Mainiac 2011: My attempt at defending a title

Mainiac Sprint Triathlon
September 17, 2011

Results:
Swim - 6:39 (1st)
T1 - :42 (1st)
Bike - 38:17, 23.3mph (2nd)
T2 - :38 (3rd)
Run - 19:07, 6:10/mi (5th)
Finish - 1:05:20
Place - 2nd Overall

Today, for the first time in my triathlon career, I had the chance to defend a title. Coming off a highly successful weekend at Pumpkinman last weekend, I thought I had a decent chance to secure a win if I executed well enough. As is always the case, though, these things depend on who shows up on race day. Either way, I figured I'd at least be able to put up a good fight and likely be in the mix for another win.

Fast forward through a bunch of boring pre-race morning stuff that nobody really cares about...

If I'm remembering correctly, I've always had the second fastest swim at Mainiac. Imagine my surprise, then, when this morning I was about three-quarters of the way to the first turn buoy and in a pack of about 8. It's fairly common for people to go out hard and for things to remain bunched up until after the first turn, but I was still surprised to find myself in that position. I've been swimming really well all summer long and there was no reason for me to be in such a large group. So I dropped everyone. I'm not sure how much of it was me just putting in a hard 100 yards to gain separation around the turn and how much was other people just fading out of the picture, but either way it worked. By the halfway point I was by myself. Nobody within 50 yards (just one) and another 75 back to any sort of pack. Things stayed that way as I continued to press on hoping to put as much distance between myself and anybody that planned to challenge for the win as possible. As I neared the beach I noticed the Capstone photographer at the edge of the water so I gave him a few good dolphin dives to shoot. Well, I did them because it was the fastest way to exit the swim, but the thought did enter my head that it was going to make for a pretty sweet picture. I was later told that from afar the spectators just thought I was tripping and falling. I'm not sure whether I should make fun of them for not knowing what a good dolphin dive looks like, or seriously reconsider exactly how graceful I really am. I guess we'll just have to wait until the pictures to be published...

Just one person had entered transition as I was exiting. Things were going as planned. At this point it I knew it was unlikely that I would be caught and passed on the bike. Caught, maybe, but I doubted I'd get off the bike down to anyone. At worst I'd head out on the run locked in battle for the top step on the podium. Turns out I was (sort of) correct. I was never caught and had the pleasure of being ushered around the bike course by the motorcycle driver (thank you!), but someone was fairly close behind. The gap between us, though, never really changed. He obviously made up some ground in the first half of the bike to pull within 100 yards or so, but then the gap held the rest of the way. My run confidence has grown infinitely this year, but I still kept hoping that I wasn't being stalked by someone with legitimate 5k speed. I knew I had somewhere between 18:30 and 19:00 in my legs, but whether that would be enough to hold him off was unclear. To be honest, I was kind of hoping for an epic side-by-side battle that came down to a sprint finish. Now that would have been the right way to finish the year (assuming I had the kick to win, of course!). I also would have settled for just steadily pulling away and running my way to victory. Really, anything that resulted in a win seemed like a good scenario at the time.

I was in and out of the second transition quickly. I've started to take a little pride in the fact that my transitions are always the fastest or very near the fastest in every race. Last week I took the T2 title at Pumpkinman (Kat, we need to talk about that by the way - I noticed awards for fastest hill climb, swim, bike, and run, but no transition award!!). Today I added a T1 win to my stash of transition wins, but was only 3rd in T2 despite clocking a :38. Disappointing as the sweep would have been nice, but under 40 seconds was decent given the layout of transition.

I made it approximately a quarter of a mile before I was caught on the run. No problem, I'd already thought this situation through in the latter stages of the bike. I figured I'd go with the classic 'jump on the shoulder and wait until the final hill of the course to launch an attack and sail to victory in the final half mile' approach. So what if it was Rob Ricard going by me. What I didn't factor into this otherwise flawless plan was that I cannot run a 5k in under 16:50 off the bike and Rob can. Oops. I needed a new plan on the fly. Plan B went as follows: Stay close, I'm sure he'll get tired - surely he can't keep this pace up all day. Another gaping hole in my plan - yes, he can and will keep this up all day. So I went with Plan C out of necessity. Really it wasn't much different as the others as all it entailed was running as hard as possible for as long as possible and hoping for the best at the finish line. I actually ran pretty well and went about 1:50 or so  faster on the run alone than I did at this race in either 2009 or 2010. I ran a 19:07, which isn't blazing fast, but isn't slow either. I'd still like to get to the point where I'm running under 18 off the bike on a consistent basis, but to drop around 2 minutes off my run split just a week after dropping 1 minute off my fastest Pumpkinman run is decent progress as far as I'm concerned. Obviously something Stephen and I are doing is working and I'm encouraged about what should be in store for 2012.

At the end of the day I finished in second. It was a good result, despite the fact that I didn't come away with a win. Rob was the faster guy today - just as he was when we faced off at Pirate earlier this year. (I should add that and is incredibly nice, too - which makes two consecutive weekends of hanging around in the finishing chute with really good guys.) I raced as well as I could and that's all I can ever ask of myself. As I told Stephen after the race, there wasn't anything else I could have done today - I executed well, felt pretty good, and finished in decent time. So second's not all that bad - and I did get a third Mainiac plaid winter hat with faux fur and various straps and buckles to go with my others (2nd - 2009 and 1st - 2010). Too bad Eileen doesn't allow them inside our apartment...

Aside from the actual race, today was great because I saw so many people I know or who introduced themselves to me. It was (as it always is) fantastic to see Kevin O'Shaughnessy out racing! And even better was that we had a chance to chat for a bit both pre and post-race. I also saw countless people from the Y where I swim, UNE where I coach the KHS kids (and used to swim pre-Y), school, and so on. I heard my name shouted throughout the race more times today than ever before. And I only brought along 3 spectators of my own, so it seems that others took up my cause at some point today! It really was a fun atmosphere and a great way to end the season. And, of course, served as a reminder of why smaller local races are such a good time.

While triathlon season has ended for 2011, I still plan to do a little road racing. Nothing too serious, but I figure I'll do a little more racing while I'm still in decent shape. In the next week or so I plan to sit down and sort out exactly how I feel about this year and where I'm headed for next season. Once I've had a chance to think it over and discuss it with the people it needs to be discussed with, I'll write something and toss it up here for anyone who'd like to read a little 2011 season in review/(very early) 2012 season preview.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read!