First off, Blake killed it for the overall win in 3:54, very impressive.

 My goal for Racine was to break 4:10. I’d been putting in some extra hours in Waterloo working on super double top secret triathlon things, and it left me a little tired on race morning, so I wasn’t so confident that I was going to have a great race. I was pretty excited that the run supposedly went through the Racine zoo, with the race flyer promising “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!”  While expressing my excitement to a friend pre-race, a near by ease dropper chimed in with “The zoo sucks!” I was still hoping to see a Giraffe. Also, I was given the wrong color swim cap, and pre-race announcements said this was going to be a penalty. It took me a shocking amount of time to convince the race director I was not a 40-44 year old woman, so I didn’t get much of a chance to warm up in the water, which didn’t help my cause.

 I had a crap swim. The course was either a hair short and/or there is a current, because I still exited the water in 24 minutes and change.

 Onto the bike, my heart rate was pegged at LT for the first 20 minutes, even though I wasn’t pushing it too hard. I rode through some of the faster swimmers, and within the first 10 miles, and ended up riding with some guy that was riding a pretty comfortable pace up until about mile 35.  All of a sudden, on a long false flat, my legs came alive, so I turned up the heat and smoked 2 or 3 more people before entering T2 in 3^rd place with a 2:14 bike split (2^nd fastest of the day to Blake’s redonkulous 2:09).

 A quick T2 put me out on the run about 100 yards behind 2^nd place, Adam Zucco, who is a stud swimmer and biker, but I had passed on the run at Rockman earlier in the year. My legs immediately felt gooooood, and I moved into 2^nd place within the first mile, still about 8 minutes behind Blake. Other parts of my body weren’t so happy, as even with a super smooth carbon TTX under me, the pavement of the bike course made the ride feel like 2+ hours of getting punched in the taint. The run was pretty uneventful. My best efforts to pull back time on Blake weren’t good enough, and the time gap remained relatively steady for the whole run. I was second across the line, with a run time of 1:22 and a total time of 4:03 (a huge PR for me). I have to thank teammate and coach Eric Bean for milking some speed out of me this year.

 I can also confirm, the zoo did, in fact, suck. Not only did I not see a Giraffe, I didn’t even see the zoo itself.

 Results:

1.  Blake Becker (USA) 3:54:04
2. Jeff Paul (USA) 4:00:58
3. Mike Lavery (USA) 4:03:51
4. Adam Zucco (USA) 4:06:33
5. Jeremy Davis (USA) 4:07:09

This past Sunday myself and Jackie Arendt headed down yonder to Rockford, IL for the Rockman Half. Leaving Madtown at 4:15, I wasn’t too pumped to be awake, let alone race, but an hour in my car, with its extremely loud and annoying tires, was enough to wake me up.

Image1: Madison at 4:15am

Now to the race…. 

The two loop swim took place in a local sewage containment pond, and was marked via a few dudes floating on big innertubes (I kid you not). I tacked onto the second swim pack, and hit the beach in 28’ and change, having avoided any attacks by local brown trout. No Michael Phelps swim, but I felt good the whole time and the swim times seemed a little slow across the board.

Image 2: My view from the swim course

Into T1, my new Aquasphere wetsuit (big fan btw) slid off like a seal on an iceberg. Onto the bike…

This is usually were I make up most of my time, but today my powersticks just didn’t have the power. I managed to move my way up to 4^th place by the turn around, but then things started to get interesting. First, my spare tubular jettisoned off the back of my saddle due to my ghetto-rigged attachment method. Next, I lost an arm rest pad that had stuck to some lingering road rash on my elbow. I watched it fly off into the woods, leaving me to ride ~10 miles skin on metal (not recommended). Then I fumbled and dropped my water bottle. I entered T2 in 5^th place, with a 2:17 bike split, unleashed some “mad T2 skills,” and hit the run on the heels of 4^th.

The run turned out to be its own adventure. I decided to take it out easy, as the course was non stop hills through Rock Cut State Park, and I knew it was going to be tough. By the time I went through the two mile mark (the only mile marker anywhere on the entire race course), I had settled into a rhythm and started to feel very good. Roughly 4 miles in, I came upon a fork in the path, an unmanned aid station, and no signage or volunteers to speak of. Three options presented themselves to me:

1. Go left, onto a muddy flooded out path 

2. Go right, up to a major road intersection (with no volunteers)

3. Turn around, but there was supposed to be timing mat at the turn around.

Three options, and they all seemed wrong. I killed ~2 minutes trying to figure out what to do, when two of the guys in front of me came running back down the path from the right, equally confused. We regrouped, decided to turn around (which was the correct choice) and were on our way. About a mile later, as I am flying full throttle through a left hand, downhill turn, I managed to slip in some mud and face plant the asphalt. Covered in dirt and blood, I eventually located the finish line and crossed in 4^th place with a finish time of 4:15. Winner Chris McDonald gave me a once over, and said, in his heavy Aussie accent, “You look like you’ve been to war.”

Overall I am very pleased with my race. I still have a lot of work to do before the big dance in October, but this was a great start. I love racing in competitive fields, and this race didn’t disappoint. I was beaten by 3 guys that placed top 10 overall at IM Wisconsin in 2008, and it was a lot of fun to be in the mix with such top notch athletes. Props to Jackie on her 2^nd place finish.

Results here: http://www.itsracetime.com/Results.aspx?ID=85

Oh yeah, the Sugoi race kits are “like super awesome.”

Mike

This past Saturday I lined up for the first race of 2009, the Lake Monona 20k in Madison, WI. Heres how it went down.

8:54 am line up at the start

8:55 am: run into teammate Jackie Arendt, sporting a sweet pink Timex visor

8:56 am: mini panic attack: how could I have forgotten my pink Timex visor at home!!

9:00 am: gun goes off

mile 1: 5:54, just cruising, feeling good

mile 2: 5:50, still cruising, still feeling good, wishing I was wearing my pink visor.

miles 3-7: lots of running at 5:50-6:15 pace, thinking it’s time to turn on the jets…

mile 7.1: initiate negative-split launch sequence, immediately blow by 3 dudes

….cue (most) painful side stitch (ever)….

mile 7.5: don’t walk, don’t walk, it’ll go away…

mile 7.6: quick walk break, immediately get chicked

miles 8-12: run walk jog walk curse walk jog run….

mile 12: quick look behind me, see a pink Timex visor on the horizon, closing in fast

Finish: …one second ahead of Jackie (but only because she didn’t put a surge on me in the final 100 meters)

Not the race I was looking to have, but it was a fun event none the less. I am pretty happy with my run fitness at the moment, considering my running has been spotty the last month due to some tendonitis. I am looking forward to redeeming myself in a few weeks at the Madison Half Marathon.

Mike