I'm a Storm Trooper and a Cannon owner

If that title didn't grab your attention then you must be lame. If it did and you are expecting a write up about light sabers and death stars then you will be let down. But if you are here to read a mental unloading of my memory from this past weekends triathlon, then you are in luck.

The place is Kingston TN and the event is the Storm the Fort Triathlon. It is an advertised olympic distance tri but it falls short in both the swim and the run. This all took place in East Tennessee. If you are from around here you know how country this was, if you aren't from around here then just insert whatever country sterotype into your mind that you have. I'll give you a picture. While setting up in transition a guy in a truck drove by, he screamed something country that even I couldn't understand. In his truck he had two four wheelers and on his trailer he had what sounded like at least 8 coon dogs. All were barking as if they had caught the scent of a fox in a meadow.

Anyway, I hadn't originally planned on doing this race, but because of some scheduling conflicts I chose to come here instead of a Sunday race, since I had been training for this weekend already. I have raced with Race Day Events before and have experienced courses that are not accurate and have heard many others say the same thing. So even though this was supposed to be a PR weekend for me I knew that there was a big risk that it would have an asterik beside it. Unfortunately it does. I raced a career best time of 2:13, which is 9 minutes off my best correctly timed and measured event. It would be a 7 minute PR if my time had ever been recovered from the Rev3 tri. but that's another story of frustration.

The day started out smooth. I was nervous leading up to Saturday but my nerves always settle on race day. I was calm and lazy almost. Since I wanted to do well and place well I decided to go back to having headphones in. That used to be a staple but in an effort to relax and enjoy racing I hadn't been listening to music this season. But this day the pressure was on. I was going to have fun but I was going to be in fight mode too. Transtion was set up right next to the river so it was easy to look out over the course. When doing so it was clear that the course was short.

The course was short the year before and a lot of people were saying it looked the same as last years. At that point there wasn't anything I could do about it. You just make the best of the day. I was in the first wave which was 40 and under. While everyone in this picture were at the race meeting I was actually in the water warming up. Probably not the best idea as I probably would have know where the bike turn around was had I gone to the meeting. But don't worry we'll get to that.

SWIM - 17:16 (1122 yards) WAY SHORT!

Once in the water it was clear how the day was going to play out. We were not even told here the actual "start line" was. We all just assumed in line with the doc even though there were guys wading out about 20 feet ahead of the "line". We were told with 10 seconds to go to listen for the cannon. When it shot off most weren't even ready. I shot off in a mad sprint. I don't mind mass starts, actually I prefer them. But I'm not about to get caught behind the pack. I sprinted for at least a minute before trying to start settling in. By this time I was somewhere around 6th or 7th. It was hard to tell because I had a guy on both sides of me still. Thanks to my new Garmin 910xt I always know how far I've gone because I have it set to vibrate every 200 yards. So it was just after the 400 yard mark that I had freed myself from the two beside me and I could see 3 to 4 up in front of me. Shortly after 400 we were already turning around the first bouy, it was another 100 or so yards to the second bouy and the turn for home. The finish was maybe 50 yards passed the start "line" so I knew at this point the swim was for sure short. During the two turns I passed two more guys, one had sputtered out and the other had decided to go way wide around the bouys. I had two guys up ahead of me and guessed that they had about a minute on me. No way I was going to make that up and there was no point trying. You can't win a race on the swim for the most part, but you sure can lose a race on the swim. When we reached 800 yards I had made up a little ground, or water I guess. By 1000 yards I guessed that I was now about 30-45 seconds back. Fine with me, I could run them down on the bike. My arms were killing me since I hadn't let up like I usually do. I had let my legs relax a time or two but my arms were going full bore. I ended up coming out of the water third which was really cool. It's the first time I have come out of the water in a good place when starting in a mass start. Gotta thank Blueseventy for the PZ3TX. That thing is the second fastest thing they make with the Helix being the fastest. Can't wait to break that out in Bend!

Coming out of the water. The volunteers had to help because the ground was as slick as ice.

BIKE - 1:10:59 (26.72 miles) LONG 

 I had a great transition and somehow passed somebody in transition. So that just left one guy to run down.

When I got out on the main road I could see the lead rider just going up the hill which was probably 3 tenths of a mile ahead. I chased for a while but eventually over took him 4 miles in. The first few miles were hilly so that slowed me down. I wanted to ride 1 hour flat and once I came off the last hill I laid the hammer down. I was perfectly content to burn my run legs to the ground in an attempt to PR the bike. The course was mostly flat with a few small rollers. The big climbs were at the beginning and end. Well I looked back a few times and never saw anyone. It's the second time I've led the bike portion and it's such a cool feeling. I fed off of it and just kept saying there is no way anyone is catching me, NO WAY! Around mile 12 I hadn't seen a sign or volunteer in quite a while and was starting to wonder if I had missed a turn. We had only made one turn so far it was marked pretty well. Then up ahead I spotted two volunteers sitting in lawn chairs about 20 feet off the side of the road. They were in a parking lot and it looked like they had an aid station set up. Now I had read the race overview and thought I remembered seeing something about a bottle station at the turn around. However, there was no cone or u turn sign and they didn't have any flags and were sitting. I kept looking over waiting to see some type of hand gesture. All I got was a wave as I flew on by. In hindsight I wish I had of yelled out if that was the turnaround. because it was!! As I pushed on I started wondering if I had passed it. When I looked down and saw that I had gone 13.2 miles I knew something wrong. So I looked back, of course no one was there so I figured I had definitely messed up. I pulled a u turn and started heading back. About a minute later I saw the next biker coming. Now I was worried that I hadn't gone far enough and had now short cut the route. Another set of about 5 riders went by and I contemplated making another U turn and following them. But something told me that the bottle station was the correct spot. So I kept on. I decided if I had made the wrong call and had turned around early that I would DQ myself at the end. When the bottle station came into view I was relieved to see bikers making the Uturn. I hadn't short cutted and I could get back to racing and not worrying. The two girls must have let about 10-12 guys go by though. As I was approaching a cop was pulling out of the parking lot heading out to go wrangle the rest of the guys that had gone too far. Unfortunately for them, they went even farther than me. Because they saw me they thought that I had reached a turn around so they kept going. I feel bad that I didn't tell them to turn around as I went by. But I wasn't sure I had made the right move at the time. So I wasn't about to tell a bunch of other folks to turn around and ruin all of our races. At this point I knew my PR was out the window. I assumed I had now added about 4 minutes to my time and I still had the last climb to deal with. But I loved the feeling of leading so I was determined to get that back. Like a shark who had caught the scent of blood. I was on a mission. I tore into my pedals and told myself to just take the cards that were dealt and go all in. Now I don't consider myself a cyclist. I have only been riding for three years actually. But for some reason I find amazing confidence when I'm racing. Even when I know better cyclist are around, for some reason I know I can hang with them. I passed about 8 guys like they were standing still. Each pass bringing more satisfaction and more steam to my engine. When I passed the last guy I was feeling on top of the world. I had passed with much more speed that he was going and knew once again. Nobody was going to catch me today. NOBODY! When I made it to the base of the hill I was happy for all the hills I had been working. This was a steep grade but I was perfectly ok to tackle it. By this time I was about 1.5 miles away from transition. There was a short steep climb then a flat tenth of a mile then a long climb. As I approached the last climb I could tell I was going to have to cross a 4 lane highway but wasn't sure if I was turning or not. There were no markings. But a cop was kind enough to get me a little nod and finger point to let me know I was turning left. It didn't bother himself to get out of his car and actually make sure it was safe for me to cross this four lane though. Don't worry ranger Rick I can do this myself is what I thought. I made sure the road was clear and darted over the right side. I later found out that he didn't help any of the other riders either.

 Coming down the final hill on the way to transition. Getting speed wobbled by the wind at the same time!

As I approached transition I got out of my shoes and slung my leg over my seat so that I was standing just on my left shoe with my right leg hanging off to the side. Now there was a slight downhill right before the dismount line and this is where it all came crashing down....litterally. I'm still not quite sure how it happened. This is just what I think happened. As I went to put my foot down I either hit a bump or I hit the break too hard. I usually give the breaks a squeeze right before I step off the pedal so that the bike doesn't take off on me. Well thanks to my new grips which are quite slippery when wet, my right hand went right off the handle bar and I must have done some kind of ninja roll. Because I hit the ground and rolled and was suddenly back on my feet in a daze. But I was more worried about my bike which I had just heard make the loudest thud ever. As I stood there dazed taking inventory of my body and bike my amazing wife yelled out "You're ok, shake it off!!" Usually I have no clue where Kayla is or even hear her. But somehow this day, hers was the only voice I heard and it snapped me back into gear. I picked my bike up and had to carry it back since the back wheel wasn't rolling. I took my time getting my shoes on as a volunteer checked on me. I told him about the turn around not being run very well, said I was ok, and took off. This is when I noticed the whole crowd going nuts. They wanted me to get going just as badly as Kayla. No matter what your beliefs or political views are, we all deep down inside want to pull for an underdog. We want to see people get knocked down but we want to see them get back up just as bad. That will to fight on is a fun thing to watch. For me it was a reality. I wasn't about to quit. I got my feet moving and that was that. Thank you to Easton Cycling for the amazing EC90 TT wheel and the Attack areo bars. Thank you Dave with ISM saddles for not only the best saddles in the biz but for letting me rep the race tats as well. It was an honor.

RUN 43:07 (5.8 miles) SHORT!

Once onto the run I knew the adrenaline of leading and crashing would carry me for a bit. I decided to go with it. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep the pace but I wanted to try to keep my lead as large as I could. I didn't think anyone could run me down, but I knew most of my legs had been left on the bike course. I would probably not be extending my lead but bleeding it away instead. I clicked off the first mile in 6:50 which was about the time the adrenaline wore off. The first mile was around the edge of the lake. I could look back and see one other runner maybe 1/2 mile or more behind. What a feeling. I thought am I going to win this overall?!?! It was a fun feeling but in looking at my watch I thought there was no way a 2:10 or more would hold up. There were a few steep quick climbs on the run and what seemed like a million turns. There were also more volunteers that were completely clueless. Two different stations asked if they were supposed to hand the water out or let us take it off the tables. I love volunteers, without them a race just doesn't run. But we have to do a better job of educating them. If you are at a key turn in a race you have to know that you CANNOT let people keep going. Yes we are supposed to be educated on the course but most of the time we are not. Anyway, just after mile three I had to take a quit walk break to catch my breath and then get back on it. I made the turn around and was on my way back. After about 4 minutes I passed the first runner, then the second and third and another group of 3. No one was moving any faster or looked any better than me. Which had me confident. I knew I had my age group in the bag, but still doubted that my time would hold up overall. Never the less I kept on. During mile four my GU roctain kicked in. Boy did I surge here. I was feeling great and getting tons of encouragement from the runners coming the other way. This was the section along the lake so it was narrow. Most looked surprised to see me and others looked pumped. Either way I was happy with it and rode the wave of enthusiasm. As I passed back by transition I got more shocked looks. That made me wonder if I had done something wrong, had I missed a turn? It was pretty confusing but There were always volunteers at those spots pointing me in the right direction. But I had noticed that my watch was not lining up with the mile markers anymore. After talking with some other runners who also had 5.8 on their watches. We all pointed out a random set up cones that we had seen at one point off to the side around mile 2. We think we were supposed to have be routed back to those on the way back for a quick little mini turn around before heading across the street and back around the lake. But the volunteers at that point just waved us across the street. Anyway at mile 5 I realized it was mile 5 and told myself just one more mile. My legs were shot and I knew the hills were coming back. It's called Storm the Fort because the finish line is at the entrance of an old fort...AT THE TOP OF A HUGE HILL!!

No this is not a camera trick. This is actually how steep one of the hills in the 6th mile were.

After I gutted out the last hills and saw the fort off in the distance I was so relieved. I just wanted to be done. I had been alone since just past the midway point in the bike. What a cool feeling it was. But I found it mentally draining to constantly have the pressure of knowing everyone was coming for you. I rounded the last corner in the parking lot and head past a little house before making my way up the last hill to the finish.

I crossed the line, nearly threw up, then collasped. I just lay there looking up at the sky recounting what an odd sureal journey I had just made to get to this finish line. I caught my breath then got back to my feet. There Kayla was. She was so excited. Smiling ear to ear she said "You did it!" To which I said something about my bike being jacked up lol. I was immediately more worried about my bike and not excited at about about the race result unfortunately. I think the next finisher showed up about a 2 minutes or so after I did. We stuck around for what seemed like forever for the awards. Eventually my time was replaced by 3 faster times from the wave behind me. Then the what ifs started. I missed 3rd overall by 21 seconds. I easially wasted about a minute with the crash. I missed 2nd overall by a little over 3 minutes. I lost about 4 minutes on the bike. The winner ended up with a 2:09 and change. Had I not gone long on the bike and not crashed. Maybe just maybe I could have won. But we'll never know, and that's ok. I still got one of the coolest trophys ever.

A cannon!!

Hanging out afterward. You can't tell but Kayla was rocking her W top as well.

In the end it was a fun day. My bike was ok. I think. Still need to take it to the shop just in case. I had finally found the podium at the Olympic distance and I had learned a lot about myself. 1) I can go much harder on the bike than I thought and still run fairly decent. 2) I still need to improve my run. 3) You don't get any faster at swimming if you don't ever swim. 4) A race, even a short not run so well race, can be forgiven if the trophy is cool enough!!

Thank you as always to Kayla. You really did keep me going and I really could not have done it without your support!! Thank you to Sean "Wattie" Watkins for this awesome experience. More people were interested in the kit and the team at this race than any of my other races combined. It was great to finally get to promote you and your vision. Thanks to all my Wattie teammates who have provided great encouragement and support during this up and down season and my struggle with burnout. Without all of you my season would have been over already.

Hope you enjoyed the read!!

"Stay Stubborn, Don't Quit" - my road id