Sorry for the delay in posting, but this is what I wrote yesterday:
First of all, Happy Anniversary Erik and Brooke!
Today was probably the worst triathlon experience ever for me, which doesn’t do much for my moral heading in to the Half Ironman in a few weeks.
I had high hopes for this race. It was in downtown Indy and the course was extremely flat compared to triathlons here in southern Ohio.
The day started off great. We arrived downtown in the morning darkness, and walked to the transition area with the downtown skyline in the background. It was definitely different compared to any other triathlon I’ve done!
After I got my transition area set up, we walked with the crowd down to the starting point of the swim. The swim took place in the canal, which isn’t the cleanest water, but I was just happy that I could sight using the walls on the side since it wasn’t very wide!
…Ironic?
Anyways, once we walked the 1500 meters to the starting line, I hopped in the water to get used to it before it was my wave’s turn to go.
I’m in the blue shirt with the yellow swim cap. It kind of looks like I’m scared of the water, but really I’m just going to put my goggles on. Eric took about 500 pictures, so I know this for a face because he had his camera on rapid fire.
And we’re off…
The swim went well. I really enjoyed being able to sight off the side walls and there were only 30 people in a wave and I was one of the fastest in my wave, so I was able to avoid people for most of the swim. I was run over once by someone towards the end, but not too bad for a triathlon swim!
Look at that awesome form :).
I finally made it to the swim exit, ran up the stairs and into transition area.
My head looks rather lumpy…it’s because I put my Garmin in my swim cap to see if it got a better feed from the satellite.
It says that I went 1.13 miles, which isn’t accurate, but the overlay of satellite looks pretty accurate!
I finished the swim in 28:02 (according to Garmin)
Official Swim Time: 27:41.2 (103rd/436 total participants)
T1 was uneventful as well. I ran in, got my bike gear on, ran out with the bike.
Official T1 time: 2:11.0 (190/436)
The bike was where things took a turn for the worse. It started off great! I was doing 19-20 mph and feeling good. The road started to get a little bumpy and rough, which was a bummer, and which I soon discovered was going to the norm on all the streets we rode on. Not fun!
We had to ride over two sets of train tracks, and they had people out there telling everyone to slow down. I made it over the first tracks just fine. The second tracks were located right before a right hand turn. The tracks looked weird to me when I went over them, so I was looking down at the tracks. The second I looked up I was surprised to see my bike heading straight for the curb of the sidewalk. Before I had any chance to correct myself, I was sprawled out on the sidewalk. Here’s a little satellite imagery to see what happened.
The blue line on the bottom is the route I took the first loop (there were 2 loops and the accident happened on the first loop). As you can see, I took the turn a little too close and where you see the arrow go in the opposite direction is where I ended up on the sidewalk. Noting the second lap, I made sure to make a very wide turn to not end up on the sidewalk a second time.
So yes, my bike kinda skidded along the sidewalk and ejected me on to the concrete. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened as I stood up and checked myself over. A police officer that was directing traffic at that intersection came over and picked my bike up and looked it over. That looked ok, at the time. My body…not so much. I have road burn all over my right arm, my right leg, and I ripped off a layer of skin off both knees.
If you don’t like blood, I’d recommend skipping over the next pictures!
As I type this, my left knee is swollen (which you can kind of see in this picture), my arm is on fire, and I just joked with Eric about how I only have one unscathed appendage left on my body. I’m in a lot of pain, and my next stop is the shower which I am trying to avoid as long as possible because I know it is going to be painful.
Anyways, I picked myself off of the sidewalk and hopped back on my bike. For a few minutes I had to slow way down because I could not catch my breath for the life of me. I think I was having a panic attack or something. It was weird and like nothing I had experienced before. But I quickly got myself under control by just telling myself to slow down and I was off!
I finished the first loop and headed out for the second.
The second lap was decent, except for the fact that I was unable to use my aero bars anymore without dealing with immense pain. That was annoying. Also, towards the end with about 4 miles left I noticed that I was having to work really hard to move and I was being passed by a lot of people. At the time, I just chalked it up to me being tired and the accident taking a lot out of me. After the race, my dad noticed that my rear wheel was rubbing on my brakes and it out of true. At least, that’s what I’m hoping is wrong.
Looks like another trip to the bicycle shop. I tore up my handlebar tape when I crashed as well, so I’ll get that replaced so it’s all in one piece.
The good news is, because the course was so flat, I finished the bike in 1:24.14 at a 17.7 mph pace! That’s the same pace I did my last sprint distance tri in….and this is with a complete crash and burn! Imagine what I could have done had I not fallen off my bike and had the wheel not been wobbly and rubbing against the brake! I bet I could’ve easily been above 19 mph.
Official Bike Time: 1:24.16, 17.7 mph pace (341/436)
I made it off the bike in one (sort of ) piece and headed in to T2 to get ready for the run.
I was feeling good at this point. A little pain in the left knee and a burn in my arm, but good. I was a little apprehensive about the run though. I had already been through a lot today! One major mistake I made during this transition…I forgot to throw my visor on. That would come back to haunt me.
T2 time: 1:40 (226/436)
The run is where things went downhill. I ran out of transition and immediately had a hard time catching my breath, again. I decided that it would be best for me to walk a bit just to get my breathing back to normal, which helped at first. Then, my stomach started to hurt. My nutrition plan on the bike got thrown completely out the window when I crashed because most of my Accelerade spilled out of my aero bottle while my bike was lying on its side on the side of the road. I had water with me, and some Shot Blocks. I opted to start taking the Shot Blocks, which seemed to go over fine on the bike, but my stomach did not like them for the run. I felt like I was running with a rock in the bottom of my stomach. I felt like I was going to be sick, so I did some more walking. Finally my stomach settled down, but I needed some calories and unfortunately all I had on me were those darned Shot Blocks. The aide stations ran out of Gatorade and only had water. So, I was out of luck. I started to feel lightheaded and awful…which involved more walking. Do you see the trend I had going? Lots of walking. Add the fact that the sun was beating down with hardly any shade and I forgot to put my visor on!
I was not loving life at this point.
Here I am almost at the finish and I’m still not loving life. I just wanted to be done at this point.
I’m ashamed to even write this due to the fact that I ran 9:44 miles in my first Oly Distance Tri. But, today I averaged 11:08 miles. Yuck.
Official Run Time: 1:09.19, 11:09 pace (377/436..yuck)
So basically, to sum it all up, the run ruined my race. Whether my run was awful because of the heat, because of my screwed up nutrition plan, or because of my injuries sustained while flying off my bike onto a sidewalk, I cannot tell. But it certainly was something, because I know I can run faster than that.
Official Finish Time: 3:05.08 (301/436)
I don’t think I’ll be doing Tri Indy again. I wasn’t the only one who suffered road burn injuries. After hunting down a medic for what seemed like forever (no one could find them, not even the race workers!), I came across another gentleman who had sustained injuries way worse than mine. I didn’t see his arm, but my parents and Eric said his tricep looked like raw meat. I saw his thigh, and it looked back enough to me! While I was sitting in the ambulance getting “cleaned up”, which was nothing more than wiping a wet gauze over my wounds, the EMT was telling me about a guy who had road burn over 90% of his back. So, I guess it could have been worse, but I’m just amazed at how many people were injured on this course! In all the triathlons I’ve done in 3 years, I have seen one injury before today, and that was because the guy was going too fast down a hill when it was raining and his bike slipped out from underneath him. I’m not risking anything again to do Tri Indy, that’s for sure!
But for now, I will leave my race report at that. I’m a little disappointed in myself, and rather embarrassed for being so absent-minded to miss a huge curb and sidewalk before it was too late! I have a lot more anxiety about the Half Ironman and future races because of today, but I will post about that some other time (maybe tomorrow). Right now, I need a shower…which is going to be a tortuous experience, I’m sure.
Once again, thank you Eric for these great pictures! And thanks to my parents, Grandpa, and Sallie for coming out and cheering me on (and also Eric)!
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