1st starting wave.

The Manitowoc — Two Rivers YMCA Triathlon was this past weekend, August 25th. I signed up just a couple weeks ago once I knew it would fit my schedule and convinced myself it wasn’t too close to my planned Devil’s Lake triathlon in September. A friend had convinced me to do the Manitowoc race because it’s a flat course and I had a chance at doing well. In turn, I convinced another friend to do it as well. Turned out to be a really nice day, and we were all glad we raced. Race results page is here.

Unfortunately I don’t have many race photos to post, so I’ll just go right into describing the important details, starting with the week leading up. I had a fairly intense week of training including (most notably) a breakthrough running workout at Lapham Peak, a great track workout on Wednesday, and a good speed session on the bike Thursday. I got my swim workouts in as well, but I haven’t been overdoing it in that department. I rested on Friday to at least be somewhat fresh for Saturday morning. I had to wake up at 3 am Saturday to drive up to Manitowoc. I made myself a double espresso in a travel mug, and topped it off with fresh hot coffee. Standard morning beverage for myself… Picked up Nate on my way so at least I could get 1.5 hrs of advice on the drive up. I wish I had taken a photo of the sunrise over Lake Michigan, because it was a beautiful sight during my pre-race warmup run.

I had pre-registered for the race so simply picked up my race packet, got my body markings, and picked up my chip when I arrived on scene. I got a quick rundown of the course logistics from my friend Nate, and set up my transition. Unassigned transitions are nice if you’re early, which we were. After the warmup run I put the finishing touches on my transition area and squeezed into my wetsuit. As a warmup swim, I swam the whole course–1 lap counterclockwise. Water was nice, and I felt good.

The starting waves were set by age group, with 1-29 year old males starting the race off. So I was in the first wave. The course went out somewhat shallow along the shore, which meant we all expended great amounts of energy running through the water to the point where we could swim. I swam hard and actually passed a whole bunch of swimmers (ie, I looked to my left at one point and saw that I was passing 1 person–whole bunch of swimmers). I did keep to the outside to avoid as much contact as I could. Unfortunately I had no swimmers to draft from, which I thought was strange until I stood up at the shore and realized I was one of the first out of the water. In our wave I was the 4th swimmer out. My buddy Riley also came out at essentially the same time as me, so we entered T1 together. The video below has the first swimmers out of the water. Riley and I are the 4th and 5th people out (little guy, big guy).

Transition 1 went seamlessly for me. Running up through the parking lot there were 2 kiddie pools for racers to wash their feet off from the sand on the beach. I didn’t even break stride–got both feet in and was out the other side, fresh and clean. Had the wetsuit down to my thighs when I reached my bike. Stripped the suit off in 2 quick motions. Glasses on. Helmet on. Grab bike off rack. Run out. Hop on bike. Take off. Piece of cake. Although in that first quarter mile as I was slipping my shoes on I accidentally unclipped my right shoe and almost lost it on the highway. Managed to get my foot in and re-clip as I was riding. Sweet!

According to the race results I was the 2nd person out onto the bike course–the first being just ahead of me (the eventual 2nd place finisher). However, I distinctly remember another rider who we passed about 3 or 4 miles in. The rider was fast, wearing a tri outfit, and I think had a green bike and was riding in the drop bars. He had shouted “keep it up” to me as I passed. I know I’m not imagining things, but this person apparently does not exist on the results page… Anyway, the overall winner passed me about this same time, 3 or 4 miles in. I stuck with him for a little bit before settling into my own pace. It only took about 2 miles into the race for me to feel the burn from the Thursday ride I had done. I figured I could hold a 24 or 25 mph pace on this course since it was mostly flat, but was struggling to keep 23 (I averaged 23.2 mph over the 16.5 mile course). I was okay with that though, and just tried not to kill myself. The course was an out and back with a lolly-pop turnaround. I did have a better race on the return trip, but the 2 riders ahead of me were much stronger and I couldn’t make up any ground. As I made the final turn back on the main highway along the lake, I made a wrong turn and the traffic volunteers immediately hollered and flagged me down. It was a divided highway and I was supposed to cross over to the left side to ride against traffic (they had cones set up for safety) but I just automatically tried to go on the right side. So I slammed my breaks and entered my first side skid on my tri bike–kinda scary but I didn’t wipe out. Managed to turn around and get back on course with only about 15 seconds lost (I did end up missing 3rd place by around 20 sec, but I’m not concerned with that anyway). Shortly after this I was passed by a tall thin guy in red, riding very fast. He turned out to have the fastest bike split of the whole race–he was 2 starting waves behind me (I think? 3 to 4 minutes?). The transition was just ahead so I made it there not too long after the tall guy. In 4th position at this point.

Transition 2 didn’t quite go seamlessly. I got my bike racked, helmet and glasses off fine. Got my shoes on and bib belt on fine. But grabbing my gps watch from my bike took longer than expected–just clumsy fingers and the strap was stuck. Might’ve cost me 5 to 10 seconds.

But once I got out running I felt really good in my new green shoes!

Saucony Kinvara TRs

I didn’t feel as fast as I wanted to be, but I could tell my running legs would be better than my biking legs had been. I passed the tall guy in short order. Flew past him. I could see the 2 leaders in the distance, but couldn’t gauge their pace and thought catching them may be a futile effort. The course was flat, and by this time the sun was out and I was plenty warm. Wasn’t quite dying for water, but would’ve taken some if it was available. The 2 leaders came back toward me (out and back course) just before I reached the turnaround. They were a good 70 or 80 seconds ahead of me from my estimation. That meant I could catch them if I started sprinting… but then I wouldn’t finish. So I just held my pace and picked up a little more each half mile until I was running about a 5:30 pace through the last half mile. Overall I averaged 6:09 per mile, which is my best run pace for a triathlon so far! Still got one more chance to break the 6:00 min per mile average barrier this year! Anyway my 19:07 run split was the 2nd fastest run of the day. The 7th place finisher ran an 18:24.

Overall it was a really fun race that I enjoyed. I have no regrets for being slow on the bike since that was by design of my training and gearing up for Devil’s Lake. It was still nice to finish in 4th overall, 2nd in my age group. Really happy to be healthy at this point. Thankful for the people who’ve helped me along the way, and really hoping I can come through and do all these people proud at my next race. A pastor at my church had given advice in a sermon about leadership and accomplishing goals. One of most memorable phrases I was left with was to “pray, plan, and persevere.” I certainly have done a lot of the first two, and the latter will manifest in these next couple weeks and on race day. I’m as confident as they come, but trying to be sure I don’t underestimate the hilly bike course! You Only Race Once!