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| Bill, Emily, Gaby, Jill, myself |
Despite lighting out of Connecticut in the early 90's with an intention to never return (my folks moved out in '94), I definitely have a continued fondness for Lake Quassapaug, and was excited to return to race here again. This one wasn't necessarily timed the best for me to kick ass, being only 3 weeks after the American Zofingen Long Course, but I was none-the less looking forward to seeing how I was staking up in my age group which at this race had run as deep as 31 and 39 ladies in years 2014 and 2015.
The above said, I really had my grumpy pants on when it came time to depart. I was thinking this should be a 3.5 h drive; ok, a bit longer to get to Middlebury versus just to Danbury but still, not terrible. Unfortunately I had a brain fart and totally overlooked the added time suck for Friday rush hour traffic, which on a drive from Philly by NYC was just going to be painful without taking a half day at work, which I couldn't do. I was on an interview schedule and so got on the road ~3:19 pm, grousing about the required check-in on Friday evening for an olympic distance race. My opinion - anything 70.3 and below just does not need this unless there is some kind of outside security complication - eg Escape the Cape which is held at the Cape May, NJ ferry terminal and has some special security restrictions, or possibly those races with multiple transition locations / point-to-point format (Pocono's or Raleigh 70.3's).
Despite the 4.5 h drive I made it in time since Rev3 generously allows until 8:15 pm to get your bike racked, but I was too late to scout the bike course, which was important to me. Regardless of my state of recovery since my last race, I was not showing up in CT for a pleasant morning bike ride - I was there to ride the shit out of that course to the best of my ability. I was also looking forward to a good swim, or rather looking forward to see how that was going to turn out given my relative soft swim training over the last several months. The run - plan was to give it what I had, knowing it might not be much and that without a pacing plan there was a good chance I'd overcook the bike.
Jill and I got checked into the hotel, a delightfully quiet one compared to my last trip to Middlebury (screaming baby, barking dog, wedding party, and middle-of-the-night domestic dispute!) and headed back out for a bite to eat at a local pizza pub type place. I got settled into bed dog tired at 10 pm.
-- Race morning was FOGGY. Maybe 100 m visibility at the beach, which led to a delayed race start. It also meant we were restricted to a very small swim pen for warm-up, but this was better than nothing. I got in and out of the water several times, trying to stay wet and loose. The water temp was fantastic, 72. While out of the water I enjoyed the company of my friends also racing: Jill, Emily, Gaby, and Bill, and also hooked up with a random stranger getting her morning dance groove on.
-- The swim got underway 30 min behind schedule, so not too bad, and my wave was 30 min after that. I lined up at the water's edge, a pretty bold spot for me, and headed out with a sprint and a dive into the water (I tried dolphin diving but don't think I gained anything over those who didn't). I may not be the fastest, but damn it, I brought game face today regardless. From a mental perspective, this was probably one of my very best swims. I held the buoy line better than probably ever before. I swam shoulder to mid-drift with women on both sides, holding pace without freaking out - an absolute first for me. And I never got clobbered with an elbow which is always my concern. The crowd never seemed thick and I was jazzed to be overtaking caps of different colors. I was also jazzed about how good my shoulder felt. Could it be I was setting a new Oly swim PR? Alas, no. But I did swim a pace dead-centered within the "hard but not a sprint, maybe hold for 15-20 min" range I got in January - I'll take it.
-- The swim exit/T1 had the same slight up hill on shoddy chip seal pavement as before, but a nice carpet was laid out all the way to transition - thank you Rev3! I ran it with purpose until the edge of the carpet, where I took off my wetsuit. Don't know where I stubbed my toe but think it had to have been while struggling to get my feet free of the suit, else I could not have sprinted up the carpet barefoot like I did. I had applied Tri Slide liberally to my feet when I put my wetsuit on, but I guess that did not stand up to the sand I sat in during the race delay? Unlike my last time at Quassy, my bike was not alone in transition despite my being in the 2nd to last wave, and I ran out of T1 feeling like I had a good start on this race.
-- The bike course was fun! I headed out picking people off with glee - man I love this bike. Unfortunately the course was not closed to traffic and I ran into a couple of odd traffic jams. The roads had some damage which made people's riding position in the lane - maybe 1/3-1/4 of the way to the left of the very far right road edge - reasonably necessary at times. This meant those passing were probably in the middle of the lane, and that I was just the allowed side of the yellow line while passing the passers.
I am quite aware that while I pass others there is probably someone else with a target on my back, so I move as far right as possible as soon as I can. But here I was, pretty far left when a car pulled out and made a right turn from a side road. This was on a portion of the road with traffic - both Pro's heading back to transition and cars - in both directions, and I found myself in a pickle. Without being strictly single file and with the on-coming bikes/cars, the cars in my lane of travel couldn't get around the slower cyclists. And with the on-coming traffic the cars in my lane were driving well toward the shoulder. This left me with... the yellow line as my passing lane? I have to think what I did was illegal and I tried to apologize to the driver as I passed - I just did not know how I was supposed to get around them. The first driver screamed at me, the second one did not. Thankfully that situation didn't last too long before we turned off to start the loop, meaning no more overlap with those returning to transition. BTW, I'm pretty sure the answer is I am not supposed to get around the cars. I think I'm supposed to cope with riding slowly until the road opens up. I know I have to pass other cyclists on the left, but I really am not sure if passing cars on the left is allowed at all.
After the turn off I was climbing up a hill on another not-so-awesome pavement road with cyclists all over it (~mi 11), when I recognized Emily's Do Epic Shit socks. Tee he he, I never dreamed of catching her. I spent the ride waiting for the moment Jill would catch me since both of these ladies have higher FTP's than I do, but Emily was doing the bike leg of a relay team with a strong swimmer and was ahead of me from the beginning. I was already playing cat and mouse with a couple of cyclists that were stronger than me up hill but that I could catch going down hill, and now I added Emily to the list of riders I figured would show back up at some point. Now to be fair, Emily was on her road bike. I'm confident that on her TT bike I never would have seen her.
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| 25.6 miles, 2028 ft elevation gain. The loop portion is biked counter-clockwise. |
We turned onto Route 63 where the pavement was awesome and the road had a nice shoulder, then left onto Anderson Rd and again onto Hard Hill Rd N. It was on one of these where weird race-traffic issue number two took place. A dump truck passed with plenty of space and then veered left, before reversing across the road into a driveway just ahead. Three of us had to slam on our brakes to avoid becoming colored spots on the side of the truck. That was, interesting... We got around the front of the truck and carried on but I could hear riders behind us bitching the guy out pretty good.
Hard Hill Road N/S is the longest straight stretch of road on this course (I think) and has some sweet-ass descents on it. I felt fantastic and caught a glimpse of my Garmin reflecting 46 mph. Wheeeeeee!!! I was extra pleased after the race to compare notes with Gaby and find we hit the same speed. Booya, that now makes 2 places where I've hit the same speed as he. ;-p Later when I finally got the file transferred to Strava, I was confused to find my top speed reflected as 50.6 mph. Hmm, not so sure I believe that. I have never hit that speed on a bicycle and had previously maxed out in the upper 30's on my Cervelo, so if 46 is real, then boy-howdy.
Anyway, it felt like I was fading as I head back to transition and here people were passing me that I couldn't reel back in. In the end my weighted W/kg was 2.6, ~79% of FTP which was... low? No idea as I didn't have a plan for this. -- Dismount into T2 went well and I'm loving the Shimano cleats with rubber grippers since I'm able to run pretty well in them. But what is that sensation in my toe? Uh oh. Ultimately my T2 was sloppy while I fumbled putting on my run watch. I've never done this in transition before; I always aim to start out with everything pre-strapped to my body but the new wetsuit has super super narrow wrists and I'm just not ready to destroy it by ripping it off over a watch. I head out without taking stock of my surroundings and laughed as another runner took a cup of water from the aid table and tossed it at herself, dousing my hand. "Hey thanks, I needed to wash that hand", which was sticky from my water bottle concoction. "You're welcome", said Emily - ugh, how'd she get in front of me?! Turns out she had a much better transition than I did, even though she found herself surprised to be doing the run (turns out their relay runner no-showed).
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| 6.2 mi, 995 ft elevation gain. Loop is run clockwise. |
| Swim | T1 | Bike | T2 | Run | Total | |
| Time | 32:12 | 2:22 | 1:27:25 | 1:55 | 59:54 | 3:03:48 |
| Pace/Speed | 2:09/100m | 17.6 mph | 9:39/mi | |||
| Cat Place | 17/59 | 3/59 | 4/59 | 19/59 | 17/59 | 10/59 |
| Cat % | 18% | 3% | 5% | 31% | 28% | 16% |
| Sex Place | 129/310 | 41/310 | 46/310 | 149/310 | 127/310 | 79/310 |
| Sex % | 41% | 13% | 15% | 48% | 41% | 25% |
| OA Place | 394/799 | 134/799 | 249/799 | 429/799 | 407/799 | 317/799 |
| OA % | 49% | 17% | 31% | 54% | 51% | 40% |
| Click here for Full Results | ||||||
(My AG had 44 finishers and 3 DNF; the other 12 were DNS).
-- Recap. This race was so much fun, I'll have to come back some day. Maybe take advantage of the race-day check-in fee of $35 to avoid the hotel stay fee of $150? I had a blast. I love the venue. The organization was great. The lake was awesome. The bike course was serious fun. The run is going to be tough no matter what; nearly 1000 ft over 6 miles is nothing to sneeze at. If you get the chance, check out Rev3 Quassy - it's a damn good time.
