I qualified for this race in 2023 at the Multisport festival in Irving Tx. I did the aquabike because I have had a lot of issues with running and recovery and honestly never really liked running very much. I think I came in 10th out of 10, but this was a qualifying position. I accepted the invitation to compete when I was notified I had qualified. When you compete at international world championships in USAT, you are required to join Team USA which is a costly and time consuming project. While I'm very happy I have qualified twice for this honor, I'm probably done with doing this due to the cost it requires. It's always an honor to compete and represent the US internationially, but I don't have sponsors for support.
MALAGA SPAIN
Here's a summary of the requirements to compete. To join Team USA, you are required to pay a deposit nearly 9 months in advance of the race to reserve your spot, $100. By 7 months later you are required to pay the balance to register for the race, $400. During this year, a firestorm erupted when USAT tried to roll out a new membership program that would have increased the costs quite a bit for Team USA members. This was quickly rolled back. Team USA members are asked to join "TEAMS APP" where you are notified of deadlines and other requirements. Unfortunately this also gives any member the ability to post anything and if you leave notifications on you will be endlessly pinged with members commenting on anything, and sadly asking about things that have been answered in teams meetings (monthly) or posted.
Another issue this year was that the race was initiatlly planned for Malaga, Spain and after many of us had planned accommodations and bike rentals and flights, USAT was forced to change the venue to Torremolinos, Spain, a 30 min train ride away from the original location. This also changed the course elevations...more about that later.
This change also caused a ton of Teams app messaging and confusion as many questions about the change were in flux for about a month. It was frustrating but usually the answers would be provided. I would often ignore team mates postings and only read the team manager's posts (Tim). I decided to keep my Airbnb in Malaga which was a slightly larger resort town due to the very reasonable cost (61 euro/night) I had found. The smaller town and high demand for places from athletes shifting to Torremolinos appeared to drive up prices, which I was unwilling to pay, despite the possible convenience. My Airbnb host said the trip to Torremolinos was not costly and a 30 min ride, neglecting to tell me that getting to the train was a 20 min walk to the train and a 15 min walk from the train to the venue, so it was more like an hour trip.
Torremolinos, Spain
Other costs to compete included the requirement to buy this years competition kit, $300 and this years parade kit $300. If you compete every year, you only have to buy these things every other year, but I competed in 2022 so my kit had expired. If you get your name imprinted on the kit, you cannot return it if you chose the wrong size so I did not get my name on my kit this year. Team USA also requires that you have international travel health insurance. I bought mine from United Healthcare for $246 with a rider for dangerous sports. You have to submit proof of this to the Team USA site to compete. Another cost is decided if you will ship your bike, between $300-$700 one way by plane, or rent $500, plus race day deposit of $600 until you return the bike. If you rent, you need to bring your pedals and get your bike before mandatory check in for bikes to have the pedals installed and seat adjusted. French Bike Rentals is the company I have used for both world championshp races. They offer onsite bike availability, but when the race venue was moved to Torremolinos, there was not enough space for the bikes to be onsite so they had a bike pick up location nearly 3 miles away from the venue, in the opposite direction of Malaga so this was quite annoying since I had paid for the convenience of onsite pick up. I complained nicely and they said I could drop my bike off at the race venue tent after the race, which was very fortunate for me as I was completely spent after the race.
In addition, you need to get yourself to the race venue which means an international flight. I still have points left from my cancer payments on my united card so I was able to use points for the trip. I decided I would use the trip to spend time in Europe visiting friends in several countries before and after the race. I knew it would be a tough packing assignment since I didn't want to check any bags on the way over and had to pack my helmet, race gear, pedals, goggles etc as well as clothes for climate that would be warm to cold during October. I'll post about my travels in another blog since there is a lot.
So after nearly a year of preparation and payments, I was ready to travel. I had my kit, which did fit, my parade gear and had done the training. Leading up to the race from last September I had had several major set backs including a broken knee that stopped any training for about 4 months and a natural gas leak in my apartment that I did not know about for months and which derailed a lot of my training efforts until about 2 weeks before IMLOU 70.3. I wasn't fully recovered from the gas leak on the IM race so my bike time was miserable, 4:20, but I did get my two legs done with a 42 min swim time which I was very happy about since there had been no current at all. I redoubled my training efforts and began to see major improvements in September giving me a lot of hope for a great race in Torremolinos. However, two days before the race I, and a lot of other athletes and volunteers, got norovirus. Symptons include extreme fatigue, vomiting and mausea. I lived on instant chicken noodle soup and coke for two days. I felt really tired and the trips between Malaga and Torremolinos felt really taxing before I had the vomiting. I chalked it up to jet lag and travel fatigue, but those trips back and forth between the two cities felt really hard...once I got sick I understood why.
I was at the venue to see the first day of racing. I had swum in the ocean down at a nearby beach. I did not bring a wetsuit and wanted to check how I'd feel in the water. It was cold but bearable, like a chilly pool swim so I felt confident I could handle the cold on race day. What concerned me more that day was that the waves were about 3-4 feet swells and some cresting, with a current pushing you away from the finish as we would swim from left to right and the current was from right to left. It would be a challenge and possibly a longer swim than normal. I felt confident in my ability to handle it though. What I saw that day was a few start waves of the sprint, one of the waves was the 60+ men wave. Quite a few of these athletes appeared to be bogged down quite early in the swim, doing breast stroke or walking to try to get past the wave breaks. I left soon after and heard later that two athletes in that race had died. One in the AG wave I saw had died on the swim and another 57 year old from Mexico had died of a heart attack on the run. As you can imagine, this was very unsettling and sad. It also changed the race schedule, which turned out to help me a bit. I hate to sound selfish and heartless here. I was very sad for those men who died and despite people saying, "he died doing what he loved" I want you to know, I don't want anyone to say that about me if I die on the course. Yes I love triathlon, but I do NOT want to die doing it.
The initial race schedule had required me to be at Torremolinos every day for some required activity, like check in, bike check in, course talk etc. The change due to this tragedy gave me the opportunity to stay in Malaga in bed for a full day to try to recover. I notified Tim, the race director and asked for some help but I didn't get much. My Airbnb host gave me the name of a pharmacy he trusted about 100 ft from the home and a grocery next to my place where I found the instant chicken noodle soup and some colas. I lived on that for two days. There is a Team USA room where you can store your bike and gear for free, get a massage, talk to a doctor, buy supplies and just hang out. I left my bike there for two days until I had to check it into transition. Fortunately I had gotten my bike right away, which included a ride from the pick up location back to the race venue, that took me through the bike course during traffic. I was none to happy about that but I had gotten a brief introduction to the bike course; very hilly.
Race day arrived and we started our race at 11 AM, giving me time to sleep in a bit and get to the venue. I was still a bit worried about the swim temps, almost all the athletes wore wetsuits. I was in the distinct minority without one. As it turned out this wasn't an issue. The ocean was quite flat that morning though so the swim wasn't quite as challenging as I had expected. The swim was longer than the 1500 yd official distance, and I clocked it at 1900 yds. Many athletes complained about this later reporting at least 1800 yds. I took about 40 mins to get it done and headed the long walk to transition. I was out of the water with or before the better racers in my age group but the bike was a challenge. I had plenty of water and nutrition but nothing in the tank after two days of barely eating. I decided I'd do my best. Each lap of the 3 laps got slower for me as I gradually lost energy. I was about 3 miles from the finsih when the motorcycle ref came alongside me. I initially figured I'd missed the cut off and was being pulled but instead they told me I had 5 minutes to finish. Normally it takes me 20 mins to go 5 miles so I knew this was a make or break moment for avoiding a DNF. Fortunately I was at the top of the last hill and knew I had mostly down hill to the finish so I found something left in my tank and pushed my speeds up to 26-30 mph, pedaling on all the down hills and forcing myself to use up everything and anything I had left. I did not want to DNF after all I'd been through this year. I was going so fast to make the cut off that I nearly couldn't stop at the dismount, and almost went over the handlebars as I stopped, that back wheel actually lifted about a foot. I had no idea if I'd made it at that point and I had to stand and rest after dismount before I could even head to transition and walk across the finish to get a medal.
Tim had told us all that the bike course was pancake flat. Perhaps when it was in Malaga, that was true, but in Torremolinos it was absolutely false. I had trained based on his comment on mostly flat courses, focusing on high RPMS and fast speeds, but the bike course rquired more strength and hill climbing. It was reported with only 900 feet of climbing but I think that was for one loop. We did three, so there was more like 2700 ft of climbing with the hills varying from 6-12% inclines. It was hard, made much harder by the heat and my illness. A few other athletes commented on this in team works expressing dismay at the bike course elevation. I never heard a correction of the course toughness from Tim. He may have I missed it but apparently quite a few others missed it too if so. I had to think that there was a lot of logistical nightmares in the venue change so late in the planning so one could forgive him for the oversight, but it was a critical one for many.
Final result, I came in officially as 17th in my age group, 20 were registered, one DNS and two DNF, so I was DFL but with an official finish! I was very pleased to know I had managed to get in under the wire. I had to have made it by only seconds. I was happy with my swim and disappointed in my overall performance because I had arrived expecting to do much better. But given everything (including emergencies with aging parents prior to leaving causing me with a lot of guilt for even going on this trip) I think I need to accept it with grace and be proud of myself. As Patrick said last night, "you showed your grit on that race." Yeah, I think I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment