El Race de Lago Stevens

The race is one day removed.
It was a fun day and a good one for racing.
So I'd forgotten they had a bike in the middle of these things and had all but stopped riding mine for the last few months. Once I realized the biggest portion of the event would be spent on my ride I decided I'd best come up with a plan to minimize the damage.
Here was my plan:
Swim strong.
Ride like a fat kid early for school - very conservatively.
Use whatever I had left to run.
It was a simple plan.

The day started out overcast, cool and calm. Perfect conditions.
The water temp was measured the day before at 71.5. That's a 1/2 degree high for the pros and they weren't allowed wetsuits. I would like to go on record as saying that was a bad call that showed poor form on the officials part.
The day was cool and those guys sport a minimal amount of body fat. Had the sun been beaming down that would have been another thing but...
Norm Thibault would have rowed out to the middle of the lake and dropped that thermometer to the deepest part of the lake so those boys could use their wetsuits.
Discretion is the better part of human valor but after sitting through that torture session of a race meeting with the head referee I'm not surprised it wasn't displayed.
So the pros set off and then the rest of us in wave after wave.
My wave had only 64 guys. Heaven!!
I positioned myself well and let the gun release me.
About five strokes in something attacked my right eye.
I'd deliberately let a little water in my goggles to keep them clear but clearly I'd let something else in there along with the water. My eye was burning and swelling.
I paused for a sec to shake the water out and carried on.
The swim course is laid out as well as any I've ever done. There's an underwater cable you can follow the entire way. With that you seldom need to sight and can focus on swimming. I managed to catch a few good drafts and I knew I was in the front pack of my group. A few fast cats had taken off but there were about ten of us working well together.
I got out of the water to find my watch hadn't started and would be disappointed to learn later that my time was 32:34. I honestly thought I was on for my first sub 30. I'm glad I didn't see the time as it would have taken some of the wind out of my sails.
Later I would learn that pretty well everyone said their swim times were off by a few minutes.
So on my bike I get. I know I'm in the top 10 of my age group. Cool.
My eye was stinging like a bitch but the adrenalin was surging so I didn't pay it much mind.
As the ride went on I kept myself in "control" (that means slow).
It felt like about 50 people in my age group passed me in the next few hours but that's how it goes when you don't train on the bike.
Of note on the bike - I had to stop twice to pee. I don't usually have a problem peeing on the bike but today I did. Not sure why. At least I was hydrated.
Another fun thing to happen was this:
So I'm riding along - probably 2/3 the way through and I was thinking to myself that I'd not seen such a "fair" race in a great long time. I just wasn't seeing any drafting. There was some bunching here and there but clearly people were making efforts to keep their distances and it seemed to be working. And it wasn't because of a big marshal presence. I'd seen one Goldwing the entire ride. So JUST as I'm thinking this a girl goes by me. She's in the 25-29 AG. About 7 inches off her back wheel was another woman also in the 25-29 group. She was clearly cheating - deliberately. It was an unbelievably sad sight.
Right then a Goldwing silently glided past me, watched the couple ahead for a moment or two, rode up beside the offender and flashed the red card. I'm not one to celebrate someone else's misfortune but my heart sure gladdened to see that woman get nailed. She looked absolutely stunned. Once she was unhitched from her ride I went by her in a hurry and didn't see her again.
As conservative as I rode that ride (3 hours plus) my left hip flexor started to cramp a bit with about 3 miles to go. I guess I timed things quite well.
I went through a leisurely transition and started out on the run. I once again decided to go without socks. I had no problems at Wildflower and this was a cleaner course so I wasn't worried. Bad move. I was moving along at about a 9' mile pace and feeling just fine - except for the blister that was forming on my instep - and worse than that, my right eye was flaring up and really getting painful. I did my best to ignore both and I held my 9' miles.

Just a little one.

Then with 2 miles to go the wheels fell off. It's amazing how long 2 miles is when you're done.
I hobbled through those miles and crossed the finish line with a smile - and one eye swollen shut.

Me after Gettysburg

Heather Wurtele was waiting for me a the finish line - she was super fan out there!
She got me to the med tent where they flushed the eye and wrapped me up. I looked like a civil war vet. I kept that thing on my head for about 5 minutes then tore it off. I had to keep my eye closed for the next 6 hours and slowly the pain started to subside. Not very fun but all in all the day was a good one. I think I finished around 5:45 which was about as well as I could have done with my current fitness. That's all you can ask for.

Respite

Trevor Wurtele had a pretty good race. The day didn't start well for him. Not surprisingly he got chilled in the water and it took a long time to warm up on the bike but he finished in the money and was reasonably happy.
As always, I'm keen to train and race but I don't think it's going to be possible this summer.
Stay tuned.

The next day