A coach's perspective on Quassy

A few more pointers from my coach on Quassy (more for my own benefit than anything else).

1.  Pedal through the top of the hill.  The image here shows the course elevation in green, my speed in blue and my power in pink.  As you can see at the highest point of that climb, my power is 0.  This means I crested and then immediately took a break.  I need to continue to keep the power up until at my desired cadence and speed, I can no longer apply pressure.

2.  My average heart rate was lower on this ride than planned, again supporting the above point.  Keep the pressure on.

3.  Really, truly walk through the transitions before the race.  Figure out where you're coming out of the water, practice finding the rack from both the swim entrance and the bike entrance.  No reason to loose seconds here.  Also I just bought some cheap bright green towels to mark my transition.

4.  Keep my feet behind me when running downhill.  I was definitely aware that as I ran downhill, I was not cruising, I was clomping.  My coach reminded me of how to float, by not extending my foot out in front where it will put on the brakes, but instead to slow by changing my cadence.  I'm definitely going to need to practice this in the upcoming weeks.  Maybe on my zone 2 runs.

5.  Never count myself out.  You just don't know what's going to happen in a race.  That girl that passed me on the bike may not have the legs to finish the run strong.  Stick to my plan and put in the best race I can.

Quassy! Quassy! Quassy! Oy! Oy! Oy!

Drenched.  Sodden.  Soggy.  Sopping.  Soaked.  It was a wet one.

Quassy swim

The swim went well.  I felt good.  Found clear water and caught up with slower swimmers from earlier waves.  The course was a little funky.  They had many buoys on the course but only two of them were turn buoys.  The others were "guide" buoys that you didn't have to keep to one side or the other.  When I rounded the second turn, I sighted the finish arch and swam towards it.  But the closer I got, the more it seemed like there were fewer swimmers around me.  Then I noticed I didn't see any one coming out of the water.  Not a good sign.  Then I realized I was swimming toward the starting arch, not the finish. You can see in my gps where I realized my mistake.  Luckily, they weren't that far apart.  According to garmin, I swam an extra ~100m.

The ride was tough.  Not just because of the elevation (which is decidedly the toughest ride I'll have all season).  I got overtaken by a few girls in my age group in the first few miles and that was disheartening.  And then the rain.  It had started and stopped all morning, but it seemed just as I hit the BIG downhill the skies opened up.  The bike was treacherous.  At 56 degrees and max speeds in the high 30s, I got cold, even with my jacket.  The bike was also tough because I'd been thinking of this race as a proving ground for all the training I've done since October.  To get out there and not have it go well undermined my confidence in that training.  Really, I just wanted to be off my bike.  To the point that when I returned to Boston, I put Shelby (the tri bike) in the basement and opted for the old Stallion for my recovery ride.

The appeal of throwing in the towel after such a disappointing ride was strong, but I didn't go to this race to quit.  I got running.  I had been caught by two girls in my age group right at the end of the bike, so they were my first goals.  I caught the first one right outside of transition, and the second before the first turn.  From there I started thinking about redemption.  My mantra was "I am going to salvage this race."  At mile two, there was a little out and back, and I saw my teammate J.  Sorry, J, but there was a target on your back from that point on.  The mantra became "Four miles to catch J," then "Three miles to catch J," finally, "Two miles to catch J."  And at mile five, I caught her.  We ran together for a bit, and then I moved on, up the last hill and to the finish.

I hit the finish line and burst into tears.  The combination of a disappointing ride and the pride at having a killer run was overwhelming.

In the days since the race, I'm feeling better about it.  The bike was wet, and the competition was fierce, but those things are out of my control.  What I could control was my approach to that final run, and I'm really proud that I dug deep and busted out a near PR on a hilly course.

A few parting thoughts about the race itself.  This is the first Rev 3 race I've done.  I really like the idea of another organization giving WTC a run for their money, getting a stacked pro field out there and running a super fun race.  I thought they rolled with the punches pretty well (not much you can do about the entire finishers chute becoming a giant mud pit, or your distributor not getting you the swim caps on time).  I have one suggestion for improvement though.  Rev 3 needs better signage.  During registration it was not at all clear that there were 3 steps, where the next step went, etc.  As a spectator on Sunday, there were no signs to the satellite parking, and when I did find it and took the shuttle back to the course the pick up was different from the drop off, and again no signs.  In transition, although this individual rack spots were labeled with both number and name, the ends of each rack were not, and it was challenging to locate which rack your bike was on.  So, yeah, overdo it on the signs.

And now it's time to go ride some hills.

Race day motivation

You're going to dominate those hills, keep perfect tabs on your HR via your gel flasks, take in all of your nutrition at the appropriate times,and master those silly little water pouches.

Kill it.

-R 

Quassy Race Plan: New Beginnings

It's almost here, and I'm getting excited.  I wasn't feeling much anticipation for the race last week, but then I made my race day spreadsheet and started practicing my transitions (bike mounts and dismounts, hitting the lap button on my watch, trying out different hair styles [my hair is long enough for braids again, my historical go-to style, but they are a pain in the butt to do at 4am, and I can never seem to get them tight enough, but of course going for the short hair option of two little piggies and a pony sometimes creates hot spots on my head, and requires that I fish the pony through my helmet in transition] - yeah, you can see why I need to practice).  I'm feeling ready.

This is my first attempt at this race.  I did the Pat Griskus last year, which has the same transition area but  different bike and run courses, so they're not comparable. 

Quassy Bike Elevation

Quassy Run Elevation

I don't have specific time goals for the race cause the course is HILLY, far too hilly for PRs.  But that said, I'm anxious to see what I can do with the training base I've built over the last 9 months with my coach.

Generally, I'm a slave to my Garmin.  I use alerts to tell me when I'm going too fast, not working hard enough, or when it's time to eat.  At the Newton Chilly Half, I used both the virtual partner and the HR alerts.  And you know what, it might have been technology overkill (Sacrilege!).  This time around, with my new Garmin 910XT, I'm only going to use the time alerts to remind me to take some gel.  But of course, I still have heart rates and power numbers and paces and cadence all to keep track of.  And somehow once I get moving, my ability to remember numbers completely goes out the window.  My solution:  numbers on my gel flasks.  I have separate ones for bike and run each with the relevant numbers for their sports.  We'll see how this works out, or if they're impossible to read in the heat of the moment.

 

The other element that has been occupying my pre-race brain is the temperature of the swim.  Two weeks ago, I went out to Walden for a swim.  The water temperature was roughly 58 degrees, and I got cold.  Really cold.  It reminded me of Mooseman last year, which just happens to be this same weekend.  After the swim, I put on pants and a jacket.  I stood in the sun.  I tried jogging in place.  I would still get these bouts of shivers.  I futzed around for almost an hour waiting for my body to warm back up before I went on my run.  And even then I didn't feel fully recovered until 20 minutes into my run.  I spoke with my coach about it and he pointed out that I can lose a lot of heat from my core because I have a sleeveless wetsuit.  I'm not ready to buy another wetsuit (this sport is so damn expensive, why couldn't I choose just one discipline!) For this race, I've borrowed a full wetsuit from a teammate, but as of two days ago the water temperature at Quassy was 67 at the race course.  And last weekend I went back to Walden and swam in my own sleeveless suit with no trouble at all.  So I'm leaving the suit choice up to a game-time decision.  On the one hand, I won't get cold in the full suit and air temperatures are slated to be in the low 60s, so a little extra heat generated on the swim wouldn't be a bad thing.  On the other, it's just nice to race in my own kit.

One other point:  I read through the athlete guide, and it looks like they won't be having traditional water stops on the course.  Instead there will be pouches of water.   8oz pouches of water.  I can see the appeal of this to the organizers: 1) sponsors 2) no concern about contamination 3) easier on the volunteers.  But as an athlete, I don't want 8 oz in one go.  I don't want to have to carefully tear open a pouch just enough to get to the water, but not so much that I create a water balloon explosion.  They say never try anything new on race day, but it seems this one is out of my control.

Well, that's it.  Time to go out, have fun and get faster with each and every stroke and step.