Steelman Sprint Race Report

The weather forecast for Quakertown’s Steelman Tri leading into the weekend looked fantastic. Moderately warm, dry, sunny…ideal. I hadn’t raced a sprint distance tri since the Harrisburg race in June, so I was quite excited at getting to race near the red again, without having to worry about a long run to sucker punch me at the end. Plus, my good friend and fellow swimmer (San Francisco State and faster than me!) Diz was coming to race as well. It was all set to be great weekend.

But as I lay in the back of my van at a local campground near the race venue I was only seeing many, many reports of foul weather heading our way via the Weather Channel app I had freshly downloaded to my iPhone. Visions of triathlon victory glory were fast giving way to duathlon nightmares. No swim? Run Twice?! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Despite my misgivings, I soon found myself drifting off to the ever louder sound of raindrops on my roof, apprehensive about the next day, but also fully aware that there is not a person on earth with the ability to alter the weather. What the skies held tomorrow was still uncertain, but there was nothing I could do about it.

As expected, 4:50 came around and the skies were not cooperating. Then again, things could certainly have been worse. The rain was falling in a steady drizzle, but there was also no evident thunder and lightning. Best to just head down to the race site and see what was doing…

Fortunately my campsite was only about 2 miles from the venue, so I managed to be one of the first ones there. Since the racks were only numbered by wave, not by individual spot, my early arrival gave me a primo location in an end spot. Why directors don’t put the bike and swim/run entrances and exits at diagonals to make it fair I don’t understand, but I sure wish they would…I could sleep in a bit! However, these directors were about to completely redeem themselves with the following announcement. “The water temperature is 78.4 degrees, so wetsuits are not legal for this race.”

What? Are my ears working correctly? Am I being punked? It sounded like someone actually took a legitimate reading and was following the wetsuit rule properly! Sad that this is a surprising revelation… But sure enough the tri would stay a tri and, even better, have a legit swim! Finally a chance to see if my Sugoi Velocity suit was up to the challenge when not shrouded by a wetsuit.

Of course, even though the water was warm, the air was not! I was very pleased to be in the first wave as standing around waiting for the race to begin in the rain was definitely shiver-inducing! I felt bad for Karen P. who wasn’t due to start for at leats another 20 minutes. Finally, we were given the go ahead to make our way into the water. Interestingly, the Olympic distance race had already started and the sprint swim course was really just the second half of the Olympic one. Should make for an interesting merge!

As the horn sounded about 5 guys jumped and went into a full sprint. I hung in the middle of this mini pack and in 200 yards we were down to three and I sat comfortably in the middle of the two other guys. The one in the lead seemed to be giving it full bore in an effort to drop me, but I found the pace just easy enough that I could hang and wait a bit to see how things would play out. As we hit the second turn buoy that marked the merge with the other course the guy who’d been at the front was clearly hurting and started dropping back quickly. I made my way to the front and soon was picking off people from a later wave of the Olympic distance. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I struggled to find clear gaps amongst the many swimmers who had switched to breaststroke, I was steadily putting time into the rest of my wave. I hit the beach in the lead by about a minute (and finally picking up a long overdue swim prime, as mine was the fastest of the day.) My time of 11:54 leads me to believe the swim was a bit long as even sans wetsuit I should have been in under 10:00, but a quick run through some slick mud and I was off onto a very wet bike ride!

The cool part about Steelman was the closed (and very fast) course. There’s a quick half mile climb out of the park that goes at about 10%, but after that it’s just long rollers on what is essentially a very boring stretch of country road. It certainly would have been faster without all the rain, but I still managed to get some good speed. This seemed to be a popular race and I always assume there’s some kind of crazed super runner just waiting to take me down…so I’d better build any cushion I can.

Now, if I may digress before I continue… How is it that so many (like, half) triathletes cannot seem to grasp the ‘ride to the right’ concept. Seriously. I actually overheard a few racers talking about how they stayed wide because it was hard/took so long to get back to right. I have to say, I ALWAYS move back to the right whenever possible. And it’s extra annoying to when someone is so close to the center as to make passing them properly dangerous. Anyway, I know that no one reading this is causing these issues, but maybe if everyone tells two people at a race word will spread. Back to our regular scheduled programming…

I hit the second turnaround and headed back for the park entrance completely soaked but otherwise feeling good. I picked off a lot of Olympic tri riders, but since I there was no way to distinguish them from the sprinters, I couldn’t tell if there was anyone from my race nearby. Interestingly, when I turned to head back into the park for the run, more than a few volunteers started yelling, “You have to do another lap!” I guess they couldn’t tell the difference between the two races either. This confusion was actually kind of a theme for the day.

In a cool twist, according to all of the past results I’ve found, no one (not even Andrew Yoder when he raced here) has ever gone that fast on the sprint course, so I’m declaring it a new (unofficial) record!

Hit the run feeling good, though again had to ask which way to run on my way out of transition! It’s funny, the Steelman folks sent along a 45 page ‘athletes’ note’ that contained everything EXCEPT maps of the course. Bummer. But I was soon off and running towards the first turnaround which was a ¼ mile down the shore before the course headed back the way it came and into the woods for the last 2 ½ miles. As I passed by transition no one else had started the run so I knew had a buffer of at least three minutes. That was good! I always like to do calculations on the run and I figured that meant that even if I ran 7:00 miles someone would have to hold 6:00s to catch me. But I planned to hold 6:20s…so if I could do that, they’d have to hold 5:20s, and that’s tough for even the fast runners!

Hit the first mile at exactly 6:30, so my plan to negative split was working. Even better, the run to the turnaround was slightly uphill the whole way, which I figured couldn’t hurt this goal. I passed mile 2 with another 6:30 and was still feeling good so I picked it up a bit. Having not raced a sprint since Harrisburg in June, I wasn’t used to having so much spring in my step at the end of a race. It sure was nice! Saw my friend Diz just before the path split to head up towards the finish, and was told by a volunteer that I was at the loop marker for the 10K! I think Diz’s wife Erinn was correct in her assessment, they really didn’t plan on the sprint taking as little time as it did. They simply weren’t expecting us as we neared the finish. This was even more apparent when I had to run behind the three volunteers who were supposed to by signaling the way. I don’t even think they knew I went past! Good thing I checked out the course the day before as I think I might have gone right by the final chute otherwise!

Hit the finish in first but yet another race with no tape. I know it’s lame, but someday I’d like to break through one of those! But, I did win a cool pint glass, which isn’t as nice as a check, but still more useful than a medal or trophy. I do wish they’d given me something to fill it with though…