The Real World

Shawn Jackson Race Report: August 14 and 15, 2010

When racing you always want to put your best foot forward. Do things like drink a lot of water, eat right and get plenty of rest. Well sometimes your work can take a turn at the end of the week leaving you exhausted. Construction in the summer time can do that to you. So that was my X factor this past weekend. I was rolling into back to back races not knowing what to expect from my body. All I could hope for was I didn't BONK!!!

Saturday morning was the 4th Annual SBR #2 Triathlon at Lake Sebago in Harriman State Park. The race consisted of a 1/2 mi swim, 16 mi bike and 3.1 mi trail run. While in transition getting set up before the race I hear the buzz that they weren't allowing wetsuits for the swim. Supposedly the water was 80 degrees and that's USAT rules. Well it was the coldest 80 degrees I've ever felt but what's fair is fair. Swim started out not so well, my wave was 35 years and under and it seemed like as soon as everyone touched the water they just started sprinting. So after the first 100 meters I was about 50th place wondering what the heck was going on here. I patiently just kept my pace and one by one just kept moving my way up. I exited the water somewhere in the top ten and left transition about 5th. About 5 miles into the race I passed first place and it was just me and the pace car. About 5 miles later I get passed. As I was aproaching the major climb of the race I could hear spectators applauding for me and the 20 seconds later someone else. So I new there wasn't a big margin. But then the unexpected happened. Some guy came by me about 40 seconds later going twice as fast as I was, just mashing his pedals and standing up the entire 1 1/2 mile hill. Talk about demoralizing. He started 3 minutes back on wave 2. Turns out his bike split was 5 minutes faster than mine and he was on a conventional road bike with just reg road bars. I feel his bike needs to get X-rayed, stat! What a machine that guy was! The run was an out and back on jeep trails so I was able to key off the other front runners and it seemed like I held my own. One other guy from wave 2 had an amazing run and ended up catching me on corrected time. So I ended up with 4th overall, 1st in my age group.
Time to rehydrate, rest and refuel for tomorrow.

Sunday's race was NYTri at Lake Sebago as well. All the distances were approx the same, just the bike course is reversed and the run is on the roads. For this swim we were allowed wetsuits but I wasn't fortunate enough to start on the first wave. I went off on the third wave and just worked my way through slower traffic and had a clean swim. Hopped on my bike and just rode my own race, kept plugging away passing people. As I was coming into transition I was able to see a majority of the people that were ahead of me, even though there was a mix of tri and bi competitors. I saw Mike Tanzi leading the way with two other racers breathing down his neck. But he held them off for the win. GO TANZI!! My run went well. Just over 6 min miles, which is good for me. I crossed the finish line 4th overall getting beat out by 2 seconds to 3rd place and 50 seconds to 2nd.
So I ended up with two 4th place finishes, two tired arms and two smoked legs and one good weekend of training. I will make it all count in september at Lake George Olympic tri.
Next races coming up are Frost Valley Sprint tri Aug 29 and Battle at Battenfeld which is a stage race like SOS the week after.
Woodsy