Race Report: Aluminum Man Triathlon
Monday, September 11th, 2006Aluminum Man is a small triathlon on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge. I survived, finishing my first Olympic distance triathlon in 2:54:25. It was a lot of fun, and also the hardest thing I’ve done in a while!
You may know the Columbia river Gorge for it’s world class wind surfing. Turns out, it’s pretty windy there, and was at 9 am when the race started. The swim was a weird one. It was my first running start from the beach, er, mud flat. It must have been a funny sight to see 50 men running off for 100 meters in knee deep water, wondering when the swimming would begin. Finally it did, and we all had fun in the wind blown waters of the river. As I overheard one participant in the swim to bike transition, “I don’t have to worry about hydration after that swim!” I didn’t have much problem with the chop, but I guess a couple folks really had a hard time. The hardes thing for me was finding the bouys in the waves and with the final bouy right into the rising sun. I found it when I was 6 feet from it…
After 18 minutes in the water, the exit from the river was nothing like the entrance, and I moved on to the bike. This was probably the most fun 30 minutes of the triathlon. It was fun to be on the bike and riding downwind, up into the table lands above the gorge. It was gorgeious scenery–rolling hills, basalt columns, old abandoned farm buildings among amber grasses. I was having such a great time I even passed some folks, the whole time trying to hold back for the wall that I knew would come sooner of later.
At about 18 miles I began to tire. At 20 miles, we started the descent from the table lands and the crew I was riding with showed me why they all had aero setups–they blasted downhill, into the wind, leaving me on my touring bike to pedal harder down he hill than I had going up it.
After an hour and thirty minutes in the saddle (which seemed like 3) I made my way to the transition and actually had the thought, “I could stop now…”
But I didn’t, and made a quick transition to the run. the run was a 10K, which was really the longest run I’d done in months, so I knew it was going to be pretty hard. And it was. Luckily it started into the wind. I kept the cadence up and just kept it moving to the turnaround point. It’s amazing how far that seems sometimes…
On the return, I found myself slowing as my heart rate remained constant, which I figured was not a great sign. I was passed a couple times in the run, mostly by the top women, and had no hope of staying with any of them. But 1 mile from the finish I was passed by a guy that I decided to stay with and that helped me get through the last mile.
I finished 22nd among the 50 men, 4th in my age group of 11, which is where I love to be, just above average. Here’s the most unbelievable stat of the day–I was in 13th place coming out of the water. I don’t consider myself a swimmer, but I guess the Total Immersion DVD has been working. If you are interested in being a better swimmer, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
The recovery has been pretty easy. My knees were sore, but better now a couple days later. I drank about 2 gallons of recovery drink, and I think that helped. I’ll do another one. Maybe next year I’ll even do a couple…
