Ryan Bickerstaff

I just returned from the Musselman Continental Cup, and the race went pretty well, all things considering. Overall, I was just about 30 seconds off in the swim from making the lead bike pack. With that swim and not having the foot injury, I think my actual 14th place could have turned into a 4th or maybe even 3rd, so that’s a good sign for the future. Even with the race I had, I wasn’t passed after exiting the swim and only improved in place. Race results are here. Of notice is the fact that out of the 39 men starting, only 25 finished. It was a pretty hot day - 90 degree heat and higher humidity thanks to the 2pm start time. Several of the athletes that didn’t get lapped out on the bike had to drop out in the run due to various reasons.

Travel

Getting to the race was a little hectic. I flew on Northwest on Thursday from San Francisco to Rochester via Minneapolis. I needed to get a rental car, and all the rental car companies close at midnight. So, I paid a bit more to get into Rochester at 10:15pm. With an hour drive to Geneva, I wouldn’t be getting to my destination at too late of an hour. Unfortunately, the flight out of Minneapolis was delayed over 2 hours, so I ended up getting in really late. Fortunately, it turns out that Avis will wait for you if your flight is delayed, so I didn’t need to sleep at the airport or get a hotel room.

Pre-Race

After getting into Geneva at 2am, I got a pretty good nights sleep at the Athlete’s House. The race organizers are really nice and put up a bunch of athletes at an old faculty house turned dormitory on the local Hobart & William Smith College campus. At the pre-race briefing on Friday not much was changed from the year before. The only differences were that the swim was starting on the other side of the dock, the bike was changed to 7 longer loops compared to the 8 shorter loops last year, and the 6 loop run went the opposite direction. With a 2pm start, there was plenty of time to sleep in, get a good breakfast, and loosen up beforehand. I did one loop on the bike, about a 10 minute swim, and 3 minute run (foot still hurt, so going easy).

Swim

The start of the swim is key in these types of races. It’s basically an all out effort for 25m, hold on as fast as you can for 50m, then 100m, then 200m to the first turn before the pace starts to settle in once people have position. About a third of the way through the swim, I caught a break. The leaders started swimming towards the exit buoy, which was about 30 degrees in the wrong direction. I did a double take and realized the field was going the wrong way, so I sped up a bit and tried to get to the right buoy as soon as possible. I may have relaxed a bit too early thinking I could go easier and still have a good position. I got on someone’s feet and stayed on them through the rest of the swim. I felt nice and controlled, but unfortunately, a ~30s gap opened up from the main group of lead swimmers.


T1

I sprinted as fast as I could through the first transition, hoping to make up time and latch on to the rear of the lead group. It was great to go through transition and actually see other bikes still there - 15 or so, I think, and some were ranked in the top 10 going into the race!


Bike

The first loop of the bike was utter torture. In a non-drafting race you can pace yourself, but in drafting races, position is so awfully important, that you have to move up as much as possible as soon as possible. I could see the group 30s ahead but don’t have the strength to bridge that gap on my own right now. I rode hard with Brad Zoller and we gradually gained and lost others as some of the original leaders dropped off the pace of the lead pack. With only a few people to work with compared to 20 in the main pack, we lost time - 4:00 to the two leaders and 3:00 to the main pack by the conclusion. I think most of that time lost happened in 2-3 of the 7 laps where we got a little complacent with the pace, but there isn’t much you can do in cases like that.


T2 and Run

I was totally spent by the end of the bike and knew the heat combined with only running outside a couple times in the previous 4 weeks was going to cause some problems. I started out pretty slow and was probably only at 7:00 or so for the first mile. At the end of each lap there was cold water and sponges, which really saved me. I felt a lot more refreshed after the first lap and picked up the pace. My final run split was at 6:00 pace, so I definitely got faster. The first couple of laps were tough mentally, but the last half went by pretty quick. My left hamstring started to cramp up the last 1.5 miles, but I worked with it as best I could. I was really happy with the last half mile where there was a competitor about 50m ahead of me, but I couldn’t speed up easily because my hamstring was ready to go at any moment. I got pretty focused and managed to pass the one competitor I could with an interesting sprint/hobble/limp running form.



Post Race

Although completely spent after the race, I actually felt pretty good. My parents had flown out to watch the race, and I took a couple vacation days from work to spend some more time sight-seeing after the race. I just did ~30 minutes of exercise on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday mornings before exploring. On Sunday we went wine-tasting in the Finger Lakes region just south of Geneva. Apparently, it’s the second largest wine making region in the United States, and I think we went through about 30 different wines between 3 different wineries. On Monday, we drove down to Corning, NY to visit the Corning Glass Museum. It was an interesting place with a few pretty amazing live demos. I even got to make my own glass blowing holiday ornament, colored and all. We were all flying out Tuesday afternoon, so there wasn’t much time, but we did go to the George Eastman House (of Eastmon/Kodak fame) in Rochester. I had been last year briefly, but there were some new exhibits, and I got to see more of the outside this time.

Flight Home

I flew back on Continental this time and didn’t have any major delay issues. The only bad thing was waiting 40 minutes after the flight landed for them to bring out my bike box that I paid $100 for special “hand-delivery” according to one of the employees. I was back home in bed by 1am, slept in a bit, went to work, and then did some strength training before swim practice.

Training

I’ll spend most of the rest of the week making sure I’m recovered from the race by doing some more aerobic training before resuming race-specific training to prepare for Nationals in September. My foot started hurting again by the second run off the G-Trainer, but I made it through the race. It’s an interesting injury in that it hurts pretty bad, but after 10 minutes or so of running, the pain seems to go away until an hour or so after stopping. I need to let it rest some and come back a little slower this time, so I’ll probably try some aqua jogging for the next week and hopefully get back in to see the doctor, too.

Filed under: Race Recap