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triathlol · 5 years

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Rumpus in Bumpass

After devoting wasting all of 2018 running two marathons, I’ve returned to triathlon with my first swim-bike-run since September 2017. For my 10th career tri, I picked the first open water swim of the season at the Rumpus in Bumpass race, located in a lovely part of Virginia only about 90 minutes from DC.

That was an eventful 90 minutes.

The Wawa cashier literally LOL’ing at me and asking “is that it?” when I bought a bottle of of advil at 7 in the morning, apparently looking hungover.

Lindsay using both of our phones as mobile hotspots while she tried to submit a story for work with no service to speak of.

Dave throwing up in the car.

A 30 minute line to get into the parking lot of the damn race.

All of this led to a mad dash to get checked in, apply all of the various stickers, put on my wetsuit, stretch, and fret nervously through a porta-john line. Running a marathon is much more difficult and traumatic event, but getting ready for a tri is a lot more involved. Luckily, the only thing I forgot was 1 GU. I made it out of the transition area with about 4 minutes to spare.

Swim // 0.9 Miles // 33:40 // Strava File

Lindsay zipped me up, Dave (dog, pictured above) gave me a one last nervous stare, and I jumped into ~65 degree Lake Anna. This is the “warm side” of the lake because it receives warm water discharge from the attached nuclear power plant. I haven’t been able to make the case to anyone about how this is safe, but apparently it is.

The plan for the day was to take it slow. After being out of the triathlon game for 18 months, there was no tight range for what I would consider a “good” time. After running three consecutive running races where I was wishing for death at the finish line, I wanted to not do that this time. Finishing with a smile instead of looking like I’d just seen a Bird Box demon was worth a couple extra minutes. Here’s what mile 9 looked like at the Cherry Blossom 10 miler a few weeks ago.

Soooo I took it easy at the start. Wet suit and cold water kept this effort firmly in Z3. Probably too easy, but whatever. Trying to avoid Bird Boxing. Couple things to highlight here.

1. I am really bad at swimming in a straight line.

Exhibit A: The GPS data of my swimroute (red) overlaid on the satellite image of the course.

What the hell is that? It looks like a little kid trying to trace a rectangle with their non-dominant hand. This is more than just something to laugh at, swerving like a drunk driver added serious time to the swim. The course is measured at 1,500 meters, and I swam 1,679. 1,679! That’s almost 2 extra laps in an olympic sized pool. Fuck!

2. I got into a wrestling match with a buoy.

At the first hard right turn, I miscalculated and ended up swimming straight into the buoy, instead of around it like you’re supposed to. I then got stuck under that buoy, flailed around for a few seconds, and had to throw a fist at the big yellow plastic thing to continue moving forward. Coming to blows with an inanimate object--who said triathlons aren’t exciting.

3. Being heckled by a 10 year old girl.

As I got out of the water and made my way up to the dock, I was feeling pretty good, but not good enough to run through the knee deep water (this is ridiculously tiring for even short distances). The first thing I heard when I got out of the water was a little girl yell:

“HEY! Why are you WALKING?”

Gonna go ahead and assume she was confusing me for her Dad, but that just brings up whole other set of insecurities. Moving on.

Bike // 24 Miles // 1:24:31 // Strava File

Shaking off the haters and my wetsuit, I hopped onto the bike. Before this race, I had ridden my bike three times this year. Three times. Three. All year.

That alarming level of abdication, combined with almost a year off of cycling, catches up with you (literally), it turns out.

But I knew this going in, and had accepted my fate of a relatively weak bike split. What I wasn’t prepared for were the several dozen people over the age of 40 that passed me. Men. Women. People in tennis shoes. Didn’t matter. Every time I heard an “on your left” followed by a cadre of what I would generously call veteran competitors, I felt a little piece of myself die. At one point I think I said “god dammit ryan, you might actually be in last.”

If nothing else, this stupid ride was a 1 hour and 24 minute reminder to spend some more time on the bike, which is something I write in every race blog, and even hear from my freaking followers on strava.

I tried not too push it too hard. My hamstrings (muscles that don’t really get used unless you ride your bike) felt not great, and the last thing I wanted was to have to hobble around for the run. I ate one GU at the halfway mark and drank almost both of my 20oz bottles of powerade.

Run // 6.2 Miles // 51:31 // Strava File

Going off in the first wave means that you’re gonna get passed, a lot, unless you are actually good at these races. That’s fine, but the run is something I should theoretically be better at. And it turns out that’s actually true! I wanted to run something under 50 minutes, and probably would have gotten there if it wasn’t for some truly fucked-up conditions.

Above is the graph of my pace on the run. You’ll notice two very steep declines, both of which happen in the same physical space (the course loops). This was in the part that was on what must usually be a trail, but on this day was a mud pit. At least I think it was mud. It felt like we were running through that pit from Return of the Jedi that ate Boba Fett.

This sucked, but it was the same for everyone, and there is nothing that gives me more joy in the world than experiencing a type-A triathlete freak out. You can set your watch to this shit:

“WHY DIDN’T THEY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS?”

“THERE GOES MY PR”

“I’M STUCK IN MUD. [EXPLETIVE].”

I got through the pit both times without falling, which is more than a lot of people could say. I saw folks with mud on there knees, hands, and everywhere else. Some poor woman had mud on her forehead. Think about that and try not to laugh. They don’t put in the promotional material, but they should.

Aside from the pit, the run course was actually nothing to scoff at. There wasn’t much flat territory to speak of, and plenty of wet, slow grass to boot. I clocked a few mid-8 mile splits and I felt like I was flying. The good news was that I felt really good off the bike. My hamstrings were shifting their responsibilities elsewhere, and I was able to push the cardio to the max for the last 5K. Something I hand’t been able to do in a race for over a year.

Grinning like an absolute moron, but not Bird Boxing!

Conclusions

After crossing the finish line with a decent kick and a huge smile on my face, I’m not gonna lie, I felt great. I said I would be happy with anything under 3 hours, and 2:55 put me comfortably there.

Upon further endorphin-less reflection, however, I’m looking at these times and seeing some real decay. The competition at this race was probably stronger than most others that I’ve done, but I was in the bottom 25% in my age group, and in the bottom 50% of all the male athletes. Woof.

Compare that to my last olympic distance race which was 20 minutes faster than this, and that buzz transitions into a hangover. The opportunity cost of taking a year of triathlon to run marathons is a real thing, friends.

But I’m still happy with the way my return went. I treated this like a training day for my next race (I’ve got a Half Ironman in 3 weeks ::gulp::), and in that frame it was a wild success. If I had done any better, I probably would have crossed the dangerous threshold into overconfidence--something I’ve been burned on more than once.

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