Matt Nussbaum – Age Grouper

This race was really fun overall. The course was great and the weather mostly cooperated. I didn’t really have a specific performance goal going into the race. I spent a lot of the winter injured and have been pretty low on run volume compared to the last couple seasons which has made it tough to be confident in my fitness. This race was totally to gauge where I am at and try not to make any dumb mistakes.

It was a 6am start which meant breakfast (a lot of applesauce, protein Skratch, and a banana) needed to be consumed around 3. I got through that first challenge quickly enough and double checked that I had everything I needed in my transition bag before heading over to the race shuttle a little before 4. We made the second shuttle and I was in transition by 5 to get set. Laying everything out and doing a couple quick shadow T1s and T2s took all of 30 minutes which left me with plenty of time before the start. The air felt chilly in the 50s with the sun still waiting to come up, so I was glad to have my wetsuit to keep that little bit warmer. I stood in the starting corral with a few others looking into the darkness which would eventually be the swim course. I was starting to regret tinted goggles. Thankfully the sun rose enough in the next 20 minutes to put my mind at ease before the start. We were guided down into the start chutes and I wound up about seven bodies back. I wish I had been more aggressive to get into the first or second row, but I wasn’t sure if my swim would stack up the same on the west coast as it does back home. 

I took a deep breath just before the starting horn to exhale the nerves and focused on the task at hand. I watched the rows in front of me run through the mud of low tide and next thing I knew, I was up. I ran into the water and swam hard to try and catch any feet I could for a draft. There was actually a group that was moving decently quickly that I latched onto by the first or second sight buoy. I used the draft to catch my breath and let my body settle into the pace. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as I expected. 

The group started to slow down and break apart a little just before the turn buoy. People started jockeying for position at that first turn buoy and the second turn right after it was weirdly chaotic for there only being about six or seven people. I went hard around that second one to bring the pace back up and hopefully split the group. I think it worked since it seemed like there were only two others with me for most of the return leg. The return leg went parallel to the out leg up until a gate and then turned ninety degrees into the last 100 or so meters to the swim exit. The water got super shallow about half way down the return leg and I probably lost a little time swimming weird to not jam my fingers into the bottom. The water deepened again and I managed to catch the pack in front of me with a couple sight buoys to go. 

There were five or six of us through the gate and I got ready to fight for my line to the exit ramp. One guy started getting close in the closing stretch like he was trying to go for the ramp I wanted but I held my pace and my line ready to swim him into the side of the dock if I had to. He backed off in the closing strokes.

I ran up the swim exit ramp and down the carpet around and into transition. The top of my wetsuit came off well before I got to my bike. I pulled the bottom half off as quickly as I could and threw on my bike shoes. The helmet went on next and I had a touch of trouble with the fine finger control to get the buckle done. That probably only cost me a second or two, but felt like half a minute. I grabbed my bike off the rack and did my best to run on the carpeted gravel to the mount line. I finally picked the right gear to leave my bike and was on the bike course decently smoothly with another guy right next to me. I hammered off the line to get away from him by the first turn and was away on the bike course.

This bike course was about as simple as I could dream up. There were a handful of turns to get to the freeway and then it was hang out on that for about 25 miles until the turnaround. The terrain was pretty perfect too. There were three climbs to deal with whose descents were shallow enough to stay on the gas. The air was still on the cold side and it got a bit drizzly. I put my visor on and it fogged up immediately. I gave it maybe 20 minutes to see if it would defog and eventually decided seeing was more important than the marginal aero gain. Squinting through the mist was going to have to due for eye protection. One guy caught me around mile 15 and asked if I knew where we were placed as he passed. I told him I had no idea as he finished the pass. I dropped back six bike lengths out of the draft zone like I’m supposed to and held that gap. He was holding about the pace that I had been and the minor (legal) draft was a nice reprieve letting me back down to the lower end of my power target. I had been hanging onto the top end up to that point and I was starting to worry that would come back to bite me later. 

After about 15 minutes we reached a small hill and he slowed down to do something with his bottles so I made a pass to give him a break and keep the pace going. With a few words we decided to work together. Another guy came into sight and we rode him down quickly. He hopped onto the back of the group and we kept going. At some point the two of them started pushing harder and I wound up just trying to hang onto the back as we got to the turnaround. Two more caught us in the early miles of the return leg who each tried to pass and get away from the group. Neither could and they slotted in. 

Fatigue was setting in pretty badly in the first climb of the return and I was falling into a mental low. Motivation was draining and I had fallen off the back of the group. They were still within view but it was going to be tough to catch back on. I wish I could remember what I said to myself that made me snap out of it, but I found some way to make myself start closing the gap on the next climb and stayed on the gas to catch up. Around mile 45 I was 10-15 bike lengths from the group when I got to some stray stones in the road that I had to swerve through. 

I was almost through the minefield when I made a mistake and hit a big one with my front wheel. The wheel bounced up and landed hard enough to dislodge the aero bottle on my frame. About a quarter second later I heard the air hissing out of the wheel and felt it flattening. I knew whatever happened was bad. Tubeless tires don’t pinch flat. I stopped, hopped off the bike and looked at the damage. A piece of the rim bead had chipped off letting air and sealant spray out. I took a breath and thought about my options. There was no way the tire was going to seal again on its own so there was no sense burning a CO2 and time on that. Throw in a tube seemed like the best bet. The missing chunk of wheel was pretty small and I wasn’t going to wait around for a support moto that may or may not have a wheel. 

I covered the front of my bike and myself in sealant but only lost about ten minutes getting back on the road. I got right back on the gas too. I was still motivated and the break gave my legs a brief rest. Only eight or nine athletes passed me while I was on the side of the road and I easily chased the last two down in those final miles of the bike course which was pretty motivating. I made sure to keep drinking my sugar mix and mentally prepared myself to run hard. 

I misjudged the distance back to transition and pulled my shoes off a little too early. The last corner was a hard 90 that totally snuck up on me and I thought I was going to blow it with my feet on top of my shoes. It was ugly but I got through. I’m really glad there were no other racers near me in that corner since we all probably would have wound up on the ground. I hopped off my bike at the line only to realize that my feet were numb from the chilly ride. Running on the carpeted gravel back to my rack spot wasn’t terribly graceful but just like that last corner, I got there. Swapping shoes and grabbing my other run gear went smoothly and I was out on the run.

Something I wanted out of this race was to finish with a run I could be proud of and I had set myself up for that about as well as I could hope. After about a quarter mile, I noticed my breathing was way too heavy and backed off to what felt like a more appropriate pace. I checked my watch and was surprised to see 6:30 pace with how easy it felt. The plan was to start off slower and get there after a few miles but I decided to roll with it.   The course was a four mile loop that was totally flat for the mile through town, turned up and down a couple punchy hills for two miles, and then went back the way it came to the turnaround by transition.

I noticed a guy on my shoulder a little before the first hill. He surged past me up that hill as I was eating a gel but didn’t get away. I caught and passed him back on the next hill when he faded. We kept going back and forth through the hill section decided to work together before we got to the turnaround. We ran shoulder to shoulder for most of the next loop. The pace felt harder after each hill punch but I hung on. Having the partner was a great motivator and I really wasn’t suffering that badly yet.

I knew I was going to have to dig deep to get through that third loop. The course was feeling a more congested after the turnaround which meant I was going to have to weave a bit without slowing down. My new friend fell off the pace and out of my peripheral at some point in the flat mile. I stayed focused on the task at hand and avoided looking back for him. I had another gel as I approached the hills and prepared myself to suffer. It took everything I had to give to keep from bleeding time on the hills and each downhill hurt more. My pace partner caught back up about half way through the hills and I was determined to stay on his shoulder. He started getting away from me on the last downhill but I did my best to keep the hold gap for the flat half mile to the finish.

I was basically crosseyed by the time I turned the last corner to the finish line. It was only 100 meters and seeing the end was the only thing holding me together. There was no finishing kick. I had given it everything I had to get through that run. I was only after I caught my breath that Naomi told me that I had run 1:27. I was absolutely thrilled with that result. It’s felt like I’ve been running 1:30-1:31 over and over for the last few years, so it feels like I’ve finally made a breakthrough. 

My overall time might not have been what I’m capable of, but mechanicals happen. Looking back, I’m impressed with how I handled the setback. I didn’t panic or get angry. I just thought through what I could do and got back to work. I kept to my goal of seeing where my fitness is and have a good feeling of where this season is going to go.

Swim Split: 26:20 (3rd AG – 9th Overall)

Bike Split: 2:26:54 (17th AG – 61st Overall)

Run Split: 1:27:19 (11th AG – 52nd Overall)

Overall Time: 4:27:27 (7th AG – 26th Overall)