A view of the American Triple T 2010
By Any Pele
A view of the American Triple-T from retirement
2010 was my fourth year to do this race, actually four races over three days. It begins with a super sprint Friday afternoon, follows up with two olympic races on Saturday and ends with a half iron race on Sunday. I must be honest, I didn’t want to do it this year because it’s a tough weekend. The run is hilly as are the bike courses, but they’re beautiful. They’re also irresistible like my teammate, Rodney Adkison, to whom I couldn’t say no after an injury sidelined him during last year’s race. But neither of us had done the training necessary to excel here this year. Rodney has decided to take a less structured training year and help Dianna get ready for Ironman Wisconsin. I’ve just decided to have more fun. For example, I went rock climbing just a couple days before leaving for Shawnee State Park, OH (site of the race), something I would have never done in my “serious” years of triathlon.
Rodney had scared me with talk about wanting to finish among the top three teams this year. I feared the inevitable suffering of trying to keep up with him. However, as the race approached and we found ourselves cooked after a hard and hilly 70-mile training ride that would have been a walk in the park last year, his ambitions mellowed and my fears subsided. I finally felt like we would be able to approach this event with similar attitudes, a key aspect of racing as a team.
This year we had the largest CMC contingent ever at Triple-T. Jerry Donohue, a veteran of the event who races solo every year, had his best Triple-T ever. But the competition gets stiffer in the Grand Master division as younger people keep aging up to challenge him. JP Palmer competed also and placed highly in her division. Tony Rigdon will forever be remembered as the guy who raced in a Speedo in several of the races. I had to own up that he was a friend of mine when my rack-mates started talking about him. He had several great swims and while Rodney and I were drafting in Saturday afternoon’s olympic race (drafting is legal among teammates in races 3 and 4), Tony passed us on the bike. He beat us by five minutes in that race. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his Speedo for that race. But he says he went faster because of the pancakes and eggs he ate between the morning and afternoon race. On Sunday he started in bike shorts, but after a disappointing bike split, ran from T2 to his teardrop trailer to re-don the Speedo, swig some wine, throw on a straw cowboy hat and have fun with the rest of the race.
Other teams from Columbia were Brittany Allen and Carol Crooks, Yvonne Buchheit and Nathan Allen, and Dianna Adkison and Nicole Pele. Nicole and Dianna teamed up last year and seem to be great partners. Nicole however struggled with stomach issues on the bike in Sunday’s half. Nevertheless she and Dianna “gutted” it out to chase down Brittany and Carol on the run. Some say it was because Carol was using her air supply to sing This is the Day the Lord has Made while she and Brittany battled it out with the hilly fire road. Carol also entertained us over the weekend by successfully shoving her leg into the sleeve of her wetsuit in T1 (Saturday’s afternoon race is bike/swim/run) and lodging it so securely that she began cutting off her circulation. It’s hard enough to put on a wetsuit after biking and working up a good sweat even when you use all the right holes. Unfortunately, Carol was a bit anxious for the first olympic swim and proceeded to vomit in the lake. Since I was ranked highly enough to start ahead of her, I thought I dodged that bullet until I remembered that all the swims are two laps. Despite the mishaps, Carol seemed to really enjoy herself over the weekend, laughing through it all. I wish I had heard more stories about Yvonne and Nathan’s experience as a team. As far as I can tell they functioned together smoothly. I was happy to be cheering these newcomers on and was really impressed at how well they handled this very challenging event.
Given the fact that I was not serious about this race and that Rodney and I were both under trained, I was happily surprised by our 4th place finish overall as a team. I raced the sprint well, finishing in 23:01, 28 and 27 seconds ahead of Rodney and Tony. And to celebrate I caught a ride with Tony into Portsmouth so I could stop at the Buckeye Dairy Barn on the way and grab an ice cream and steak hoagie. This is a cool little outdoor ice cream and snack shop that Joe and Amy Company, Nate Smith and Vida, myself and Nicole found during our first trip to Triple-T back in 2007. On our way back to the cabin, Tony and I watched the lightning put on a great show, a storm that would change our race for Saturday morning. When I got back to the cabin everyone was already in bed, trying to be prepared for the morning race.
In transition for race 2, we found out that trees had been blown down on the bike course so they chose to use the afternoon course (less scenic, a simple out and back rather than a loop, with longer steadier climbs rather than shorter and steeper.) I hoped they would be able to clear those trees for the afternoon race because I like the variety of the bike courses at Triple-T. But that didn’t happen and we repeated the course for race 3. The second change the storm brought was a significant decrease in the lake’s temperature. At least it wasn’t cold enough to require hoods. I started several seconds ahead of Rodney, but he swam faster than I did. I beat him out of T1 because his camelback nozzle popped off. He ended up chasing me on the bike. He chased me on the run too, creeping up on the uphills then losing ground on the downhills. As we came within 500 yards of the finish I kept urging him to catch me so we could have a better time (teammates compete individually for races 1 and 2 and their times are added together.) We managed to finish within seconds of each other.
After we finished, we had five hours until the next race started. Instead of refueling and resting, I grabbed the camera and went out on the run course to take pictures of the other CMCers. I got to notice how pretty the course is, instead of how tough it is to race. A stream runs parallel to it for a couple miles but I never paid much attention to it before. I cheered on all the runners coming at me and accompanied Nicole for the last mile or two of her run, wielding my stick as a “motivator” in case she was tempted to slow down. Brittany also caught up with Nicole and they ran together to the finish. After icing our muscles in the 53-degree creek, we went up to the cabin to rest. Rodney, however, got sick and started losing fluids. By the start of race 3, he was pretty dehydrated. Nevertheless he stuck it out and as he likes to say, “we got her done, but it wasn’t pretty.”
I knew something must be wrong when Rodney would let me take some decent turns at the front on the bike leg. Had he been feeling better, I would have just struggled to stay in his draft. The course has a few screaming downhills with turns you can carve without braking if you’re confident enough. Nathan Allen loved that. Back in T1, I had a surprisingly easy time getting my wetsuit on, but Rodney struggled a bit, proving that even experienced triathletes can have transition malfunctions. He had to strip off the top piece of his wetsuit because he had neglected to pull on his shoulder straps from his farmer john style bottoms. Then during the swim, the dehydration took its toll on him by causing severe muscle cramping in his legs. He thought he might have to roll onto his back and wondered whether he could even finish the swim. I was surprised that I had to wait a couple minutes for him in T2. I helped him yank off his wetsuit and get his shoes on, as he howled in pain from the muscle cramps. We started the run nice and easy hoping he’d start to feel better but it was four miles before he could run anywhere near his normal pace. I felt bad for him but also was glad that I wasn’t holding him back this year. Two years ago, I struggled on this run and Rodney talked me through it. I was glad for the opportunity to switch roles and encourage him for a change.
Sunday morning Rod’s calves were still all knotted up. We planned to take it easy on the first loop of the bike and even the second if he didn’t loosen up. He got out of the saddle a lot on the hills attempting to stretch them. He swam quickly and easily and we biked well, but the calves were a problem on the run again. Imagine pain on every step for 11 miles. Then imagine Rodney sensing the finish line and transferring all the pain to me as he picked up his pace. I went from clapping and cheering our competitors as we ran (or walked at times) up hill, to gasping for breath and warning Rodney that he was going to finish without me. I think he was trying to pay me back for enjoying the race while he suffered. At least I didn’t sing to him. It’s amazing how the suffering disappears for Rodney as the finish approaches. I don’t see how he can “burn it in” at the end of an ironman, for example. Yet, he does.
Rodney’s been my teammate for three consecutive years. So, though I never really wanted to do this race, (since I’m peletired and all) I couldn’t let him down. And I discovered that I could enjoy Triple-T and even perform relatively well without being at the top of my game. It was a liberating revelation. Therefore, I will race again with him next year, even though I don’t plan on doing any other triathlons in the meantime. I may suffer more next year, because Rodney will be upping his game. But I know he’ll be there to help me through it all.