Ryan Bickerstaff

I flew into Oklahoma City for the Pan American Championships on Wednesday May 13, my birthday.  Being able to race was up in the air until the last minute due to the ITU qualification procedures.  Basically, there are 75 starting positions allocated across countries from North, Central, and South America.  The problem was that there were 40+ guys from the United States who wanted to race and there were not enough starting positions to go around.  I didn’t make the initial cut based on World Ranking but was pretty sure not everyone who entered would show up.  As it turned out, there were only around 55 guys that showed up, so there was more than enough room for me, and every other US athlete that missed out probably could have raced as well.  Anyway, I was really happy to race since it was the race I had been focusing on for the past 6 months.

Swim
The swim was in the Oklahoma River - drainage ditch turned into a river a few years ago.  They have world class rowing events in this body of water, but this was the first swimming event they had held.  Considering I got one of the last starting positions available, I felt like I had a pretty good start.  I went out strong, but a gap to the leaders opened up after the first set of turns around 300m in.  There were two other guys around me at the time (I think Manny Huerta and Victor Plata), so I just dropped backa bit and drafted off of them.  The rest of the swim actually felt pretty relaxed, and although I missed the main lead pack, I came out at the front of the main chase pack.

Bike
I had a good transition and got on my bike pretty well.  There was a large group of athletes behind me, which turned out to be good because I hadn’t setup my bike shoes right, and it tooka little more effort to get my feet inside.  It was a 4 loop course around the state capitol and the first lap or two were pretty hard.  There were about 5 guys off the front of the main pack, but our group was gradually chasing down the main pack.  With about 5k to go on the bike we caught the main pack, and it was a pretty easy ride after that.

Run
Unfortunately, I worked a bit too hard on the bike despite my best intentions and was cramping up even at the end of the bike.  The entire run was basically a concious effort to not cross over the threshold where my hamstrings and quads would just seize up entirely.  It felt like a jog, but I just couldn’t go any faster.

Overall
Part of the problem with the race probably related to my nutrition during the day.  The race started at 4pm, and it was hard to figure out when and how much to eat and drink.  I think I drank too much coffee in the morning and didn’t digest things as fast I thought I would.  In the end, I finished 29th place.  Place-wise, it wasn’t what I wanted, but I accomplished a lot and was really pleased with a couple things.  First, I had a pretty fast swim, finishing ahead of a lot of people and not feeling like the 1500m was too long a distance (great endurance base).  The only thing keeping me out of that main group from the beginning was a faster 300-500m swim start.  Second, I finished the bike with the main pack.  Although I wasn’t able to take advantage, I was finally in a position to be competitive at the start of the run.  With a strong run, I could have easily been in the top 10, and that would have been a great result.

Filed under: Race Recap