Spanish Moss In My Hand,

Turn Me Into CRAWFISHMAN!

What is Crawfishman?  I'm glad you asked.

It's a local triathlon that's held every May currently in Bush, LA.  Distance-wise, I guess it's a "Super-Sprint" as it falls between standard Sprint and Olympic distances,  1000 Meter swim, 18 mile bike, 4 mile run.

It's also everything a Disney race isn't, in a good way.  It's small.  It's locally run.  It's laid back and relaxed.  The emcee is a character not afraid of some off-color jokes.

But it's also very well run and open to beginners.  And the post-race party is a good time.  It's a highlight on the local triathlon calendar.

The morning almost was a disaster, but my inability to sleep well the night before a big event saved me.  I had put an alarm on my phone so I could wake up, eat breakfast, and take my time getting out of the house.  But I neglected to change the alarm from AM to PM.  I woke at 4AM, looked at the clock, thought I had time to sleep more, and rolled over to go back to sleep.  I woke again at 5:35, jumped up in a near panic, grabbed an energy drink and a breakfast cookie, got dressed, and left.  I never get out the house that fast in the morning.  But somehow I still got to the race site before transition opened.  I grabbed my chip, had a friend I met through Facebook that also ran Dopey do my body-marking (followed by a slightly inappropriate joke) and found a spot under a tree to relax and chat until I could rack my bike.

After we could get to the racks, I took my time laying out my gear and talking to people I knew who were racked around me.  We waited for the official water temp, which turned out to be 74 degrees (and therefore wetsuit legal) and then the "should I wear my wetsuit" debates started.  For me, it's not a debate.  I'd use arm floaties if I could get away with it.  I pulled on my wetsuit and made my way to the swim start.  I swam about 100 yards or so to warm up a bit and get used to the water before proceeding to stand on the edge of a drop off in the lake to laugh with people who fell in the same hole I did and show them where to stand.  I do this in hopes of learning some new profanities, but people lack creativity at 7:20 in the morning before a race.

Swim Leg

I was in the third heat to start (M40-49), so when the second heat went I positioned myself towards the back of the pack and to the outside to minimize the risk of being swum over.  This turned out to be a good idea as I had a really clean swim for most of the race.  Before we started some friends and I were discussing sighting strategies since the buoys were small and we were swimming into the morning sun.  One of the more experienced guys suggested a dip in the tree line with two prominent trees that poked above, and that worked fairly well when I actually sighted.  I did have a couple of the water safety volunteers yell at me and slap the water with their paddles to get me to go in the right direction as I passed them.  The turnaround happened to be in a spot where the lake got really shallow (under 3 feet) so I walked around instead of swimming it.  The return swim was much easier since I was sighting off of a small beach and didn't have the glare issues, but I still managed to drift off course a couple times.  I finished the swim in 24:39 which was slow, but compared to the other hilariously bad attempts at triathlon swimming it was a HUGE improvement.  I never felt panicky or stressed in the water, kept my tempo where I was comfortable, and just kept moving forward.  Transition wasn't too bad (2:07) considering I had to deal with the wetsuit.

Bike Leg

The bike course for this race is really nice as it goes out the subdivision, up a small state road to a bigger state road, then turns around to come back.  There's plenty of rolling hills but nothing as far as big climbs go.  And the scenery is beautiful.  I used to spend a ton of time in the area on a motorcycle so I love getting back there on a bicycle.

I got out of T1 cleanly, got on the bike and got situated and started grinding.  I had a target time in mind (under 1:00) for this leg but also wanted to not blow my legs up before the run.  I felt really strong on the "out" portion of the ride and was able to take advantage of the net elevation loss to build  up a couple minutes in reserve.  After the turnaround a guy caught me on a downhill and passed me.  Then the next rise I caught and passed him.  Then he passed me again on the next downhill.  This went on for about 7 miles as we pushed each other, but I finally remembered that I had to run off the bike and with about 2 miles left I let him go while I coasted all the downhills and did some on-bike stretches to refresh my legs a bit.  At about .25 miles, I took my feet out of my shoes, dropped the gear, and spun into T2 (and didn't crash).  My final bike split was 56:32 with a 19.1 MPH average, well under my 1:00 goal.  I was somewhat slow in T2 as I had to tie my shoes (no Yankz on the shoes I wore today since my other ones were giving me ankle issues and I think they're done) and also one of the nosepieces fell off of my sunglasses and I found it in my shoe and wanted to put it in my bag on my bike.  That ended up being a 2:29 transition instead of sub-1:00.  Meh.

Run Leg

The run was a simple out-and back, but was much hillier than anything I've run since, well, last year's Crawfishman.  I had forgotten about the hills but was quickly reminded before even the .5 mile mark. They slowed me a bit but I was still able to keep my pace fairly close to my 5K pace and finish the 4 miles in 30:41, a couple minutes faster than last year.  I also felt a lot better through the run than last year and didn't bonk at all.  Looking back I probably could have gone a bit faster, but until I can generate a bit more power on the bike and get my swim in order there's no real reason as I'm not competitive.

All in all, it was quite a good day racing.  I'm fairly impressed with myself concerning the swim and look forward to putting in even more time on the bike.

Going forward, I'll take a couple days off then get back in the pool.  After that I'll start my focused training for Augusta.  Can't wait!