Old Hickory Lake Triathlon

Nicknamed the “Hulk Piss Tri” for its neon green tinted swim, The Old Hickory Lake Triathlon is a 400 meter swim, 1 mile run, 12 mile bike, 2 mile run.  It’s a rather different race due to the run from the lake to the bike, but that run seems to get the legs warmed up for a nice bike.  It usually fills with about 350-400 athletes.  This would be my first real race of the year.  With an expected finish time of about an hour or so, my coach had me train right through this event… meaning I hadn’t had a day of rest in over 20 days and actually had a 2.5 hr workout the day before.  Even though it is a race, it’s not "my race" this year.

Robert Reeves, Brandon Frith, Duane, and myself represented Trace Bikes this weekend.  Duane and I warmed up with about a 15 min run, a 20 min bike, another 10 min run, and a 5 min swim.  That’s 50 mins of warmup for something that would only last 60-70 mins.  Duane and I both usually need a solid hour to feel good and quick in training, so by the time we got out of the swim, we should be ready to race.

Swim was worse than expected.  I figured 8-8.5 mins for the epic 400 yard adventure.  After hopping into the chilly 70 degree water and instantly losing what breath i actually have, I got into what I thought as a decent rhythm and knocked it out. (It must have been the rhythm of a slow country song).  I just knew I’d see 8 mins when I hit my split.  Nope, 10 something.  WTF?  Anyway, this wasn’t a race for me, so I put on my running shoes and took off.

The first run is mostly uphill with a ¼ mile very steep right out of the water.  I spent that hill just getting my legs together then took off at the top.  Knocked out the first mile in 6:33.  I heard someone say “holy shit that guy is flying.”  That made me feel a little better after the swim; however, those people didn’t know that the reason I was running so fast was that I could not wait to get on the bike and destroy the course.

I flew into transition as hard as I could, feeling on the edge of vomiting, put on my helmet, grabbed my bike, and took off.  The bike was only 12 miles, so there was absolutely NO pacing yourself… it was all about going as hard as you possible could and don’t save an ounce of anything.  The bike course was on a parkway/interstate that had an entire section blocked off.  Out, turnaround, back, no cars, 1 turn, just head forward and mash. 

I guess it was about 1 mile to the actual parkway and I went as hard as I could.  Once I topped the onramp, I couldn’t hardly even breath, but I just kept pushing the peddles because I knew it eventually had to go down.  Sure enough, it flattened a bit so I shifted into my hardest gear and just cranked.  I had already passed about 20 good swimmers.  With a tail wind, it was easy to push at 30+mph.  I focused on all the swimmers that I hadn’t passed running and just kept picking them off.  All these people had to be better swimmers than me, so that motivated me to smoke them hard. LOL.  The course had a few long hills that slowed me a bit and at the turn around, my split average had dropped to about 27mph.  I knew I wouldn’t hold this because the trip back included a couple long 3% grades into a headwind.  I saw Duane at about mile 7 and it took everything I had to inch past him.  I always feel bad passing friends but Triathlon is a race against the clock and yourself… not your friends.  At any rate, I held 22mph up the long incline, into a headwind, and finished the bike in 24.7mph (00:29:10).  This was good enough to get me the fastest bike split overall.  I still think I could have gone quicker had I been even the slightest fresh/tapered.

The second run is an out/back on some rolling terrain.  It’s not a hard course.  Hell, it's only two miles.  At about mile 1.75, there is a decent little climb that you just have to crank up regardless of how you feel.  It’s so close to the end that it doesn’t matter how hard you go.  At this point, I saw a friend on course who said, “can I stay with you up the hill”.  I said “hell no, you can’t run that fast”.   This was great motivation to keep both of us sprinting up the hill.  Perfect.  I crossed the finish line ready to vomit.  I didn’t vomit so I must have not gone hard enough. 

These races are not what I train for.  They are sprints lasting 1-2 hrs.  I don’t taper for these.  I just train right through them and utilize them as hard speed workouts.   With that said, I ended up getting second in my age group.  Normally, I would have been ecstatic about this for a training day.  However, the 1^st place dude beat me by about 50 seconds.  The reason I’m not happy with this is because had I just had a bad swim (9+ mins) instead of a horrible swim (10+mins); I’d have easily taken 1^st.  The guy that beat me swam about 4 mins quicker than I did.  I had the fastest bike split and the second fastest second run split of the entire field of 374 racers.  There is no reason my swim should suck this bad.  So, I thank the guy that beat me.  He was a better triathlete than I was on that day; he deserved first place and I have a lot to learn from him.  He’s motivated me to do whatever it takes to get my swim fast.  This is a triathlon… not a running or bike event.  There is no reason I should be decent on the bike and suck in the water.

Even with a horrible swim that took me 4 mins longer than it really should have, I still got 7^th out of 374 racers and I got 2^nd out of 34 in my age group.  The good news is that I have something to work on (though that wasn't a surprise to me).  But, I do have a way of getting better and faster.  I have a decent bike and running foundation right now so it’s now time to start swimming faster and actually train myself to be a triathlete. 

So, i'm sticking in this last photo.  I hope these guys don't care.  I work with them all.  #69 on the far right, my director at Vanderbilt, got a 2 min penalty for drafting.  We've given him SOOO much crap about it (as you can see from the pic that floated around the office).