Race Report - Savageman, Sept 2015

What: a hilly er challenging er monstrously awesome triathlon
Distance: Olympic on Saturday, Half (70.0) on Sunday.
Where: Deep Creek, Maryland.

My thought process with regard to Savageman went as follows:

Picture from website www.savagemantriathlon.com.

• T minus ~15 years.  A new acquaintance tells me the bike ride that weekend would probably be pretty hilly and I respond that I hadn't yet met a hill I couldn't climb.
• T minus ~2.3 years (854 days).  Heather mentions this race that she and Matt are considering.  Hilly and hard?  Sounds intriguing.  I mean, it can’t possibly be any worse than the American Zofingen.
• T minus 853 days.  I watch a YouTube video taken on the Westernport wall.  Holy cow, that climb!  I want a brick!!!
• T minus 634 days.  Huge disappointment when 2014 Savageman race date is found to conflict with already scheduled Atlantic City triathlon.
• T minus 123 days.  Sign up for Savageman 2015.

  

  From top of wall looking down.

• T minus 15 and 13 days.  Ride road bike and then tri bike up local heinous cobbled road (Point Royal, in Roxborough).  Feel good about choosing the tri bike for racing.
• T minus 8 days.  Strains quads playing field hockey.  Damn, I really meant to take it easy.
• T minus 4 days (93 h).  Actually READ the course elevation profile, see that ‘that one climb’ is only the beginning of the hard stuff, and that the total elevation gain will exceed that for any other race (iron distance included) that I’ve done.  Holy Shit.
• T minus 90 h.  Coach suggests I put a 28 on my tri bike (which was otherwise outfitted with 12-25 and 50/34).  Yeah, let’s do that.
• T minus 16.5 hours.  I drive the course and turn white.  Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into??
• T minus 2 h.  Slept like crap, felt nauseous, and it was 46 degrees out.  Is DNS an option here?
• T = 0.  Here goes nothing.  Quads cramp as I get into the water to swim.

Course	Date	Bike Distance	Bike Elevation	Run Distance	Run Elevation	Total Gain	Bike Gain/Mi	Run Gain/Mi	Course Gain/Mi
Buffalo Springs	Jun 2002	56	992	13.1	882	1874	17.7	67.3	27.1
De Diamondman	Sep 2003	56	1000	13.1	236	1236	17.9	18.0	17.9
IM Lake Placid	July 2010	112	5601	26.2	998	6599	50.0	38.1	47.7
AmZof short	May 2012	29	2885	10	1565	4450	99.5	156.5	114.1
AmZof middle		58	5770	15	2484	8254	99.5	165.6	113.1
IM Syracuse	June 2012	56	2306	13.1	834	3140	41.2	63.7	45.4
IM Wisconsin	Sept 2012	112	6437	26.2	1138	7575	57.5	43.4	54.8
IM Mt. Tremblant	Aug 2013	112	5686	26.2	981	6667	50.8	37.4	48.2
Rev3 Quassy	June 2014	56	4101	13.1	876	4977	73.2	66.9	72.0
IM Boulder	Aug 2014	112	4573	26.2	823	5396	40.8	31.4	39.0
Challenge Penticton	Aug 2015	112	5472	26.2	390	5862	48.9	14.9	42.4
Savageman (pub'd)	Sep 2015	55.7	6718	13.1	1677	8395	120.6	128.0	122.0
Savageman (rec'd)		55.7	5732	13.1	1220	6952	102.9	93.1	101.0

  The course-provided elevation numbers are in blue, and put this at the hilliest course I've tackled.  However my Garmin data lets the American Zofingen Duathlon maintain this overall distinction.

The air temp reached 48 by the time I got out of my car at the race site, and maybe 50 in the sun before I got in the water, which at 70 degrees felt fantastic.  All women were in the 2nd to last wave and I’m sure the waves are set up intending to get the strongest riders out first in order to keep packs thin on the bike.  Swim was fine, though half of the course heads directly into the rising sun which made visibility tough.  Parts were shallow enough to see (but not touch) lake weed beneath us.  Watching the weeds go by gave the illusion that I was flying compared to my usual sensation of going nowhere while swimming.  One of the turn buoys was this turtle trampoline – how awesome is that!  Quads felt crampy the whole time so I did not try to push the swim pace.  Meanwhile, I wondered how far I’d get on the bike course with my legs feeling so bad.

Thomas Turtle was the 2nd turn buoy.  
I LOVED this.  Why don't more races 
show some kind of personality?

Being in the 2nd to last wave and at the slow end of the swimmers meant my bike was one of few remaining in transition.  Never mind what it would do to my time, I was going to dry off and put on my long sleeved shrug because the upcoming 12 miles of shaded decent was sure to be freezing while wet.

 

Bike starts with a solid climb and I was passed early on.  Oh well.  Between my legs and the course topology, I pretty much threw out my coaches race advice and took this all one hill at a time, easy as she goes.  There is relatively little of this course that is appropriate for mindless pedaling in aero.  Unfortunately I missed the athlete meeting the day before, so had to assume the course was open to vehicles.  So on narrow, winding, heavily-shaded but with occasional beams of sunlight getting through right into my eyes, roads that were mostly dry following some overnight rain, I sat upright on my tri bike to use my torso as drag to help meter my speed as I descended past a handful of competitors heavily riding their brakes because we all knew this route has several 90 degree turns in it.  (Breathe.)  The turns are marked with warnings but they are impossible to heed if you’re already carrying too much speed; more on that later.  Thank god the road surface was in good shape for the initial big decent because I could barely see anything, at times feeling like I was looking at a strobe light.  My big fat aero helmet was doing a great job keeping my head warm, but it caught so much air in that upright position that it was nearly pulled off my head twice.  All in all, a somewhat scary segment if you’re aiming to leave no free speed behind.  I did some pedaling when I didn’t really need to, aiming to keep my legs from getting stiff.

Shout out to the squirrel so determined to cross the road that after I screamed NO at him he ran back up the tree, put his tail into helicopter mode, then came running back at me kamakazi style while chirping his war cry.  I'm pretty sure I heard him say, You'll never take me alive!

The Westernport Wall (cue the dramatic music).  4 short-sided residential blocks long, this hill climbs ~150 feet with an average grade of 24% and hitting 31% (source - Kyle Yost, course designer) at it's steepest, on a place where the pavement has changed from standard mercadam to an uneven patchwork of rock and cracked cement.  It is lined with cheering spectators and it is this climb that earns one a brick if they make it to the top.  

I felt good starting out though wasn't sure how to deal with the fool zig zagging all over the road.  This maneuver is called Paper Boy'ing and is dumb.  If you learn to ride on roads with traffic, you can't do this as it is incumbent upon you to bike in a predictable manner so that cars are able to avoid you.  Biking a straight line got me past that chick quickly and I had no problem with the bottom 3 blocks.
On to the steepest one, my belief was that I would detect when I needed to kick over to high power to bust through and I wanted to get as far as I could before doing that since I was not sure my quads wouldn't lock up once I went full bore.  I stood up and continued on methodically for several more pedal strokes as I hit cracks I'd wanted to avoid.  I aimed toward the right since that is where the pavement is reportedly a bit better.  My perception was that the volunteer keeping pace with me was moving closer on my left, and with that unusual distraction (I don't normally climb hills with walkers talking me through it) I put myself on path to hit a nasty crack and I lost my momentum trying to avoid it.  My front wheel hit the curb and I fell off toward the right.  Video shows the volunteer was reasonably far away and I needed to have turned on the gas instead of changing trajectories.

 The steepness of the hill was a bit disorienting and I took my time standing up while my bike was quickly whisked away and racked just beyond the "top" of this climb.  The hill is so steep it was awkward to walk up during my scouting trip and even more so in cycling shoes.  Anyway, given the on-going sensation in my legs, I figured this was the expected outcome and there were several additional intense climbs I still had to get through.

Reunited with my bike, I began the second half of this ascent among what seemed like an explosion of other participants - where did they all come from? It felt like a weird game of Frogger, dodging people weaving all over the place, stopping in the middle of the road to unclip and walk, all while avoiding the strips and piles of gravel remaining from the relatively recent chip seal job.  This experience was clearly somewhere between hilariously funny and wildly sadistic.  At any rate, it felt good to reach the top clipped in and rubber side down, even if it was only at 3-4 mph.

Lighting was better for the remaining descents, with the sun higher and the tree coverage less thick, but it was still quite easy to carry too much speed into hairy 90 degree S-turns.  I was passed by such a person and for one hot minute wondered if I could go faster before deciding no, I couldn't.  When I saw him lock up his bike, cross the road, and narrowly miss creaming himself into some trees I over squeezed my own brakes and put myself into a skid that took me into the on-coming lane.  At this point I spotted the volunteer at the bottom of the S-curve and wondered why he wasn't positioned at the top, to serve as an additional warning instead of an observer to dial the phone if people wiped out.

Throughout the hills I ultimately caught a few more people than had passed me, and I reeled in several more on Killer Miller - the hill we had to summit before 3:30 o'clock else get swept from the course.  Fatigue was settling in but I found new life finally reaching the 49.5 mile mark, where I could finally lay down some comfortable speed in aero.

The final 1.3 miles were crowded with runners coming at me on my left, running my same direction on my right, and I split the difference and rode down the middle of the road, again hoping this wasn't actually an open course.  I pulled toward the dismount line unsure what was going to happen when I tried to stand up.

T2.  Time on the race clock was ~5:30 when I entered transition, meaning the lead women were soon to complete their races (winning time 5:32:09) and the lead men had already been relaxing for an hour (winning time 4:37:17).  It also meant I was probably looking at something like a 7:30 finish which was the bottom end of my predicted finishing window, assuming I didn't end up walking the descents after my quads finally gave up.  And with that thought I went ahead and used the bathroom.

I knew the run course was on both paved and unpaved trails but didn't get the chance to scout it as I had intended.  My plan had been to bike the run course but now running it I saw I would have had a really challenging time doing so on my Cervelo.  I expected gravel but not shaded and exposed tree roots on a sideways-slope, or grass, or soft forest floor (nice to run on, by the way) that was not obviously part of a regular park trail.  Those surfaces were short to get through but fresh off the bike sure made for some nervous moments as I wondered if my quads were going to survive this.  Overall the run was two laps of a mostly out-and-back nature on gently rolling terrain, except for two steeper segments.  The first was a loop through a campground, with elevation gain of like 120 ft (5-7% grade) for 0.4 miles of paved road.  The second was heinous - a dirt plus uneven-rock fire road with an overall grade of 8% for 0.4 miles.  I saw most people walked this but my first time through I took the first 3/4 of it at a slow jog before giving in, thinking the darn hill might never end.  At the top you traveled maybe 20 yd before hitting a turn around timing mat/cone and heading back down.  I ran down this hoping for the best: good footing and no quad whammies.  At this time I finally started to feel confident my quads were not going to cramp or give out and I wondered if I could negative split the run.  Ha!  Cute thought.  (I was more than 9 min slower on the 2nd lap.)

The second time through my hamstrings started to feel bitchy and the whiny side of my brain wondered what the point was of pushing myself when I was clearly not going to post a good time.  Reasoning with said voice, I figured the ride home was going to be terribly uncomfortable regardless, so I might as well feel gratified that I didn't punk out.  Still, I walked the entire fire road ascent the 2nd time through; I mean, it just seemed like the sane thing to do.  I shared the walk and some conversation with another competitor who after hearing what my A-race was this year said, "you're doing THIS race 3-weeks out from an ironman?!?!"  Uhm, well, yeah.  I mean, I figured it would be tough.  He said this was his A-race and he was struggling.

The run in from the fire road was notably less crowded than my first lap and I passed one or two folks checking what lap I was on.  I guessed they were starting to sweep the course which left me with the impression I was really Back Of the Pack for this one.  Despite that, the finish line was still fun.  It's not that it was lined with people still cheering, but that as a nice, grassy, lake-front park with also a sandy beach, lots of people were still hanging out enjoying the beautiful afternoon.  Music, great food - I mean real food, burger or choice of non-meat item, pasta salad, cookies, something else that made this seem like real food.  Free ice cream.  (All these same food items were available for-purchase for non-athletes.)  Families, groups of athletes talking about their races.  Competitors asking how my day went.  Just really enjoyable. This folks, is a must do event.  Real quality and a real challenge.

The printed on-site results stopped some 10 min before I got in and I didn't have the energy to read a list of ~150 names to see how many women were ahead of me.  I was in transition packing my things when announcements of random female age groups started.  One girl, in the 20-24 group I think and doing her first 70 mi race was excited to hear her name.  Then another excited utterance from another age group and a rack 10 or so away from mine.  Then I heard my name.  MY NAME?  For real?  Well isn't that a kick in the pants!   The 3rd place Master's finisher was in my AG so I got the bump to 1st AG place.  Giddy up.

	Time	Pace	AG Rank	Gender	Overall
Swim	44:43	2:01 /100yd	5 of 6	23 / 31	188 / 217
T1	5:16		3 of 6		137 / 217
Bike	4:21:21	12.7 mph	2 of 6	12 / 28	160 / 217
T2	2:36		4 of 6		114 / 211
Run	2:21:33	10:54 min/mi	2 of 6	12 / 27	134 / 209
Overall	7:35:27		2/6 --> 1/5	12 / 27	157 / 209

 
It took me long enough to hobble down to the award table that I don't know whether any other placers in my AG were present, but I asked the guy to take my picture and text it too me since this was my first chance to stand on the 1 (since I wasn't present to personally receive my Challenge AC aquabike award).  John Kenny (#3 overall finisher and the coach of my masters swim group) spotted me on my way back to transition and we chatted a bit.  It was really fun running in to someone I actually knew. 

The only thing I haven't covered yet were the fantastic volunteers.  Not only helpful but seemingly genuinely excited to be there and interested in my having a great experience.  This race was one of the top-est notch experiences I've had.  With an olympic distance race held the day before hand, this is a perfect event to bring your friends for a long weekend of racing and having fun.  As Arnold said, I'll be back.