Cyman Triathlon Race Report

The Sterling Physical Therapy Multisport team made a good showing at the Cyman Triathlon held at Big Creek Park on Sunday September 13th. We placed two members on the podium. Eric "Boom" Recker took first place in the Clydesdale division and Josh "Smooth" Smith placing second in his age division. Tony "Adonis" Briggs just missed the podium with a 4th place finish in the 35-39

division. Matt "The General" Patton had a good race to finish up his rookie season showing a great improvement on his bike but wanting to work on his run. Paul "Hammock" Cartwright finished the tri season with an OK swim, Great bike, and a pretty poor run.

The weather was beautiful with a breeze out of the East. Water was glassy with a wet suit legal temp of 76 degrees. The 10 o'clock start was nice as my family was able to come to the event, however, I believe a 9:00 a.m. start would have been appreciated by many in attendance. I was in the fifth of six swim waves starting 16 minutes after ten. The water was shallow for the first 50 yards. I went wide to the left and did several dolphin dives (something I have never done before) to end up gaining quite a few positions over people not dolphining. I felt comfortable in the water from the start with no questioning of "Why am I here?" My right calf did start to cramp up a couple of times during the swim. After a couple of breaststrokes it loosened up and I resumed the swim. Normally, after I touch the ground twice I jump up and start running. Because of the shallow water I took five more strokes after I touched the bottom.

Normally I "lope" through transition. One of my goals for this race is a combined transition time of less than 60 seconds. A T1 of 25 seconds put me a long way to achieving that goal.

I had a rather poor start and finish on the bike, but the rest of the bike was excellent. I have my shoes clipped onto my bike in transition and slip my feet in the shoes after I get on the bike. I am not sure exactly what happened. I could not stay on the tops of my shoes. I think one foot slipped off a pedal. The shoe would then rotate forward pinning it to the ground. Thankfully, nobody was too close behind me as I made a couple of large swerves trying to get things in place. Then just as I was stopping to sort things out, one of my shoes came off the cleat. I was able to retrieve it without getting off the bike and get moving. Talk about embarrassing. I am so thankful that I did not swerve into anyone.

The Cyman bike course is not exactly flat, however, when compared to most of the rides that I do, it might as well be. There was a small headwind going out limiting my average speed to 18.8 mph. I was only passed by 7 people on the bike, which is pretty good for me, and I kept setting my sites on passing the person in front of me. This was a change to my race psychology, something I ought to remember in the future. After turning back west with the wind at my back, I felt like I was positively flying and bringing my average speed to 20.1 mph according to my computer.

I had problems with the shoes coming off of the bike. I slip my feet out of the shoes then do a "flying" dismount that normally works quite well. This time my left shoe flipped forward and hit the ground causing it to become uncleated. When I step off of the bike it normally bounces a little bit. When this happened it really bucked. I then heard someone say that I lost my shoe. Looking down I realized that they were talking to me. I set my bike against the fence and started to run back for the shoe. As I turned I realized that I was in transition and shouldn't go back across the mat. Fortunately, a volunteer grabbed my shoe and was running it toward me. A quick pass and a catch later and I was picking up my bike and running through transition. Although it took some extra time, T2 was only 33 seconds allowing me to make my transition goal!

I will preface my commentary on the run by stating that I haven't run in two to three weeks. My Achilles Tendon has been acting up. Anyway, I have my excuse out of the way. Unfortunately for my excuse, I didn't have any problems with my Achilles! My calf was tight, then loosened up after the first mile. My ankle gave me some problems about halfway through for five to eight minutes. I think that I was somehow compensating for my Achilles. I was able to pick my pace up for the last mile to finish fairly strong in 30:10. Although my run time was not what I would have liked. I can honestly say that I left it all on the course.

All in all it was a great day shared with family and friends.