Griskus Olympic Race Report

I had a very interesting week leading into the race. I was still carrying a serious cough hangover following REV3 at the beginning of the week. I did a swim workout with my friends, Showky and Ian on Tuesday that actually went well. However, I was coughing under the water during the intervals.

I went to sleep early on Tuesday night and when I woke up Wednesday morning, I knew that something wasn’t right. I felt sick to my stomach, achy, and very tired. I proceeded to sleep the entire day and when I did finally wake up at 4 in the afternoon I was only able to take down pedialyte and crackers. I went right back to sleep and I did not wake up again until the next morning.

I felt so much better Thursday morning. While, my stomach was still a bit queasy, I was able to eat breakfast and do an easy 30 minute jog. I weighed myself Thursday morning and I tipped the scales at my lightest weight since my senior year in High School, following my tonsil removal (143.4lbs). I spent Thursday and Friday taking in smaller meals and eating lighter snacks and by Saturday morning I was feeling a lot better.

Race morning turned out to be fantastic weather to compete in. It was overcast and on the cooler side. I went off in the first of three swim waves. I started the swim and was immediately shocked that by 100 meters into the swim I had already lost a big gap to the lead group of swimmers. I chalked it up to the recent sickness and figured I was having an off day. I also remembered that I usually get my butt kicked during the swims at the Griskus race series, since a lot of local high school swimmers will show up to race. I focused on finding a rhythm and ended up swimming solo for the entire duration. I exited the water and ran across the timing mat in 23:54, which was a course PR by over 3 minutes. I still got my butt kicked but it was a great learning experience.
I hit the bike and was focused on having a steady, consistent effort. Coach Paul had requested that I dial the bike effort back a bit again and try to really focus on the run. It felt really comfortable to bike with a consistent effort and I continue to learn more and more. I had one minor hiccup at mile 22 at the bottom of a hill. It was a classic mistake. I tried to shift down into my small chain ring as I had already started to climb the hill and my chain jumped off of the rings. I attempted to shift up and get my chain to jump back on, but it didn’t work and I had to pull over to get it back on. Another important lesson was telling myself to relax and not rush trying to put the chain back on. It probably only took 10-15 seconds to fix. I ended up riding over a 4-minute PR on the bike course.
When I started the run, I felt very fresh and I tried to focus on good cadence and form. I’ve done this race 5 times now and I know the run course very well. I wanted to have a consistent effort and see if I could tap into some of the recent running improvements I’ve seen in training. I was still a bit hesitant to really push into the redzone, but I wanted to make sure I was leaving it out on the racecourse. Coach Paul had said that he wanted to see a 33 handle 10k run soon and I ended up coming in at 33:13. My overall time was 2:00:15, which was a little over 8 minute PR for the course. Results: http://www.coolrunning.com/results/09/ct/Jun20_2009Pa_set1.shtml