Race Coverage
"I Wasn't Even Drunk Yet".....
-
Thursday, 05 July 2012 02:30
Apple Duathlon Report (Blogged on June 23)
By Matthew Payne (matthew-payne.blogspot.com)
I'm behind schedule again. Weird, I know. I've actually raced twice since my last update: Apple Duathlon and Trinona Triathlon. This one will cover Apple. I'll write up Trinona at some unspecified later date. It may be out of order since the annual Lake Waconia throwdown is tomorrow and I'll probably write about that one while it's still fresh.
The Pre-Race Jams
Stabbing the Drama by Soilwork. This is like the Chipotle steak burrito of metal records. Sure, you could go to some little hole in the wall mom and pop Mexican joint on .... Central Ave. and possibly get a far superior burrito, but you might also get norovirus and spend the next 24 hours hunched over the toilet. It's a high risk/high reward situation. Instead you could play it safe and go to Chipotle, spend your 7 bucks, and get the same burrito you've had a billion times before. No surprises, just 1200 delicious calories in a neat little foil package. Stabbing the Drama is like that. There's nothing on here that really blows my mind, but it's still a staple of my diet and I find myself listening to it several times a week.
Apple Duathlon
I registered for this one 3 days prior to the race from a hotel room in Key West, FL, about 72 hours post-Florida 70.3 I don't know what I was thinking. It was the middle of the afternoon. I wasn't even drunk yet. All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Since I was on vacation between the two races I can't say I didn't take my recovery easily. I went for 2 slow jogs totaling about 8 miles and that's it. Zero bike rides, zero swims. So I showed up at Apple feeling reasonably decent. That lasted until about 400m into the first run, when my calves started feeling really tight. Luckily it was just the "really fucking sore" brand of tight and not the "stop right now you dumbass, you're injured" brand of tight. I kept plugging away and made it through the first 5K in 16:22, which was good for 6th.
Once out on the bike I quickly made my way up into 4th within the first couple miles. At about mile 6 or so I caught up to Chad Millner and drilled it up a hill to try to put a good gap on him. It worked as I didn't see him for the rest of the ride. Not too long after passing Chad I finally caught sight of Patrick in the lead with Jesson Baumgartner not too far behind.
Jesson is a med student from Iowa who ran CC in college. He also competed at Duathlon Nationals in Tucson back in April and crossed the line in 3rd, about a minute ahead of me. He ran afoul of the referees somewhere along the line though and collected some penalty minutes which backdoored me onto the podium. We chatted a little before the start at Apple and it turns out the referees never told him what he was penalized for and they didn't post a penalty sheet anywhere after the race. I highly doubt it was drafting since according to the results nobody who was riding near the same speed as him would've 
been anywhere near him during the ride, so I'm guessing it was something silly like going on the wrong side of a cone at a turn (which was ridiculously easy to do at Nationals the way they had the course set up). So it's overwhelmingly likely he got completely jobbed out of a podium spot at Nationals. He was in pretty good spirits about it whereas I would've been super duper Hulk-smash pissed in that situation. So he passes the nice-guy test anyway.
I gradually reeled Jesson in over the remainder of the ride and came into transition about 5 seconds back. I had one of my better transitions ever and got out about 10 seconds in front of him. However, I managed to crash spectacularly on the timing mat at the run out. It had started raining with about 5 miles left in the bike and was coming down pretty steadily by the time we made it back to transition. Turns out those rubber mats are slippery little bastards in the rain and I came down pretty hard on my right knee. When I got back up and set out on the run something was definitely not right with that knee. I honestly thought about just pulling out of the race right there, but I looked back at transition and saw that nobody else had come in yet, so even slightly gimped I was still looking good for the podium so I decided to stick it out.
I was still running pretty gingerly up the hill leading out of T2 when Jesson flew by me on his was to the fastest run split of the day. Luckily for me the knee loosened up a bit after about a mile and I was able to pick up the pace a bit on the backstretch. I looked back on every single corner and even a couple times on the long backstretch straightaway, but I never saw anyone gaining on me so I had the luxury of not having to push too hard. I eventually crossed the line in 3rd limping and damn near hypothermic in the pouring rain.
So, moral of the story... racing a duathlon six days after a half Ironman is most definitely a stupid idea, but I didn't die and the injuries weren't permanent, so all's well that ends well.
