 4th. Strong work Jason. Without the leg cramping up, a definate world championship honor. Second is a great placing though, I've been there many times, but I would only dream of it happening at a world championship.

-Ciaverella