Glen Rock Tri Club

As I meandered through the hotel lobby and through the registration tent, I noticed that everyone was really skinny and fit. Going into the World Championship, I assumed that there were others like me who qualified via an elongated roll-down (I took 85th of 350 at Timberman 70.3); therefore, I would not be completely outclassed by everyone. As I looked around at my competition in purple swim caps at the swim start, it dawned on me that there was the real chance that I could finish dead-last in my age group. Additionally, given that I was in one of the last waves, I was not 100% sure that I would not be the last one to cross the finish line. I reset my expectations to a final time of 5:30 and convinced myself that everything would be okay if I had a good swim, fast bike, and 2:05-to-2:10 half-marathon.

At the swim start (waves of 100) standing on the beach, I planned to start on the far right, aligned to the buoy line, but folks had moved in to my right and I was closer to the middle. The gun went off and I ran off the beach and out into the water. Waves were rolling in, so you had to leap to avoid catching a foot and falling forward. As I started going, I kept thinking, "I can swim with these guys, go, go, go". Quickly I noticed that the head pack swam away; then people kept swimming by me and the middle pack swam away; then, to my horror, I was all alone. I thought to myself, "oh no, I am last in my group". Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw another purple swim cap and then thought, "if I beat him, I won't be last!" Again, resetting expectations...

Swimming in the ocean was difficult, as I was fighting with the waves and inhaling salt water. At the turn, I looked at my watch and saw I swam for about 16 minutes, which was 2 minutes behind where I wanted to be. Then, at the turn I could see nothing but the glare of the sun with was problematic as my goggles were fogged up; therefore, I was basically blind. At that time, some guy came swimming horizontal to me, completely horizontal. I thought, "well, I know that he is wrong, but maybe I am drifting left"; so, I corrected a little to the right. I then saw the main pack from the wave behind me about 20 feet to my left. Sure enough, I was swimming diagonally towards the start line, not the finish. By then, I could make out the shape of the return buoy and got back on track. Final time ended up being 36:34. This was disappointing as I hoped that all the swimming I had been doing at Masters would pay-off; but alas, a 32:00 swim was not to be. However, one small victory was that I did beat the guy I saw earlier, so I was not last.

After a real quick run up the beach and transition, I was out on the flat and fast bike course. I took off and started passing people; then, at mile 8 or so, 3 guys caught up to me. I re-passed them and kept going, but they started drafting on me. Then, the course started to get very narrow and the group kept growing and growing. I would move to the front, then get passed and drift back and get stuck in the middle of a huge peloton. It was unnerving as there was nowhere to go. If you managed to get dropped off the pack, you got swallowed up by another pack that was right behind. So, I ended up doing my best to constantly move to the front of the original pack and stay up there as long as I could or stay off to the side to avoid drafting. In the end, my bike time was 2:16:48 (24.6 mph) with the last 30 miles, according to the clock, being at 25.5 mph. I was moving.

Once through transition, I was out on the run and was wondering how much time I made up on Chris as she was in an earlier wave and had a 25-minute head start. At mile 1, my sister told me that I was 2-to-3 minutes behind Chris. I figured I gained time, but was surprised that I gained that much time. I then looked at my watch and realized that I had about 2 hours to finish the race under 5 hours. On the run, I kept plugging away and then realized at the 6.5 mile mark that could still go sub-5. Before the race, I scratched out some numbers that would put me in the position to do this, but never dreamed I could pull it off. At mile 10, I had 29 minutes to run the 5K. I was tired, hot, and there is still one big hill, before you are home free. At mile 11, I was at 19 minutes, and I started running and talking with a guy from Australia, named Bo whose legs were cramping up. I told him my dilemma, and he agreed to push it to help me make it to the finish line under 5:00. He made it to the last aid station which is a half-mile from the end and told me that he could not go anymore. I looked down and saw I only had 4 minutes left. Given I was running 9:15 pace the whole race, I thought all was lost, and I just gritted my teeth and pushed to the end. I ran a 1:59:19. Overall time was 4:59:42. Every second counts!

John Bye