Ryan Bickerstaff

Nationals were last Saturday, and although I didn’t finish terribly well place-wise, I accomplished the performance targets I was trying to achieve, and I was actually in a position to be competitive going into the run.  Here’s how it played out:

Swim

It was an overcast day at Hagg Lake outside of Portland and in the upper 60’s.  The temperature cutoff for wetsuits is 68 degrees, and it was something like 68.5 degrees.  The water was a bit chilly, especially considering the clouds and air temperature, but I actually prefer not wearing a wetsuit whenever possible, so it worked for me.  There were about 40 men entered and the top 10 got to pick their starting positions on the pontoon first.  Then it was a mad dash to claim the remaining spots.  I ended up somewhere near the middle.  I had a good start and the long straight away before the first turn helped string things out a bit.  I was going hard, but by the time I looked up to sight, the fastest people had already broken away too far over to my left.  It would have been interesting to see if I would have been able to hang with them had I lined up further to the left, but I was keeping a pretty strong effort swimming with a group of 8 or so people.  I was really excited to come out of the water with a number of people that outswam me by 1:00+ minutes last year, including two Olympians - Victor Plata and Jarrod Shoemaker.

T1

There was a steep climb up a boat ramp to the transition area, but I knew that a strong transition and start of the bike would be essential to capitalize on a stronger swim.  I exited transition in about second or third out of the people I came out of the water with and made it up the short steep climb out of the transition area strongly and safely.  Then, I got my feet in my cycling shoes before “settling” into the bike.

Bike

I use the term “settling” lightly, as this bike course was extremely difficult.  It was 8 loops of constant up and down with no real chance to settle into a rhthym.  The course profile didn’t seem so difficult, but I think doing it 8 times over really took its toll.  The second lap was the hardest of the 8 as  the group really pressed the pace up one of the more extended climbs.  I was redlining it for 30+ seconds and almost thought I was going to drop off.  A few did end up dropping off at that point, but I managed to hang on thanks to mental toughness more than anything.  Our group stayed a steady 1:00-1:15 behind the lead group.  It would have been nice to gain time, but at least we weren’t losing any.  There were a couple really strong cyclists in our group, and although they really pressed the pace at points, it made the group effort rather erratic.  We kept going between really hard and moderate rather than a steady hard effort.  After 6 laps it was pretty evident that we weren’t going to catch the lead group and no one in our group was going to break away either, so I tried to rest up a bit in the back of the pack.

T2

I knew that my run wouldn’t be quite up to par, so I wasn’t incredibly concerned with having a super fast transition and fast start to the run.  Going too hard too early on the run doesn’t work well for me most of the time.  That said, I did overshoot my transition spot coming in and that cost me about 5 seconds.

Run

I felt pretty terrible from the very beginning of the run.  Due to the mysterious foot injury I had, my run volume for June, July, August, and September was about half of what it had been the previous 6+ months.  A very uneven up/down course did’nt help things, and I never really got into a rhythym.  I had developed a side stitch during the swim, which didn’t affect things much there or on the bike, but affected my breathing and relaxation on the run.  I couldn’t get good breaths, and my legs were shot, so I more or less jogged the whole 10k.  I ended up finishing 21st.  I think the best I may have been able to finish with how I was feeling on the run was 20th.  A few people in my bike group finished in the top 10, so I’m confident I’ll get there once I have a good block of run training back under my belt.

Overall

Going into the race, I wanted to get out of the water in a strong group and hang on during the bike.  I accomplished those things, and as long as I continue to improve, the run will come back along, and I’ll be in a position to capitalize on the opportunity to be competitive going into the final run segment.

Filed under: Race Recap, Uncategorized