2004 Holy Toledo Triathlon
Challenge First off, I must acknowledge the efforts of Bobo, Jordan P., and all the terrific volunteers. Bobo and Jordan put an awful lot of effort into this race and pulled off a classic. The racer/volunteer ratio was remarkable. A lot of people drove a long way to support Bobo and make life easier (well, maybe not easier - less brutal, perhaps) for all of us who did the race. A race which was indeed, "as advertised". Actually, it was tougher than advertised. I probably wouldn't have made the trip had I known what the "run" course looked like. There were not very many running opportunities. Of course, now I am glad that I did make the trip and finish the race, which is how it usually goes. Pre Race: The host hotel, Cypress Bend Resort, sits on Toledo Bend Lake, and is a semi-upscale golf and fishing trip destination. My room featured a lumpy mattress and a distinct lack of hot water. Still, it is very handy when the transition area is a 2 minute walk from your hotel room. I hate the early morning load-your-stuff-in-the-car-for-the-trip-to-the-race-site panic. It is also a minor hassle to be an hour's drive from any other eatery than the hotel's restaurant, but we survived that with a decent pre-race dinner. I was feeling crappy from three weeks battling a cold/allergy/whatever when I hit the sack and guessed I was 50-50 to do the race in the morning. Woke up race morning feeling better than I had in at least two weeks, though still not done with the upper respiratory thing. But I decided, with an unmistakable sense of dread, to give it a shot. Swim: The two loop one mile course was a bit short, thankfully. But that was more than compensated for by the temperature and rough water. Very hard to make it to the first buoy as you swam into the teeth of it. I was pretty toasty in my fabulous Bobozone Wetsuit. Post race, I overheard some strong swimmers talking about how tough the swim was for them. Transition was complicated, for me. I had to fall on my ass a couple of times and misplace my shoes (hiding under someone's doffed wetsuit), before I could commence the 1/4 mile uphill jog back to transition. Bike: Took off on the bike feeling pretty good, until I realized I had no rear brakes. Tried to adjust them but no dice. Satisfied that I could brake with the front alone with caution, I set out. We had that misleading tailwind going out. I kept my heart rate way down, and so things felt easy. Of course they probably should feel easy when you're ahead of only 4 or 5 others, which was the case. Stopped once to fill up a very soft rear tire, which got me another half mile until it was totally flat. For a variety of reasons, too embarrassing to go into here, I just couldn't get it together with this flat tire. Very discouraging. Lots of nice people asked if I needed anything as they rode by, which I really appreciated. I did, but was too vain to ask for it, until the nice lady race photographer stopped on the other side of the road: NLRP: "Do you need anything?" So I went to retrieve my bike to throw in the back of the
truck, thoroughly pissed off with the whole affair, then had a change of
heart, or something. The bike course itself? Very, very good. The mile and a half getting out of the hotel grounds are serious business - nothing but hills, mostly quite steep. I stayed seated for all of them but only because I had the 25 tooth rear cog in back. Once on LA 191, the road to Zwolle, it was bike lane all the way. A few gentle rollers, nothing like the ones on the hotel grounds. Very smooth asphalt. Probably the best triathlon bike course in the state, all things considered. Run, etc.: Back in transition, I had the unusual experience of getting my run gear together while the winner, pro triathlete James Bonney, finished. Hmmm. I headed out for ten miles of what I hoped would be gently rolling trails, like the kind at Kisatchie where the Race for Da Ribs is held. Not a chance! This was a ten mile hike, where you had flattish ground for a grand total of maybe 1.5 miles. Very tough. Luckily, there was plenty of support - cold bottles of water, Gatorade, Hammer Gel. The cold bottles of water were well thought out. With them, you could take 16 ounces or so with you for a while since all the bottles had screw caps. Staying hydrated on a course this difficult as the temperature approached 80 was critical. Much of the run followed a Cleco 34,500 volt power line cut through the forest - I had no idea my company had lines in such difficult terrain. Four wheelers only, and some places looked too steep even for those. I made it to the Jerry Martinez Water Station (4 miles, about), and still hadn't passed any of the runners ahead of me. Eventually, I did make my way through some of my fellow stragglers. My legs actually felt strong at this point, but there was not much running to do, just a lot of scrambling up and down the mountainous terrain. Bobo had advertised that the "Pit of Despair" was at the west end of the course. I traversed a half dozen down-and-ups, any one of which could qualify for that title. I still don't know which one he had in mind. Several people read the first draft of this race report and asked me to mention the run course discrepancy. It seems there was confusion about how far to run on the west half of the trails. Some may have made a turn at the deer stand (never saw it, myself). To get the full benefit of the course, one had to run all the way to the unmanned aid station (probably about mile 7 or so), and make a U-turn there. This was an 8 foot folding table in a clearing with two orange 5 gallon water dispensers - one with orange Gatorade, one with lemon lime, and a supply of bananas. If you made it that far and turned around at that point, congratulations, you followed instructions. If you never saw that station, you inadvertently cut the course short. There's more, but I am tired and will quit, at least for now. I can't comment on the post-race shenanigans, because I didn't stick around. Almost forgot - the finisher's dog tags were too much! I also dug the fact that the goodie bag itself was actually a crawfish sack. Where else are you going to find that? Very nice touch. In the end, the back of the race t-shirt sums up the day pretty well: "The cowards didn't show; and the weak died."
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