Barrelman 2022 - Stop This Train

 And... the final multisport race of 2022 is done!  After the whirlwind week leading up to Barrelman half ironman, I was in a really weird spot with the race - it had started out as an A race early season with some legit goals (sub 5) , then took a back seat to more of a "Let's try to PR this thing" but have fun with it.  After the whole passport fiasco, it had properly been placed in the " let's have fun trip" with a side goal of fast.

Saturday morning, the day before the race, Mike (RATs prez, fellow bad decision maker) and I headed for Canada to check in and commence our little weekend road trip.  Rest assured, we made it across the boarder just fine, albeit a little slowly as we got into a detailed training plan with border authority and how he too could go from smoking a pack a day to racing barrelman in 2023 with us!  Oh Mike.  This dude could sell ice to an Eskimo, I swear.  

Once we finally got to Welland, we took care of business rather quickly and got our packets, racked our bikes, and caught up with friends.  We hit the basin for a quick swim sans wetsuit, as it seemed to be borderline as to whether or not it would be wetsuit legal (that would be 24 in Canada, which equates to 75.2 in dumb American).  The water felt refreshing and amazing, and it was zero problems to swim wetsuit free.  Without any drama, we finished our pre race site checklist and headed to the Air Bnb for dinner and last minute details.  I was still pretty unsure of my goals for the race - Mike was gunning for a sub 5 and while it sounded good, I couldn't get the math to work in my brain - I had the rough goal of 36-38 on the swim, 2:40 for the bike and 1:45 for the run, plus transitions, which worked out to about 5:05-5:10 with transitions.  Fair enough.  My PR is a 5:17 so I figured I'd go for broke on the swim and bike, and if I shook out to a 3:15 or less going into the run, go for that sub 5.  Not much else to mention pre race except I somehow managed to pack my race fuel and no scoop to measure, so I emptied a K cup that looked about twice the size of my scoop and hit it that way - what a fun game to play - was I getting 600 calories of nutrition - or 200? Or 1200?  Stay tuned!  (Post race notice - a K cup is almost exactly twice the size of the Skratch scoop - am I good or what??)

Race morning dawned....not so early.  With an 8:42 wave start (YES for non time trial start!) Mike and I were up and moving naturally at 4:30 for a 6am departure to T2 - this race has two transitions, so we drove to T2 and were bussed to T1 to set up our bikes and get ready to rock.  It was a warm and windy morning, and on the 45 minute ride to transition, I felt really queasy - like - throwing up type of queasy.  I wasn't sure if it was nerves but my stomach was a mess. This continued until the beginning of the race and definitely affected my nutrition - my own fault but what can you do.  Before I knew it, our wave was up (Mike and I started at the same time, which was pretty cool!) I jumped off the dock, swam to the start, and seeded myself aggressively within the wave - toward the front third and all the way to the right.  Stomach, passport, and nerves be damned - let's DO THIS!

Swim: 38:42 (1:49/100 yd)

The Barrelman swim is advertised as long, at 2000m instead of 1900, which is the standard half distance.  I knew it and accounted for it.  The cool part about this swim venue is that not only is it sheltered in a basin, there's a cable underwater a la Lake Placid, where if you're brave enough to swim with the scrum, you never have to sight.  I'm brave enough, so for the first few hundred yards I survived the battle and swam with the cable directly to my right line of breathing sight, which was perfect.  About five minutes into the swim, my goggles started to slow leak in the right eye socket, so I adjusted them - this did no good and I had to do a dump ever few hundred yards or so, which was annoying.  The first half of the swim was slightly current assisted, and the way back a little wavier, but nothing to write home about.  I found a swim buddy on the way back and aside from a few smacks when we got too close, kept a perfect rhythm that was only altered when I had to goggle dump.  Not much else to say about the swim except for I probably need to learn to get out of my comfort zone more for next year - I seem to find a perfect rhythm between 1:45-1:50 pace in OWS for a race and know I am capable of going faster.  I burn no matches but it hurts my time, so we shelf that for next years goals.  Out of the water just over 38 minutes and on to the bike!

Bike: 2:40:44 (20 mph)

I was so excited about this bike.  Three years ago I biked a 2:48 and that was before I began to ride in aero - I clocked a 2:38 at Eagleman last year for a 21mph and average and had designs to do the same here. I got stuck out of the gate at the mount line by some guy hogging the whole area and basically sitting down for coffee, so I ran my bike further up and was off without embarrassing myself (yeah, I'm prone to do that in T1).  Within seconds, a massive headwind smacked me in the face and continued attacking for the next hour - I was on a flat road, going 15 and cursing the whole time.  The trees were an indicator of the winds, and the alternating cross had me blowing a bit sideways.  Nothing scray (I remember Utah) but definitely indicative of my speed.  The goal here was to, of course, go fast, but also head Mike off as long as I could - I'm a better swimmer, he's a better cyclist, and I'm a better runner, so the race was on!  I hot the turnaround at mile 14, averaging 16.9 (WTF) and was immediately granted some nice tailwind relief for a few miles, as I saw Mike behind me!  I downed a gel, narrowly avoided a crash brought on by an aggressive driver (cyclists okay, thank goodness) and headed right for some more crosswind fun.  Mike passed me at mile 17 (on the inside at a U turn because he's a dick) and after some good natured ribbing, I continued on.  The next ten miles were mostly tailwind, thank goodness, and I was making nice progress with increasing my overall MPH when I heard....a fucking train whistle.  WHAT. THE. HELL.  Sure enough, I saw a train coming out of the right peripheral vision and cursing, stopped my bike.  Almost 3 minutes later, we were off again - about twenty of us impacted.  Thank god I stopped my garmin (this would be important later) but I'll admit I was super annoyed - a stop on the bike robs you of all momentum and this was the second train of my season - both at 70.3's.  I've been racing since 2005 and have never been stopped for a train - what was up with 2022??

The rest of the bike was rather uneventful - the new course was a bit hillier than 2019, but nothing crazy, and I definitely think we had more cross and head than tailwind, but it is what it is.  At mile 50, I knew my mph was not going to be what I wanted it to be, so when I saw the race course photographer, I nailed a five year goal of mine and hammed it up in the "pathetic triathlete" pose - something that, before this year, I probably would have crashed my bike doing.  Success!

Coasted into T2 with a bike split of 2:40 and change, for 20 mph (bike course slightly short).  It was time to run!

Run: 1:45:01 (8:11/mi)

With the race clock at 3:25, I knew a sub 5 wasn't in the cards, and that was okay.  It had gotten pretty warm out (31C, which is about 88 Fahrenheit. )  I took off behind a strong looking runner, and averaged 7:45 for the first few miles - I saw Mike about 4 minutes ahead of me, which was a pleasant surprise (for me, not him).  I felt pretty decent - focusing right ahead and a steady clip, until mile 2.5 when I hit "dumbass hill" the affectionately named hill that is, well, a total dumbass hill that I'm better off power walking.  I took in some nutrition and was passed by Jennie at the top of the hill, who was on her second loop and looking strong (of course, being a pro, she has to pretend as such anyways!)  We joked for a bit and she was off.  I picked up the pace again and was running about a 7:30 when Jennie passed a guy ahead of me like a rocket and he looked so dejected I told him - hey - don't worry, she's a pro, she's supposed to go fast!  He laughed and asked her pace, and I replied in miles, not thinking, and we had another laugh.  I was going slightly faster than him so I moved ahead and wished him luck, and he called out after me - hey, are you a pro too, or do you run that fast for free?  Oh dude.  You made my day!

Caught up with Mike about mile 4, who was in pain.  I walked with him for a minute, then picked it back up after lamenting about the fucking train.  The rest of loop 1 was pretty decent, clocked in 50 minutes flat.  I knew I didn't have that in me for loop 2 - it was hot and my stomach was so off.  I dry heaved a few times and got in what I could with a decent run walk strategy.  I played leapfrog with two women - Amy and Ashley - one was in my AG and one was not. I kept an eye on the time and knew a 5:10 was possible if I kept at it, and the last 6 miles were a calculated mix of run/walk to make it happen.  I picked it up the last mile or so and crossed the finish line in 5:10:15 by my watch - a seven minute PR!

Post Race

After the race, I caught up with Ashley, the woman in my AG I was chasing that beat me - or had she?  She didn't get stopped by the train, but I had no idea if the results accounted for it.  I checked the Sports stats app and saw my time as 5:12:14 which meant - they hadn't.  I wouldn't have cared except for two key things - it was a PR, and it knocked me down to 4th in my AG.  Holy crap.  A quick chat with the timers cleared that up - you just had to show them your Garmin time - they gave a max of 90 seconds for the train, which cost me two minutes, but I would take it!  It turned out that the winner of my AG was the overall winner, so I came in 2nd AG, and in the top 10% of women, 15% overall.  Hell yeah.  I'll take it.  This was my first AG placement in a large half iron distance race, and I was so excited - a nice bottle of wine and $50 of running goodies are an alright payday for a race I didn't even think I'd make it to!

And with that, multisport season 2022 is a wrap.  Another season that blew my mind - a big Ironman PR, and PR's for the sprint and half iron distances - along with 3 overall wins (I have never won a tri prior to this year. Ever).

I have things to work on for 2023- my swim needs some work in the open water, and post Ironman, I never followed up with speedwork on the bike, which showed for the shorter stuff.  But there were some huge gains as well - I absolutely learned how to handle my bike well and be comfortable on it, and how to maximize my run off the bike, which led to some pretty awesome successes!

I'm really excited for fall running season - I have a fall race I'm starting to prep for, and an epic 2023 in the works already - stay tuned!  But if someone could....Stop the train...for next year, that would be great :-)