Buffalo Springs 70.3 Race Report

Well, I’m finally back from the Buffalo Springs 70.3 and I’ll do my best to put the experience into words. Before I get to the race report I just want to thank Claudia, my brother and his wife and my Dad for making the 12 hour drive from Missouri to come watch me race. Living so far apart we don’t get to see each other much, so I was happy they were there.

The morning of the race was gorgeous. I arrived at transition around 4:45 in the morning and started to set up my bike and layout the rest of my race gear. Water temperature was a warm 75.6 degrees and my new sleeveless wetsuit was the right choice. For those of you that follow this blog, you know that swimming is difficult for me. Not so much proper stroke and technique (even though I can always get better on my technique), but the anxiety and lack of comfortableness (is that a word?)in open water swims. I have certainly put in plenty of pool time, but once the race horn goes off and the hundreds of swimmers start thrashing around, all bets are off. I was in wave six and we began the swim a little after 6:30. I stayed near the back and off to one side at the start just to avoid as many swimmers as possible, but the way the course was laid out made that plan a little difficult. The swim course at Buffalo Springs is basically a rectangle that you swim counter-clockwise. From what I heard they were having trouble with people cutting a portion of the beginning cove so the set up a buoy at about 100 meters that we all had to swim to and then we took a 90 degree turn and started the rectangle. This led to a huge traffic jam, but I am proud to say that I didn’t freak out and even though I had more hands slapping and grabbing my legs then I would have liked I stayed focused and kept swimming. The rest of the swim was pretty tame and I didn’t have any major problems. I was hoping to finish the swim as near 40 minutes as I could and was very pleased to get out of the water in 35 minutes. 

And there we go!

Transition was smooth and with the help of a wetsuit stripper (not what you think ;0) I got to my bike and was ready to go. Unfortunately, they had a single lane exist for the bike out and I literally waited in a line for 45 seconds to get out of transition because of all the people trying to get out at the same time. The bike course at Buffalo Springs is pretty tough. Challenging hills, head wind, and rough roads made it an adventure. I started out and after two initial hills out of the lake I settled in and tried to focus on the task at hand. I started to have a sick feeling though when I began to get passed by dozens of people. My speed was slow and the more effort I gave it seemed the more people passed me. I smelt rubber burning a little bit and looked down to make sure my tires weren’t flat and they seemed to be alright. My initial thought was that all these racers that were passing me would gas out later on and I would pull them back in. My bike has been real strong lately and I had confidence that whatever was going on would correct itself later in the race. I was very wrong. I kept getting passed and even when someone would pass me and I tried to draft for a couple seconds to get my speed up, I couldn’t maintain it and was dropped within a couple seconds. After a good swim I felt that I could have finished the bike in the 2:40-2:45 range. Instead I finished the bike in 3:12. I averaged about 17 mph. To put it into perspective, when I started doing triathlons a year and a half ago, I was averaging about 18 mph and that was on an aluminum road bike without aero wheels, aero bars, clip peddles, and aero helmet. To say I was a little dejected would be an understatement.

So now what? I entered Buffalo Springs 70.3 to evaluate all the hard training that I have put in and finish in a strong 5:10-5:30. The bike portion of the race had not only killed my time, but my hamstrings and quads felt like I had been doing squats for three hours. This is where the mental aspects of the sport kick in and it can be hard to get a hold of yourself. I decided to make the best of the race and vowed to have a strong run and just chalk-up the bad bike portion to a fluke. I put on my shoes and hat and began the 13.1 mile run. 

Gretchen McElroy had told me the run was tough and that the hills during the course are not to be taken lightly, but honestly how bad could they be? Very bad. I began the run and was able to average about 7:55 miles for the first three miles and then the wheels fell off. At the beginning of mile four is the first big hill. It is very steep and goes on for days! I would say 75% of the people going up the hill were walking, but I wanted to keep my pace going and decided that I would keep jogging, even if it was at a crawl. That lasted about 100 yards and then my walking began. I know everyone is different, but for me walking is the surest way to a downward spiral during a race. My legs get really stiff and it is a struggle to get them running again. For the rest of the course I ran and walked off and on. Not very proud of the effort, but I can honestly say that until I started doing triathlons I had never experienced my body just shutting down. You can talk about heart, courage, determination and all the other aspects of racing, but when your body says “NO” it means it. I finished the race in 6:26 and was glad to see the smiling faces of my family and girlfriend. I really didn’t have many words to say to them and was glad that I had sun glasses on, because self-confidence and pride were running a little low. 

I managed to sit in the lake for a little bit and cool off and then talked with everyone about the race. My family was amazed at how great the race was and thought that I did fantastic, but I explained to them my goals and how bad my bike was and that it really wasn’t a very good race at all. My brother took a look at my bike and sure enough we found out the problem. My front brake was rubbing the entire bike portion of the race. Imagine driving your car with the emergency brake engaged. While it was nice to know that my training hadn’t failed me, it was heart breaking to come to the realization that all the preparation for this race went out the window, because I didn’t have my bike set-up probably. Francois, my coach, said these things happen and we will move on and get ready for the next race and not to dwell on it too much.  

On a side note, many times (myself included) athletes have a “poor me” mind set. We say things like “my front brake was rubbing”, “my goggles fogged up”, “I have blisters”, “my nutrition was off”, any number of phrases come from our mouths. In conjunction with the Ironman race at Buffalo Springs, they also had the Handcycle 70.3 Championships. The men and women who participate do not have use of their legs and complete the entire course with only their arms. I can’t begin to tell you the physical and mental toughness of these men and women. No matter had bad my race was I’m very thankful to be out there competing and have the utmost admiration for all those pushing their selves to the limits.