Race Report - Hy-Vee Triathlon - August 31st Des Moines

My ID for Transition

Race Tat the night before

I was apprehensive all week about doing another Olympic race after I imploded on the run at Bluff Creek.  I came up with a nutrition plan, I worked with my trainer to improve my strength, and had a few solid workouts in the last three weeks.  I also contacted the race officials to see if it was possible to move me from heat 22 (second to last) to something earlier as I was worried the heat and humidity on the run like it has in my other races.  I am still getting a handle on doing triathlons with MS since heat causes a flare up of symptoms.  The last couple of weeks with the stressors of all things related to my kids starting back to school I have struggled with nearly constant flare-ups in my hands and feet.  The race director decided to move me to heat 12 which is a para-athlete heat so they could keep an eye on me.  

We had a crazy amount of rain last week (5” in two days up in Ames) causing flooding to the race bike course, so the officials changed the distance from an Olympic to a sprint (750m swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run) which is half the distance.  I was disappointed and considered bailing out of the race because of some family issues that came up on Friday.  Ultimately, I decided I need to do this for me because of all the hard work I have put in the last couple of months.   I went through the athletes briefing Saturday and then dropped my bike off.  I had to ask for help finding my spot because they have the para athletes located at a different spot which had me set up along the blue fence that separated the 5150 racers from the age groupers (like me).

My spot in the middle of transition
Note there are just as many bikes behind me

Due to the sheer size of transition (over 2000 athletes) and my location within it was a bit of a solo endeavor for me.  I got to transition around 5:15 am to set up my gear and realized I had forgotten my hat and sunscreen.  Once set up I went to see if I could hunt down any of my Kyle’s bikes or Triracer teammates in the dark of transition.  I bumped into Triracers president Jim and chatted with him while he set up his space.  He had an extra visor and sunscreen and was willing to share, and I was extra grateful for that out on the run course.  I saw a couple other folks but once they closed transition everyone dispersed and made it hard to find people.

I headed around the lake to the swim start while listening to updates for the pro athletes on the course.  Their course is an Olympic distance and the rest of the athletes were not allowed to start until all of pros were off the bike course.  All the 5150 championship folks (qualified for a slot at other races) went off in wave starts around 8:20 with 10 heats.  The age group folks started around 8:50 with the elite athletes (super fast) and then it was my heat.  I was the only one racing para in age group so I rolled off the beach solo with my Kyle’s Bike teammates in the heats right behind me.  The great thing about the swim was no traffic until I got to about the third buoy and that was very lite.  The bad thing was I had very little splashing ahead of me to site off of and my goggles fogged a bit making it hard to see the red/orange buoys in the water.  I had a comfortable swim and am good with the time at 15:40.

Taking on nutrition coming into T2

I took my time in transition (2:36 minutes) and got going on the bike. I realized in transition that I forgot to turn on my watch which also has GPS and was in triathlon mode.  I attempted to advance it to the bike setting but ended up in T2 so didn’t have any speed readings for my bike.  I also started to have blurred vision in my left eye during the ride and into the run which due to a combination of sweat and an allergy flare up so I just had to hunker down and grind through it all.  The bike course was really flat and fast and ultimately it didn’t matter as I gave as much as I had and ended up with an average speed of 19 mph with a time of 38:23 which is a solid ride for me.

Katherine grabbed a shot of me at mile 2

Next up was the run.  It was creeping into the high 70s with some humidity by the time I hit T2 (2:12 minutes) so I opted to race with my cooling sleeves again.  I love these because they bring my arm skin temp down and keep the sun off of me when I run.  The first two miles we had water stops every half mile or so and a lot of course encouragement from Kyle’s Bikes teammates racing and spectating.  The last mile really started wearing on me with no water to pour on myself and a fair bit of sun beating down.  I had no idea what my pace was and I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.  I ended up with a solid time with an average speed of 9:34 a mile and run time of 29:41 which still leaves me with room for improvement but was a solid time for me.  My final time was 1:28.30 which to my surprise is my second fastest sprint time only to my last Hy-Vee sprint race which had a significantly shorter swim distance.

Bringing it home

If I had been racing with my age group (assuming no heat issues) I would have placed 15th out of 36. They said I can race in the 5150 championship next year.  So for my age group this puts me top four on the swim, 17 on the bike, 23rd on the run.  I am still working through the mental issues associated with racing with MS but feel like I had a good showing at Hy-Vee and am pumped for my last triathlon, CyMan on September 21st in Bondurant.  Hoping to get closer to my last sprint PR which was a 1:24.50 in 2010.

As always thank you to my race sponsor Kyle’s Bikes and Discounttrisupply.com as well as my Kyle’s Bike and Triracers teammates.  It means a lot to me to know you are out there on the course keeping me going.