Race Report - Challenge Atlantic City (Full AquaBike), June 2015

This was my second time participating in this race, this time as an individual competitor in aquabike instead of doing the first 2 legs of the full relay.

-- Pre-race dinner.  Pre-race dinner.  The food was still good, as last year, but the dinner was a bit misguided.  Relatively few people signed up for the full distance of this event, and those are the racers who I think are accustomed to eating pre-race dinners at triathlons.  The bulk of the participants this year were registered for the half, and I think many fewer participants at that distance go out of their way to show up to race sites days ahead of time, so they weren't in town yet for the dinner (which was held on Friday evening, as it was last year).  I'd estimate there were <100 people in attendance in a room that might accommodate 400.  I have to say, however, that this year's speaker, Kristy, who is one of my training mates, was more enjoyable to listen to.  She still had a tough story to tell, as did John Blazeman's father last year, but in the end it was a nice message of stay strong and be good to your fellow racer, which the Blazeman story couldn't match.

Now leading up to this race, my training went from putting-all-the-quality-I-had into it, to skipping workouts and kinda just clocking in and out.  I didn't like my saddle, but I didn't do anything about it.  I wanted additional speed, so I decided to lower my handlebars without any input from my coach.  I tried to borrow an aero helmut from a couple of friends, but my freakishly-large head prevented this.  I wanted to wear my tri club's kit, and the shorts arrived only 2 days before the event, so I never got to try them out for suitability for a long ride before race day.  So when I got to AC and found my rear wheel wouldn't hold air for longer than 7 h, I was both concerned I'd end up DNF'ing the race and also somewhat non-plussed by it.  I took a look at the expo for a new 650 tubular tire, which I knew damn well they wouldn't have.  I also looked into renting a wheel, being pretty sure they would not have the size I needed.  While there I ran into a guy doing a last-minute rental for the same reason, but he got lucky since he rolls 700's.  I found a man selling an aero helmut and since it went on my head I bought it.  Later I wondered whether it might be too small.  More on that later.

-- The weather on Saturday was CRAZY.  It was reasonable in the morning - starting to drizzle when we headed out for the pre-race swim.  But the wind picked up a lot during brunch, and when it came time to drop our bikes off in transition, it was POURING, sideways.  Bikes were being blown right off the transition racks.  Some people were strapping their bikes to the racks with bungee cords to prevent this.  I double-bagged my gear and placed it open-side down, so the rain wouldn't come in through the opening and simply hoped my bike would even be there in the morning.  Photos were being posted to Facebook of tents being knocked down.  Then I heard that porta-potties were being blown over.

-- Race morning.  The next morning I arrived at transition to find the parking lot a swamp, under inches of water.  But I was happy to find that my tire was somewhat firm, meaning it held air better/longer than the prior couple of days (maybe the stem was loose?).  And I was impressed by the amount of work that occurred in the wee hours of the day to set up tents and blow up arch-ways which all combined to make transition look race-ready.  I blew up my tires and took my pump back to my car (which I'd parked at Bader field overnight), where I hung out eating my breakfast (bagel) and gathering my thoughts.

The race was a little late to get started, with people having difficulty getting there due to roads blocked with debris.  Based on all the branches I saw on the sides of the bike course, I'd say there was much to do before they could even open the course.  This year the national anthem was sung live, and there was no Navy Seal parachute drop.

Two some-what rectangular loops made up the
swim course this year.  No, I did not swim up
onto land!  

No matter.

Last-year's Y-shaped course.
Black arrows show current direction.
Black circle shows swim start/exit.

10 toes?  Check.  Sure wish I'd
been looking up for this.

-- The swim.  The course was different this year, 2 loops of something like a rectangle versus the single loop Y shape of last year.  The half-distance race started before the full, so there was the excitement of seeing some people come out of the water before the full-distance race began.  I did something uncharacteristic, and lined up at the front.  Thankfully the race was wetsuit legal, because the bay was no less laden with current than last year.  Starting out and heading south, I had a tough time holding my line and seemed to be getting displaced toward shore.  (That's toward shore, not onto the shore as my Garmin track would have you believe.)  Crossing the bay was fine, then going north it quickly seemed like I was on the wrong line.  I mean, I was on the buoy line, but no one else was.  And I thought back to the advice John Kenny posted on ST about the line to follow for the conditions last year and wondered if I should be trying to apply that same strategy now.  At one point I nearly swam into a post; glad I avoided that.  Crossing the course at the north end was no big deal, thankfully, as this was the turn where last year's course was true hell.  But we were further south on this 2-loop version so perhaps that made the difference.  Or, turning left (south) to complete the first lap, it was clear the current was running northward.  I tried to bury my head and shoulders, my swimming equivalent of getting low in a headwind, and went to work.  Strangely, this is where I started catching up to people.  Then going back the other way, with the current, I got dropped again.  Making the final turn to finish the second lap, it was evident that the current had picked up and holy cow, I was ready to be done.  I'm not sure if it was the silt or the salt, but my sinuses had been frying during this swim and now it was going to require another strong effort to close this thing out.  Thankfully there were 3 swimmers ahead of me and when I put my head down I caught up to them and they did all the work to tow me in.  I posted a better swim time this year, but fear that may have been mostly due to the wetsuit.  I stripped from my wetsuit under the fire truck hose and entered the transition tent declaring to my friend Jill, who was the cyclist for the relay team of Emily-Jill-Ashley (#cadencegirlsdoitbetter), that I was done swimming in AC.  Too hard, too demoralizing. 

Last year's bike course, with just over 30 miles using the 
shoulder of the AC Expressway.

This year's bike course was a single loop.  

-- The bike.  Another course change here, in that the major westward portion of the route was moved off the AC Expressway.  The double counter-clockwise loop through downtown Hammonton was removed and changed to a single clockwise loop around the Wharton State Forrest.  These were fantastic changes and really made the course fun to ride.  Additionally, a large percentage of the route was now shaded by trees.
  

Off to bike, I hit the lap button on my Garmin 920 (on my wrist) and the power button on my Garmin 305 (strapped to my handlebars).  A quick check of the 920 revealed no accumulating distance, and I realized I had the GPS set to "off" for biking since I last used the device on the trainer indoors.  I couldn't change that while in multisport mode, so I came to a stop, killed multisport, put the GPS on, started a new bike segment and got rolling again.  But my power and heart rate wouldn't show up, so I stopped again and fiddled with it some more.  This was 2 stops prior to leaving Bader field.  Rolling along, the watch buzzed that power and heart rate were found, but the power kept dropping to zero and then cutting out.  So I stopped again just out of Bader field for more fiddling, and as I started biking again noticed I'd never hit start on the 305 (geez).  I didn't know why at the time, but the power continued to be found and dropped by the 920, causing the watch to buzz every 90 seconds, which was really annoying, so I turned it off.  So much for following my coach's race instructions, which were all based on working to a certain power level for different segments of the course.  (The 305 can't pair with the power meter and as luck would have it, it wasn't paired to the heart rate monitor either.  So my only in-race metric was average speed because the view of other fields was blocked by my aerobar arm rest.)

Biking away from transition, on an old runway strip.

It didn't take long for the headwind to break my spirit.  The 305 said I was averaging 14 mph and I was disheartened by memories of last year and the concern that the wind would turn so there'd be a headwind on the return trip to transition as well.  But I rolled on.  Soon I became aware that the aero helmet I bought was too small, and it was pinching my ears.  But I found that pushing down on the top of the helmet would help briefly.  By the time I got to the start of the lollipop section my right hip was killing me, which returned my thoughts to my slow re-bound after the marathon and that maybe I needed to give up marathoning and 140.6 mile races.

Then things got a bit lonely, which was to be expected on a single-loop course with so few long course athletes and now that I was beyond the point shared with the half-distance participants.  But it was a nice ride now that my hip stopped feeling so crampy.  There were two aid stations and I got bottles of water at each of them, having to stop to take the lids off since volunteers were only expecting to hand off closed bottles.  (My nutrition strategy involved diluting caked powder on the go instead of swapping out bottles of water or poweraide.)  What I didn't get was a banana, which I had assumed would be provided and was counting on to make up my calorie intake.  What is it with bananas this year, was there a shortage?

Giving my neck a little rest by hanging my head down.

As near as I could tell, there were head winds or cross winds on virtually every segment of the course.  I know it sounds like that shouldn't be possible, but I'm saying it is.  Ergo, I endeavored to stay in aero as much as possible, even though my neck was becoming extremely sore from the position and the front part of my saddle was doing rude things to my body.  There came a time when the discomfort from this was so pronounced that I took to moaning, and the closer to transition I got, the more the moaning turned to pronounced grunting.  I'm sure I was a source of mild bemusement for the many police officers that were doing a fantastic job of directing traffic at intersections. 

The bike course started and ended by making use of the air strips of Bader field, and I loved biking all out on that to finish up.  Unfortunately I had to hit the brakes hard to make the 90 degree turn to the aquabike finishing arch.  An announcer said my name as I came in, and that was that.  Yay there was a finishing arch and announcement for aquabikers this year, but boo about no finishers photo.  I would have LOVED one of me coming in hot on the airstrip. There was also no obvious food.  They said there would be, but I didn't see it, or beverages.

My sunburn 4 days later, with lots of sweat blisters
after cycling class.  This was so uncomfortable!

My first stop was over to the side to lie down.  Yeah, seems to be a theme with me.  Here, though, my issue was how badly my neck hurt, and I just wanted to fully relax it.  Turns out I came in right after my tri team mate and swimming lane partner, Therese.  And Jill was there to great us after having put in a fantastic job on the bike herself.   A volunteer approached me to ask if I was ok, to collect the timing chip from my ankle, and to hand me a finisher's medal.  Turns out my club shorts are really low-waisted and combined with the top that rides up, my lower back was exposed.  I scored quite the tramp stamp sunburn in this race.

-- Triathlon finish line.  After packing up my things I met Jill back over at Boadwalk hall, where I picked up my finisher's shirt.  This year the food cart was outside on the boardwalk, which made it possible to stay a part of the action.  Food in hand, we moved to the finish line, where we joined Matt, Jack, Emily, and Mark cheering on the Cadence athletes on the run.  There was music, a beer garden, and computers that you could type in a participant's number to see how they were doing.  My results were surprising: 1st in AG.  Prior to this I actually did not know how I did, since I'd turned off my 920 and hadn't started the 305 right away.  Much to my amazement, I'd earned a new bike split PR, which was 30 min faster than the others in my division.

-- Results.  
     S: 1:39:29, 2:35/100 m.  
     T1: 7:51.
     B: 6:25:01, 17.45 mph.
     Overall time: 8:12:28.

Comparing splits to all full-distance participants, including all relay teams for overall count and all-female relay teams for gender count:
     S: 7/10 AG, 41/66 Gen, 185/241 OA.
     B: 3/9 AG, 22/58 Gen, 119/225 OA. 

-- Critique.  I had to cut out of town the next morning to head to work, so can't comment on the awards brunch.  But I have read some of the things that people were complaining about with this race and have to say, by and large, it seems to me people are whiners.  2 aid stations on a 112 mile bike is certainly minimal, but can you really not carry enough water to ride 35-40 miles??  It's not like the number of bike aid stations was a secret.  But it sounds like some additional bike support / sag support could have been helpful as several people, my friend Mark included, had race-ending mechanical issues and a hard time getting back to transition.  Additional bike course marshals were needed as well, to help tame the packs of half-distance athletes drafting off one-another.  

Once again, aid stations on the run were negatively impacted by a shortage of volunteers, and this is a shame.  It's also one of the reasons I carry my own water when I run.  The run course crossed some sand, which does seem like an unusual thing for an iron distance race.  Maybe putting carpet on it would have been helpful.  At any rate, I really like this aquabike event and would certainly look to do it in future years.  I'll be quite sad if the full distance event folds, as it would seem likely to do given the lower participation numbers this year than last.