It was now race day. Although training had been going better this past week since my untimely crash at Santa Barbara, I still did not have full range of motion in left arm due to a pinched ulnar nerve. My strength, the swim, was now my greatest limiter for the race. I was just hoping that adrenaline could get me to land in a respectable time. The swim was freezing! 53 degrees with 48 degree air temp. Luckily, I, along with the Cal team, had practice with such conditions - can you say Golden Bearathlon round 2! In fact the cold acted as a natural anesthetic for my elbow.
Once that horn blasted for the start I did not feel the pain in my elbow again until I crossed the finish line. I could not believe how good my stroke felt considering my longest swim in the past three weeks was a little over a half an hour. To my amazement, I actually led the swim to the last buoy before being passed my Nick Vandam from Army. When I got to my bike I realized I was sandwiched by the two armed forces’ athletes that I considered the race favorites: Nick Vandam, who exited the swim 7 seconds in front of me and Derek Oskutis, who exited the water 12 seconds behind me. I had a very fast T1 and mounted my bike first. With the rush from the crowd and my teammates cheering, I knew that this was going to be my best opportunity to make a move in the race. I stopped thinking and just raced – sounds simple, but I overanalyze everything and for once I just put my head down and rode my bike as hard as I could. The bike felt effortless until the turnaround when I realized why it felt so good – it was a tail wind out and a stiff crosswind back into T2. Despite probably going out too hard on the bike, I was able to continue extending my lead to 1:30 going into T2.
I knew it was going to be a painful run once I started, but the crowd and the adrenaline rush got me through the first two miles. It was at the mile two marker that I really started hurting and the rest of the run was done in complete survival mode – it probably looked like I was swimming on land, because I know my form was falling part. In the end I was able to hold off Derek Oskutis by a mere 20 seconds. He is an amazing athlete and had the run been long like the swim, I may have been in trouble.
I learned a lot about myself and my body in the past three weeks than at any other point in my career. I learned the importance of rest and a proper taper(or should I saw a forced taper). I hope that it does not take a bike crash three weeks out from an “A” race to remind me of the importance of rest ever again. Who would have thought after my last post that the crash was the best thing that could have happened to me and was actually a blessing in disguise? The old saying that it is “better to under train than over train” really does hold water!
Here were some write ups from usat and slowtwitch about the race:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Dahlz_and_Broderick_in_Lubbock_764.html
http://usatriathlon.org/news/article/12048
Once that horn blasted for the start I did not feel the pain in my elbow again until I crossed the finish line. I could not believe how good my stroke felt considering my longest swim in the past three weeks was a little over a half an hour. To my amazement, I actually led the swim to the last buoy before being passed my Nick Vandam from Army. When I got to my bike I realized I was sandwiched by the two armed forces’ athletes that I considered the race favorites: Nick Vandam, who exited the swim 7 seconds in front of me and Derek Oskutis, who exited the water 12 seconds behind me. I had a very fast T1 and mounted my bike first. With the rush from the crowd and my teammates cheering, I knew that this was going to be my best opportunity to make a move in the race. I stopped thinking and just raced – sounds simple, but I overanalyze everything and for once I just put my head down and rode my bike as hard as I could. The bike felt effortless until the turnaround when I realized why it felt so good – it was a tail wind out and a stiff crosswind back into T2. Despite probably going out too hard on the bike, I was able to continue extending my lead to 1:30 going into T2.
I knew it was going to be a painful run once I started, but the crowd and the adrenaline rush got me through the first two miles. It was at the mile two marker that I really started hurting and the rest of the run was done in complete survival mode – it probably looked like I was swimming on land, because I know my form was falling part. In the end I was able to hold off Derek Oskutis by a mere 20 seconds. He is an amazing athlete and had the run been long like the swim, I may have been in trouble.
I learned a lot about myself and my body in the past three weeks than at any other point in my career. I learned the importance of rest and a proper taper(or should I saw a forced taper). I hope that it does not take a bike crash three weeks out from an “A” race to remind me of the importance of rest ever again. Who would have thought after my last post that the crash was the best thing that could have happened to me and was actually a blessing in disguise? The old saying that it is “better to under train than over train” really does hold water!
Here were some write ups from usat and slowtwitch about the race:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Dahlz_and_Broderick_in_Lubbock_764.html
http://usatriathlon.org/news/article/12048
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