There’s something about your first race. Technically the Grand Columbian Half Iron two years ago wasn’t my first triathlon I had done a sprint a few weeks before but I don’t count that because it was a comedy of errors. So I’ve returned to the race every year since. The race is in the tiny community of Grand Coulee, Washington home to largest concrete dam in North America, 3rd largest producer of electricity in the world, and home to a bitchin’ weekly laser light show which is projected on the face of the dam. Other things about the area, there is no McDonalds or Starbucks, the roads are mostly chip seal (rough roads), it’s hot and it can be seriously windy.
The last couple of weeks have been higher volume with lots of high intensity and like the Hawaii 70.3 race there was no taper to this race. In fact just a couple days earlier I had run a 1:28 half marathon in training. My legs were feeling pretty cooked coming into this race, despite this I was very hopeful of a good performance here and was really hoping for a top 10 performance. Glancing through the race program at the list of names two below me Tom Evans, what the….!!!!!! Ok, what the heck is Tom racing here, give the little guy a chance (Tom won IMCDA earlier this year). There’s no pro division at this race and to add insult to injury Tom races in my age group. As it turns out there were a whole bunch of great athletes here I just didn’t recognize all of the names which I think is a reflection of the challenge of the race, it’s a great prep race for IM AZ, FL and Hawaii for NW athletes as it’s the last local half of the season.
The race start for the Half is later (9:30) which is great. You don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to start fueling and getting down to the race start. This will probably change next year as this was the last year for the Iron distance race. I got up managed and got about 600 calories in then I shuttled my car to the finish and rode my cross bike back up to my motel about 3 miles away it was a great little spin to warm the muscles. I got my race gear packed into my sling bag and hopped on my bike and rode over to the race start. I got my bike racked yep, right next to Tom’s bike and got body marked an dropped off my transition bags (two different transitions). I got into my wetsuit and got into the water for a little warm up.
The swim course is great it’s a counter clockwise triangle course. The race director has developed a reputation for making the swim course to long. This year he fixed that by adding a guide line for the entire course. So basically he has a rope that goes from buoy to buoy about 6 feet below the surface which marks the course to ensure the correct distance and to attach the sighting buoys to. This is awesome it’s like swimming in the pool just swim right along the rope and you’re on the right course. Swim race plan with my coach swim hard, I had actually taken this a step further, race the swim, this has been a foreign concept to me as mostly it’s just been about getting around the course with no concern for what others are doing. My swimming has been great lately and I have a whole new confidence in my swim ability and fitness after some great swim workouts of late so time to race.
I managed to find Tom Evans and positioned myself right behind Tom Evans, time to get off to a fast start. The gun fired and we were off, I took a quick look at about 20 yards and well staying on Tom’s feet probably only lasted 10 yards because he was already 15 yards ahead of me, oh well, one can dream (and swim more laps). I felt like I was only about in the first half of the field as we moved towards the first turn buoy and was swimming in a core group of about 8 swimmers. As we turned I locked onto some feet right in front of me and one guy just off to my right and kept my eyes on the guideline. I was really in a rhythm and felt like I was just gliding along effortlessly in the draft. Things continued after the second turn. My rhythm was great as I sighted the final buoy making the finish of the swim about 200 yards I picked up my stroke rate a notch and quickly pulled away from the two guys I had been swimming with. As I came out of the water I checked my watch. 27:30!!!! It makes me giddy just thinking about it. It’s amazing how fast you can run up a hill to transition after a good swim. Things were off to a great start and I was in 26th in the swim and had an quick uneventful transition to the bike.
Now this bike course is brutal aside from the rough roads there is an estimated 4600-5000 feet of ascending including the Almira grade which you hit at mile 1.5 and climbs 2.2 miles with 1200 feet of altitude gain (up to 23% grade in sections). This is followed by miles of seemingly endless rolling hills and finally a 10 miles climb (with a few short descents mixed into the climb. Finally you get a chance to fly back down to Grand Coulee and across the Grand Coulee Dam (only time anyone is allowed to cross the dam).
The game plan for the bike was to build as the bike went on. I’ll be straight up honest. The Almira grade is my worst nightmare and I’ve learned that the bike race doesn’t start until the top of the climb. A few riders passed me on the climb and I knew I’d likely be seeing them again on the backside of the ride. The grade actually went much better than ever before, I think last year I actually was happy to riding up at 4 mph at points, this year I don’t think I ever dropped below 8 mph. At the top I begun to kick it into gear and get my legs spinning. I was already on my hydration and nutrition. At just past 6 miles my contact lens rolled up into my eye. Oh man…it’s going to be a long day. I know from experience that the only thing I could do would be to have mirror to get it back correctly so I could see, so the rest of the race would be raced half blind.
I started catching some of the guys that passed me on the climb. By mile 20 I was starting to get into my rhythm. I flew through the town of Almira and started the long grinding climb. The wind was buffeting the riders on and off for miles on the climb but not like two years ago, I traded places with a few riders back and forth until the end of the climb. Finally I made my way back to Hwy 155 to start the screaming descent back to Grand Coulee. I love descending, I love to go fast. I was holding between 45-50 mph for the 8 mile descent trying to clear a path through the Olympic distance riders.
I was checking my watch but didn’t think I was having a particularly good ride but as I hit the end of the dam and had about a mile to go to transition I checked and was going to finish near 2:40 which is a pretty solid effort on this course. I finished up the ride in 2:41:06 (20.9 mph average) with the 23rd fastest bike split and 13 minutes faster than my split two years ago (when I had the 20th fastest bike split, a testament to this race drawing much faster racers).
Off the bike I didn’t know how the run would go. I felt pretty good but it was hot and my legs were cooked from the last few weeks of training. The run is down below the dam in the canyon and is run on a gravel road/trail and it’s stifling hot and the aid stations are not frequent every 1.5 to 2 miles apart. The game plan with my coach was to pin the run. Go hard. I quickly got into my shoes and out on the run and pulled the pin and was off. We were mixed in with the Olympic distance athletes so it was difficult to tell where you were overall. The first mile went by in 6:35 but I could tell I didn’t have much umph left in my legs so I just made sure I kept my arm cadence high and turnover high. Mile two went buy in 7:10. I kept a mid 7 minute mile pace through 8 miles and then the grenade which had pulled the pin on exploded , now my legs were long gone by that point so I would have made it home averaging around 7:30/mile but the intestinal cramps would bring me to a dead stop and I did my best to walk them out but usually within a minute of running again they would return. This was the first time I’m had gotten cramps and I’ll have to figure out what may have caused them but I guess if you race enough eventually it’ll happen. The heat was stifling almost suffocating. I managed to jog up the hill to the finish and came across the line in 4:56:55 in 22nd place overall and 3rd in my age group (40-44 as they were using USAT rules so I was aged up due to my birthday happening this calendar year). I was actually 5th but was awarded 3rd only because 2 of the top 3 were awarded overall place finishing places.
Overall I was pretty happy with the race despite the poor run (1:44:42). A few more weeks of training till Kona and I’m hoping I have a much better run experience in the lava fields or it’s going to be a long day on the run. I saw Tom after the race and chatted for a moment and asked him why he was racing at this little race and his response, “It’s a great race, tough but great”. I asked if he was racing Kona and said “nope I need a break from Kona, I’m racing Florida”. I wished him all the best. By the way he finished 2nd at this race behind a fellow Penticton triathlete. All in all, a good tough, honest day.
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