Sunday, July 15, 2018

Cactus Man Sprint Race Report






















I signed up for the Cactus Man Sprint thinking it would be fun after doing the California half ironman. Sprints are short and fast--go hard as possible, then collapse. Then I got injured in training and as a result ruined the half iron. Who the hell gets injured on a bike ride without crashing? The goal became to just hold off collapsing until AFTER finishing.

After the California race, even a three mile run was questionable, because it hurt. A lot, as in being barely able to hobble. How fast I had gone from fit to pathetic. Having a low opinion of people who merely walk for exercise, I was a now a failure at even that. Was I getting weak and old? Just doing a aquabike might be an option, but it seemed pointless for a sprint. An Olympic aquabike would cost more at this late date, so I just settled on risking a run with the regular sprint.

The Tuesday before the race, I managed to run three miles at a blazing 14:38 per mile pace. Two miles had been my maximum all month. My hips, groin and gluts hurt constantly, but the pain was manageable. It was do or die, so I did it. The worse time it could be in the race was a forty-five minute run or an hour walk. I would finish eventually, somehow.

The night before the race, I couldn’t sleep well, because the moon was full and rudely shined too much light in my bedroom. My brain would make any excuse to keep me up, talking incessantly about things that might happen. Shut up, already!

At the race site outside Tempe Center for the Arts in the pre-dawn hour, my mood was cranky. I was tired, nervous and irritable and all the people made it worse. They were everywhere, along with their dogs. I was stuck in a long porta-potty line behind a man, his son and a hyper dog.  If a dog can’t act properly in public, why bring it? Dogs are like children. They are cute to look at, but the frenetic behavior is irritating--dashing all over the place, sniffing butts, barking and being generally obnoxious. Please just go away.

To get into the lake, we were supposed to hurry down a ramp and jump in. I wasn’t having any of that.  The ramp ended in shallow water with hidden rocks and any step in the murky water was treacherous until the ramp was cleared. It was hazardous to toes and other body parts. I got in slowly without incident.

Since a sprint swim is only 750 meters, I assumed that the swim would be “easy.” Usually I am in the last wave and everyone is ahead of me. The first half was fine. My full wetsuit was a little too warm, but wearing it beat drowning. Swimmers clogged the lake, zigzagged and occasionally one would get in my way, but for the most part, it was nonviolent.
It's a jungle out there


I tooled steadily along, not enjoying myself and wished to be anywhere else, but I was still calm. In the last half of the swim, though, large groups of swimmers stormed through like a herd of elephants. The earlier Olympic waves ran into the sprint waves and they didn’t care who was in the way. A triathlon swim was an excuse to be rude. I got hit a few times, pushed under and kicked. There was nowhere to swim in peace and no escape. The battling hordes made the water choppy. This was not my usual lonely swim and being this physical did not improve my mood. I cussed a lot.

Getting out of the water was a relief. Surviving the swim was always a sense of accomplishment for me. I had 23:39 on my Garmin, which was about my usual time. Transition was empty of bikes, which was typical for me, but I didn’t care. Hopefully, the swim warriors were already well through the bike course and wouldn’t bother me.   

How my body would react to riding my bike hard was an unknown. I wanted to go fast on the bike, but was cautious. The whole point of a sprint is being able to bike with abandon, but I didn’t want to aggravate my injury. My rear end and upper hamstrings were still hurt, so I didn’t push as much as normal. I felt good and it wasn’t too hot yet, which spared my body from cooking.  

The bike course was flattish, with a million u-turns that went through the streets of Tempe in similar versions of every other Tempe race. It wasn’t too bad for the first and only lap for the sprint, but the two laps of the Olympic would have been boring.

Overall, it went smoothly. No crashes, no people riding side by side blocking the way, no flat tires. The Curry hill climb didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would, a mere bump compared to the Oceanside monstrosities, which could eat Tempe hills for breakfast. It was fine by me.

I finished the bike and wondered what world of pain I was about to enter. I soon found out. Every step of the run was a stabbing pain in my rear end, but I was doing it. Running was much better than the hobbling walk I was doing a few weeks ago. I didn’t think about it or how far the run was. I just took it moment by moment and kept moving. Twelve minute miles was much slower than normal, but was better than anticipated. I was grateful just to be able to do it, even though my time sucked. I didn’t podium or anything, but at least broke two hours with 1:59.

Finally, a race I didn’t screw up. No getting lost, no tripping and ER visits, no stitches, no new injuries, no DNF’s; unlike the races of the last nine months. I had actually finished the damn thing. Maybe the black cloud of bodily misfortunes had lifted. If only the knives would stop stabbing my posterior and running wasn’t a argument between muscles and joints. 




No comments:

Post a Comment