Race Reports

RACE REPORT: Lake Las Vegas Triathlon

Better late than never, let’s run a recap of the September 1, Lake Las Vegas Triathlon that showcased the debut of my 10-year-old daughter Amanda.

The Lake Las Vegas Triathlon is held in the beautiful resort community of…you guessed it, Lake Las Vegas. The sprint course featured a short 400-meter swim, a 10.6-mile bike, and a 5K run. Although only a sprint, the course featured a couple steep climbs on the bike and the run.

I wasn’t planning on entering this race, but some calendar snafus on my part in trying to get Amanda into her first triathlon led me to this race. Even though this race had sold out, race director, Keith Hughes of Sunset Racing, let us enter as a sprint relay team. We were to be a category of one.

One of the cool things that Keith does to encourage family participation in triathlon is to have categories like the best husband/wife combined time and best parent/child combined time.

Amanda’s Training
Amanda was stoked about competing in her first triathlon, but unfortunately, with both of us in school during the week, we had little time to get her prepared. With only a handful of sporadic training sessions, we never had a chance to get her runs up to the 5K mark. The plan for race day was to just relax and have fun. Our only goal was to get her across that finish line…run, walk or crawl.

My Training
What can I say? My training leading up to this race was basically non-existent. My only time on the bike since the Mountain Man was a couple 3-mile easy rides with Amanda…and all of the runs were at a low aerobic pace (119-133 bpm) which averages out to about 15-min. miles for me to stay in that range. Actually, I have to alternate running and walking to stay in that zone.

Fortunately, I was able to get a few swims on my lunch hours.

That, however, did not make a dent in my overall lack of conditioning. Wow…a whopping average of 2.2 hours of training time PER WEEK from June through the race.

Not good.

Note that once my pre-med studies started in late May, my training volume went down the crapper. My biggest chunks of training time came in the form of the Mountain Man tri and the Lake Las Vegas tri. Not conducive to doing anything except surviving.

On to the race…

Swim (400 meters)

Yes, once again, I’m the one in the green swim cap.

Our start was about 20 yards from shore in the private cove behind the breathtaking Loews Hotel. The sprint group was to swim out under a bridge, veer some direction that wasn’t clear to me, round a white buoy and then head back to shore…into oncoming swimmers.

Keith blew the air horn at 8:04 a.m., I counted to three and then started swimming. I kept it relaxed and easy and frequently sighted to make sure I was in the right group. During the pre-race chatter, I heard we had to veer right out of the cove to head for the turnaround buoy…and I also heard we had to veer left out of the cove.

Four hundred meters isn’t that far so I planned on figuring it out along the way. Once I got out of the cove, I kept going straight for another 50 meters, and popped up to discover that I was already off course. I made a hard left and caught up to the pack again, rounded the buoy and headed back into shore.

Once I hit the beach, the swim didn’t end until I ran about 200 meters uphill to the transition area. I had planned on walking the hill so my heart rate wouldn’t get jacked, but I couldn’t stop myself from running. Ingrained habit I suppose!

By the time I crossed the timing mat, the temps were already crawling into the high 90s.

Amazingly enough, I was third in my age group as I ran into T1. Third! I was only one second behind the guy in second place. There you have it, my brief flirtation with the podium.

Time: 12:24
AG (40-44): 3/9
Overall: 47/153
Fastest AG male: 12:05
Fastest Overall : 8:49

T1
Since I wasn’t “racing” and had no idea how well I had come out of the swim, I had a very relaxed T1. I just plopped on my ass, put my socks on, and trotted out of T1 with El Lobo Gris in tow. However, I used the dental floss trick to keep my shoes in position on the bike. Worked like a charm again.

Time: 2:25
AG (40-44): 5/9
Overall: 92/153
Fastest AG male: 0:58
Fastest Overall: 0:20

Bike (10.6 miles, 2 loops)
The first mile or so, straight out of the transition area, was pretty much uphill.

Ouch.

After the first climb, we had a nice downhill…the only time I passed anyone in the race, purely due to my confidence in going fast when others were tapping their brakes. After that, we had another climb that was a bit longer and zapped the life out of me.

During the Mountain Man, I was able to stick close to my HR plan of staying under 179, even though I was at 6,800 feet. At Lake las Vegas, I was at approximately 2,000 feet. In spite of the favorable altitude, the temps, my shitty state of condition, took it’s toll. I couldn’t get my HR below 187 and I was just crawling.

Crawling.

My training log above explains it all.

Time: 56:37
AG (40-44): 9/9
Overall: 121/153
Fastest AG male: 33:09
Fastest Overall: 29:23

T2
As I pedaled my sorry butt into T2, I noticed there were a lot of bikes there and not many people.

When I got over to my spot in the bike racks, I found Amanda anxiously waiting for me.

“What took you so long?” she demanded.

My wife later told me that she thought I had a flat or wiped out. Yes, I was that slow!

While I was getting my running shoes on, Amanda took the initiative and stripped the timing chip from my ankle and put it on her own. She was ready to go!

Time: 1:32
AG (40-44): 3/9
Overall: 72/153
Fastest AG male: 0:44
Fastest Overall: 0:18

Run
I decided to keep her company and we ran out of T2 and began the mile climb to the turnaround point. Our plan was to have Amanda run three minutes and walk two. I was pooped and had planned to walk the first mile and then pick up running once we started going downhill.

However, once Amanda started passing people, she just kept running. I watched in amazement, and a whole lot of pride, as she charged up a hill that nearly everyone was walking up just before the turnaround.

As you can see from this photo at the two-mile mark, the 99-degree heat and unusual humidity was catching up with her and she had to walk most of the last mile. In fact, I’ve never seen so many people walking a run course as I did during this triathlon.

I caught up with her and made our plans for the finish line. She would cross first as the team leader. We picked up our pace and it was just beautiful to watch my daughter cross the finish line of her first triathlon. The cheers of the crowd and having the race director there to shake her hand put a huge grin on her face.

Time: 1:32
AG (40-44): 3/9
Overall: 72/153
Fastest AG male: 0:44
Fastest Overall: 0:18

OVERALL
Time: 2:03:56
AG (40-44): 9/9
Fastest AG male: 1:14:31
Fastest Overall: 58:45

Lessons Learned
1) It helps to actually train before a race. Actually, if you’re training hours for the week are less than it takes to the race itself, don’t expect to do very well.

2) The results don’t mean crap in the end. This was meant to be a fun, father-daughter race and I had no expectations that I would do well. I just wasn’t expecting to suck that much!

3) The nuun Kona Kola I used on the bike and run tasted great and helped to keep me well hydrated throughout the race.

4) Sharing the race, and the camaraderie of triathlon, with my daughter was a great family moment.

5) Kudos for Keith Hughes again for letting us enter the race in our own unofficial category and for giving Amanda an age-group gold medal for completing the race. She brought that medal, as well as the finisher’s medal to school the next day to show everyone.

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak