Quassy 70.3 Race Report
Let me start by saying this one was a GREAT RACE! Not for me in general but just tough, fun and very well put together. Being just 4 weeks off the St Croix 70.3 I felt really good but time will tell how long that would last. Never raced 70.3s so close together.
The half wasn’t until Sunday but we had to check our bikes in Saturday plus the Olympic was on Saturday. Also I work in CT so with all these factors I decided to just drive down after work on Friday. Then I could just chill out until the race and maybe catch the Olympic Saturday if I felt like getting up.
I booked a room at the Heritage Hotel. Great place with two restaurants and good food. The room was nice too but there was no doorway to Hell like the one in Maxwell’s room in VT that same weekend…bummer!!! I decided to eat at the Hotel for dinner and also for breakfast and lunch the next day. I met Matt and Elena Musiak, Lida and Joe G for dinner Saturday night. It was cool having Joe come down to watch the race and we had a blast watching the Waiter deliver drinks Saturday night…right Joe? But anyway let me get to race morning.
Transition
It was nice not having to worry about getting the bike down there race morning but I was wishing I put the tats on the night before like Joe suggested. But I was pretty tired and didn’t feel like it. I should listen to him more often because putting them on when you get up…having never done it before…SAH SAH SUCKS!!! But I got them on even though my age was on the wrong calf…BUT it was straight Lida 🙂 I get everything together and head to the race. Bring all my stuff down to transition and bring my bags back to the car. I decided to relax until 20 minutes before they close down transition to put on my wetsuit. When the time comes to put it on I can’t find it. DUMMY!!!! I brought it back to my car with my other bags. IDIOT!!!! I do an easy jog to my car…grab it…easy jog back. My warmup is done hahaha. Put on my wetsuit and head down to the water.
It was great to see so many familiar faces. Saw Lida, Matt and Elena before the race as well as Amy, Adam and Bobby. Paul Mik was there to watch and I ran into Bill Terry on my way to the water. Always great to see him. Talking to him is great. He’s so funny and just talking to him about everyday BS is a great way to relax before a race. I’m so hoping he get’s well enough to race soon. I want him back out there kicking my ass! Brant Fahle was there racing for a team doing the run. I was jealous.
The Swim
As I was getting ready for the swim I saw Joe G looking around. I got his attention and shot the shit with him for a bit. He was planning on running with me during the race so that was cool. Was looking forward to that. Always good to have company. We part ways and I find Adam. I told him I was going to try and draft him for a bit. And when I say a bit it’s probably like two strokes.
Our wave is the third one out. The only Naut ahead of us is Matt. Since I was starting ahead off everyone else one of my goals was to try to hold them off as best I could until the end of the race…at least until the run. And I was really hoping Amy wouldn’t catch me in the water. I had a 20 minute head start on her but she’s so fast!!!
So the swim starts and I actually feel pretty good. I’m staying with the main group and am pretty psyched. Oh and when I say the main group I mean the big group of my wave that is not with the fast swimmers and not the slower ones but the big main group. I am never able to stay with these guys but I worked on a couple things that Wayne Ball and Russ Lepage told me to do and it seemed to be working. When we got to the first turn buoy I felt like wow that was fast. I know all turn buoy’s are different distances but hey…you know who this is 🙂 We make the turn and BAM!!!! Directly into the sun at a low horizon. WOW!!! I couldn’t see anything but that sun. I could only see splashes so I followed those. And of course I followed the wrong splash. Me and two other guys veered off course to the right…it was a clockwise swim. After a few minutes I give an extra sighting and see the main group ahead to my left. No way was I going to be able to catch them. DAMMIT!!!! Well I spotted the buoy and headed towards it…got there and made the turn home. I still felt pretty good but that stretch took too long but hey I was still happy about the first stretch.
I near the end of the swim and not too many people passed me…at least not as many as usual and definitely not as many as in St Croix. Near the end though this one woman swam over me and drove me down at least two feet. I thought it was Amy Parent screwing with me and that was her way of saying gotcha again. I own you! It turned out not to be her but if it was I thought it would’ve been funny. I would’ve gotten a laugh out of that. When I got out of the water I was still hoping to see a possible 39 on my watch. I really want to break 40.. Nope! 44 minutes. DAMMIT!!!! Oh well…time to roll!!!
The Bike
I make my way to the bike and pass Joe G and Bill Terry. On my way running thru the lot my heel caught a pointy pebble rock and I did the knee bend double helix squat dump as it dug into my heel. I think I carried it another couple steps. That was nice. Get to my area and it was nice to see quite a few bikes there still. A second 40-44 wave started 5 minutes after mine but I was there with a few from my wave so :-P!!! I get my gear on and head off on the bike.
The beginning of the bike was cold. At least I thought it was. I froze the first 10 miles. I had arm warmers on under my wetsuit and was thinking maybe this is why I’m a bit colder with them being wet and all.
Hills Hills Hills!!!! I’m glad I like hills because there were a lot. I started out conservative. Not slow but not going past my threshold. The first 20 minutes were going well. I felt good, legs felt good, heart rate felt good. Around mile 25 I hit this long hill. I was trying to take it conservative but the line of bikers were going slower than I wanted to. It was almost a leisure pace so I dropped a couple gears and decided to power up. The bike official was really monitoring the bikers and I saw him take a few names…I thought I did anyway. He slowed down behind a lot of bikers. So to play it safe I powered up the hill so I could pass the bikers and leave little doubt about the 8mph draft. Up ahead I noticed the infamous yellow aero helmet. Hello Adam. When I caught up to him I asked him about his swim. Before the race he was hoping for a 37 minute swim. He got 35. NICE!!! I told him I got 44. He gave me the OOF and I gave him the YUP lol and I continued up the hill. After the climb I made a decision to go harder on the bike…past my threshold and just go. I want to see what I’ve got and GO GO GO!!!! I reached the downhill and geared up and powered down and didn’t stop until the end of the bike. I knew there were a lot of hills still coming but I didn’t care. I wanted to push more than I have yet in a race.
Aid stations: Quick blurb here. I kept a bottle holder empty for aid station water. When I passed the first one I grabbed a water bottle and just caged it so I would have it when needed. If I went though it I’d grab another. Didn’t go through it and only used one of my water bottles never touching the other one and had two bloks during the entire bike. I’m not saying this was good fueling. I was just fueling by how I felt…which is also wrong but I had to include this part. I probably drank half of the water bottle I grabbed during the rest of the bike.
When I hit mile 30 I thought OK…just an MP ride left. More hills, legs still felt good. Made a turn and saw bikers coming towards me. Sweet!!! An out and back. I can see how I’m doing on the way back and see how close my teammates are. I’m pretty sure I saw Matt heading back at the start of my out. So now I’m like hmmmm…this must be a pretty far out. So anyway the out was pretty much all downhill and the back uphill. A lot of the bikers coming back were out of there seats and moving slow up the hill. It probably just seemed like that since I was peppering downhill. I just kept booking it and figured I’ll worry about my legs when I get there. I get to the end and make the turn back. On the way back the first person I saw was Elena. I told her this once and I’ll tell her again. It’s an awesome sight seeing her race. She looks like a pro. She was really moving and she had this intense focus. I only saw her for a split second but she looked AWESOME!!!! Way to go Elena!!!! Then I was trying to remember how long ago I made the turn. SHIT!!!! She’s going to catch me!!! I powered up the hills on the way back and saw Tom, Adam, Bob and Amy. I got to the turn and still felt great. My lower back was a little tight and I stretched it out a couple times and felt much better.
There were a few cool S-turns thru traffic that were pretty cool and a couple downhills with caution signs. Those were the only ones I took to the brakes. The other hills I took as hard as I could but had to put one hand on the bar out of aero for stability. The wind was knocking me around a bit.
So I get to the bike end and was successful holding off my teammates. That was a first but of course the lead helped. I love having a lead.
The Run
I get off my bike and hear Paul Mik yell some words of encouragement. He was in his gear and on his bike of course. Go Paul!!! T2 was pretty smooth. Got out just under 2 minutes and started running. Wouldn’t you know it that right from the start I had the gurglies. As uncomfortable as it was I wanted push on the run as I did after mile 25 on the bike. After about one mile I did have to pull off the road to pee. The woods were pretty thick and I couldn’t find a good place to go in without the risk of poison ivy so I just ran to the edge Joe G style. My foot twisted as I hit uneven pavement and a couple people behind me got worried but I was good. It looked bad but I didn’t feel a thing thankfully. I’m about done taking care of business and I hear someone behind me yell ‘Is that Bill Lodi I see up there?’. Here comes Elena. I knew she’d catch me on the run and I knew Amy would not be far behind. I ran with Elena for the next mile. I talked to her a bit but didn’t want to talk too much because I didn’t want to mess up her race. We were coming up to a porta potty and I said if that’s empty when we go by I’m going in. Perfect timing too because about 30 yards before we got there someone came out. I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I knew I’d feel better if I did. What I didn’t know was how long I would be stopping so I didn’t risk it and kept going. When we made the turn and the race started going up hill I decided not to try to keep pace with Elena any longer and she was gone. She ran a 1:36. My best half without the other attachments is a 1:44, My best in a tri is 2:01. I felt I could finally get under 2hrs today but we’d have to wait and see.
I finally saw Joe G around mile 3-3.5 I think. He asked me why I was running so fast that he had to do sub 7’s to catch me. I said I wanted to push myself and it wouldn’t last long. My first 5.5 miles wre an 8:19 pace. Without the pee stop it may have been around an 8:10 pace so that was cool. After that though my legs were hurting. The next 5.3 were a 9:45 with the last brutal 2.3 miles being a 10:43. There were a couple out and backs where we were able to see Elena, Amy, Tom and Bob. When we made the turn at the last out and back Joe was impressed by how tight I made that turn around the cone. It was pretty skillful.
At the aid stations I was alternating between water and gatorade then water and coke. I also had a powerbar that I would nibble on. I had half at the aid station we grabbed it at and the other half at the next one.
With 4 miles left I had to do some run walk runs. At one point Joe yelled at me. It’s downhill in the shade mon!!! Didn’t matter. At this point my legs felt like everything was uphill and my stomach felt like everything was in the sun. My walks were short…as short as I could make them until I felt like I could run a bit. With two miles to go I told Joe feel free to finish. There’s a brutal hill coming and I’ll be run walking it. Joe took off and I finished that last mile as best I could. I knew my run was going to be bad and I didn’t want to know how bad until I finished so I didn’t dare look at my watch. I was figuring a 2:10-2:15 run time and a finishing time sometime over 6 hours. I would’ve loved a sub 6 here. I really wanted around a 5:40 but knew for me that would require a very solid run at my level. I ended up crossing at 5:52. My run time was 2:02. WOW!!! I was excited because even with all the walking I matched my Pumpkinman runtime and Pumpkinman is a flatter course. Also even though Amy beat me overall I was able to keep her behind me. She did great!!!
It was nice to finish a race and be there to see other teammates finish. I usually don’t get to see that so I stayed until everyone came through. I saw Martin Henry at the finish. It was cool that a lot of Nauts came to watch.
We got a nice visor with the finishing medal. I almost bought the visor at the expo…glad I didn’t.
At the award ceremony Elena cleaned up. Good for her!!! Also at the beginning of the ceremony they called a group of people to come up on stage. Turned out these were the people that did both races. The Rev3 Quassy challenge. The Olympic Saturday and the 70.3 Sunday. You know where I’m going with this. I was thinking as I saw them up there wouldn’t it be cool if 20-30 Nauts were on that stage next year. That would be an AWESOME photo op!!! and would also make for an amazing weekend!!! Who’s in?
Swim 44m T1 4:14 Bike 3:00 T2 1:59 Run 2:02 Total 5:52 top 35% First time I broke out of the top 40% in a 70.3
Next race Hits 70.3 at Lake George, NY in 3 weeks to finish my early season trifecta.