Bike
The bike course started up a hill out to the 191 west until a 180 near the first mile at which point there was a gradual downhill for a bit. I passed a few people climbing to that turnaround and then hung back a bit for the tight turn. Once we were headed back east toward downtown Cleveland I dropped into my aeros and tried to find some speed. I stayed low downhill which is a confidence win for me – I hate riding a descent in aero, far away from the brakes if I need them. (Yes I’m a chicken like that still but even Gwen Jorgensen had to learn how to trust a descent and I’m working on it.) It helped that I knew the course from last year; I knew it wasn’t a long downhill and the road there was smooth and new.
The road on the rest of the course was less smooth – even in spots where it was also new. Last year the overpasses heading out and coming in had been the bane of my (and everyone’s) tri-xistence. We’d had to navigate the under-construction freeway narrowing to a single pothole-riddled lane. I had unabashedly sat up the whole time and hoped I wouldn’t have to do the same this year. Organizers had boasted that the city had repaved a lot of those problem sections so I anticipated a less hellish trip in 2019.
With construction over we got to use both wide lanes which was great – especially great for the people passing me – and there were fewer moonsized craters, but this “new” pavement was not the smooth luxurious ride that had been advertised. Not all pavement is created equal and this stuff was the pits. No we didn’t have to dodge missing chunks of highway this year, but the new pitch was that ribbed stuff that sets your wheels and teeth chattering. The ridged road also wound up a decent hill and I sat my ass up, disappointed in the conditions and myself.
Once off the bridge and back on a better patch of highway I got low again and tried to make up some speed. That first five mile lap was the slowest of the day at 18.9 mph. I felt like I was already noncompliant with my orders to punch the bike so I dug into my big ring for the couple miles of flat road I knew were ahead of me.
Within a mile of exiting the underwhelming “new” overpass we were diverted off the highway onto a parallel access road for a couple miles. I stayed low and fast (for me) and decided to thrash my legs here – some self-flagellation for my lackadaisical riding earlier – keeping the speed around 21mph.
Around mile 7.5 we fully exited the highway and highway adjacency to wind through some Cleveburg neighborhoods – the first of which (Asiatown apparently) was badly in need of even some of that sweet “new” pavement. The pockmarked street had the gatorade in my aerobottle splashing all over the place. I had to let go of those super-20mph speeds.
Around this time I also desperately needed to blow my nose. In the week before the race, in addition to that never-ending period, I’d been dealing with the remnants of a sinus infection. It wasn’t a bad one but I still had a lingering nasal drip and as I rode it was starting to actively drip drip drip out of my nose. I’m totally incapable of snot-rocketing so I was reduced to mouth breathing as I tried to wipe away my mucus mustache with my hand. Gross. I repeatedly wiped my face, then wiped my hand on my kit, and never seemed to even slightly plug the nasal faucet.
I perversely hoped a photog would capture the full extent of my nastiness. The rest of the ride I never succeeded in either emptying my nasal passages or effectively wiping my face. Eventually I got used to the discomfort and just rode with it. Miles five through ten were marginally better than one through five with a 19.4 mph average.
The course also got more pleasant near mile ten. We had a nice long straightaway with minimal ascending or descending. This two-and-a-half mile stretch took us down Chester Ave and past our 2018 Airbnb and here I will remind everyone that a house on the course sounds great until you can’t leave race morning because all of the roads are closed. I had some silly pangs of nostalgia as I spun by our year-ago digs.
I also took this long flat as opportunity to feed myself. I’ve been using GU stroopwafels this season and my tummy so far approves. I broke off a chunk of one from my bento box and let a couple 30-34 women pass me as I fueled, noting their ages on their very fast calves and shrugging them off as not-my-competition. Calories in I got back to work as I was nearing the left off Chester and onto the mile-long descent that led to the turnaround. Again I stayed in aero downhill and was proud of myself for doing so. I think the key for future races is to know the course well enough like I did here to feel confident about the hill grade and if and when I would need my brakes. (Filing that bit of self-realization away for all future races – who wants to ride or drive every bike course with me from here on out?!)
That mile downhill was immediately followed by tight-ish 180 and a mile back up the same hill. Josh’s orders had been to hammer this ascent because I would have those flat Chester Ave miles again to recover. I tried to heed his words but as soon as I had flipped around to get my climb on a woman came riding by shouting, “and now we go back up!” She was laughing and so I started laughing and had one of those emo oh-my-goddd-I-love triathlon moments. I recovered my senses and got to work using that tri-jester as a rabbit up the hill. (Not drafting of course – she was many lengths ahead of me by then!)
Back on good ol’ Chester Ave I got low and tried to focus hard on finishing strong. I was now more than halfway through the bike and miles ten through 15 had averaged 19.6mph. Decent considering all the climbing but I was determined to bring it home with a lot more. After all, I had a run to blow up on!
Again I used the flat straightaway to chomp down some more stroopwafel and I set a mental goal for myself to average over 20 for the last ten miles. I was able to pick off a number of people though honestly I think they were mostly the last stragglers from the age groups ahead of mine. Either way I was doing my best to wear out my legs and was successfully keeping things around 21mph.
Getting back into pockmarked Asiatown I had to slow up a bit to dodge the warzone street obstacles. At one point I didn’t see a massive crevice in the road until I was right on top of it and the hard thud of my bicycle launched the remainder of my aerebottle contents all over my face. (Which in aero was only inches from the top of said the suddenly-empty bottle.) Now I was covered in gatorade and snot, a potently sticky combination. I was also out of liquid calories.
I wasn’t too worried about the caloric deficit as I had begun to develop a side stitch after mile 15. I’d never had a stitch on the bike and kind of wondered at this new sensation. It didn’t feel too terrible while cycling but I worried about what it meant for my run if I didn’t work it out over the next ten miles. In the moment I thought maybe I’d had too many sugary calories but in retrospect I blame the snot. Side cramps are usually a result of lack of oxygen and I couldn’t properly breathe. Looking back if I could change one thing about race day I would have thought to properly blow my post-sick post-lake nose in T1, I think it could have saved my run. (Sorry for the spoiler but the run was the blowup disaster of Josh’s dreams.)
After Asiatown came the mostly flat highway-parallel service road. I shifted back into my big ring and pushed my legs intentionally to screaming. It worked and as we were turning back onto the 191 around mile twenty my watch buzzed a 20.8 mph average for the previous five miles. Right on the money and I just needed to do the same back to transition.
Unfortunately I hadn’t factored the “newly paved” overpass into my mid-race goal-making. With just three miles to go suddenly I was vibrating back uphill. I stayed in aero as long as I could but eventually sat up again, though this time it was more in reaction to the grade of the ascent rather than the quality grade of the pavement. I also exchanged more knowing climbing laughs with another woman – this time I was doing the passing – and my love for the sport eclipsed the misery of the road conditions.
Off that damn bridge for the final time there was a mile or so left to hammer. It was a mostly downhill and people were flying down it to finish strong. I was intimidated by the descent but I pushed past the fear, dropped back onto my bars, and pushed with all I could creeping past 30mph for a stretch.
I was proud of myself for that final aero push as I pulled back into transition. The overpass had dropped me back below a 20mph average for the final five miles but I was happy with how I’d finished. Overall I did 1:16:10 on the bike and averaged 19.6mph. In the moment I was mostly pleased with that as I jogged Koop back to my rack.
T2
That final proud push didn’t do anything for my sidestitch though. And what hadn’t been too painful on the bike became a more pronounced problem once I started trying to run the bike in.
As I reached my rack I tried to slow down and breath into my right side where the knot was getting louder. I opted to ignore the caloric options I’d left out for myself. I was hungry – I was wearing rather than digesting a lot of my aero bottle nutrition after all – but hunger seemed preferable to the stabbing bellyache. I felt like maybe the pain was subsiding as I inhaled and exhaled slowly and took it easy pulling my sneakers and race belt on. I mostly walked toward the run course, hoping that little ball of pain receptors had worked itself out over the 2:25 I’d taken in T2.
Run
The run out is directly next to the bike out so it starts up the same hill. This year’s course was a little different than last; in 2018 we’d run two laps, each of which started with a quarter mile, steep grinding ascent. This time around we skipped that grinder swapping it out for a less steep, much longer mile climb right off the bat.
I fell into healthy Liz autopilot and pacing, attacking the run as soon as I crossed the timing mat, which hurt from the jump. I didn’t look at my watch for the first couple minutes just running off perceived exertion. When I did glance down at my watch I saw that it was still tracking me in transition. I tried to click ahead to the next stage but it kept beeping at me and doing nothing. Frustratedly I ended that workout and restarted it under the pure run category.
I’d been running by feel, and I didn’t feel very fast, so imagine my surprise when I finally got my watch working and I saw that I was running uphill in the 7:30s. Of course things hurt. I was in no shape for that kind of pace uphill after the bike. I backed off the speed, confident the cramp that was now screaming in my right side belly would quiet.
First I latched onto some mid-8 pacing for a few minutes. I was being passed by more people than I am comfortable with on a run but I was also still passing other people at that pace so it felt ok on the embattled ego. But quickly I realized even mid-8s were too much for climbing with a tummy full of glass shards and I had to back off further into the low 9s.
Now everyone was passing me and on top of the physical sensation of being appendectomied from the inside I was totally demoralized. We reached the top of that first big climb as my sort of functional watch buzzed the first mile: a disappointing 8:37. I had made it about half a mile before the wheels had come off. If Josh was looking for run explosives he’d gotten them in the first 800 meters.
I was sure that at some point this cramp would abate and I would get to really run. (Flashbacks to Boston 2017 anyone?) The second mile was mostly flat and downhill and I assured myself that all I needed was to get my heartrate under control and the pain would dissipate. We ran through the first aid station and my tummy was hungry-grumbling but I didn’t want to chance any calories yet so I just grabbed a cup of water, took a sip and got rid of it.
When we got to start threading downhill I waited for the relief that must be coming but the stitch just stayed stuck. I said fuck it and tried leaning forward into gravity and picking up the pace but that was a mistake. As I tried to accelerate downhill I felt like I might be about to lose the few calories I’d actually gotten into my stomach. I eased back up opting not to lose my breakfast if I could help it.
Over the next few slow miserable miles – all of which clocked in the 8:40s – I just tried to stay alive and keep my food down. I did think a few times about just pulling over and pulling my trigger – maybe it would help and surely the momentary humiliation was preferable to the lifelong humiliation of race results memorialized on the internet. I couldn’t bring myself to puke in front of all those other athletes and spectators though, and so I just soldiered unhappily on. It was everything I could do to keep myself out of the 9:00s.
The fifth mile was the same as the 2018 course and included a couple punchy climbs followed by a knot of switchbacks and tight turns. It was my slowest mile of the day at 8:47 and I really didn’t want to finish the race with that sort of disappointment so I gritted my teeth through the pain and tried to pick up the pace.
Fortunately the sixth and final mile included a long descent to give us all a boost to the finish line. It’s a steep downhill, around .2 miles long, and as I approached it I remembered the year before when I had run fitness and still trusted my legs and ran down that hill in the low 6s. Now I accelerated but I also held way back, sticking mostly with low 7s, afraid my bones might let me down if I hit it any harder.
When the course flattened back out there was less than half a mile to go and suddenly I felt sort of capable of running. Maybe all I’d needed that whole bloody course was to sprint a couple minutes to dislodge whatever was gumming up my insides. There was no time to think (or be disappointed) about that though. I was somehow now running a sub-7 and I felt like I could just about hold on the rest of the way in.
With a quarter mile to go organizers throw a dog agility course type ninja warrior ramp at you. It’s incredibly steep up and down and last year I’d descended it with trepidation but this year I charged up and down the stupid thing with abandon, suddenly throwing skeletal caution to the wind.
Turning down the finisher chute I was still sub-7 but both fading and feeling my stomach start to rebel again. This time it really felt like the morning’s caloric intake was working its way back up. I tried to keep my foot on the gas and my breakfast in my belly as I ran home. Crossing the finish line I had to swallow back the sick.
My final run time was 52:28, more than six minutes slower than last year, and on an easier course. According to my Garmin that last mile was a 6:54 which I think may be a mistake, but at least some of it was indeed sub-7 so looking back at the run I just don’t even know what to think. I’m mad and disappointed but I was in a lot of pain and I don’t think I could have pushed any harder through it. If only I’d blown my nose back in T1!
Aftermath
My final overall time was 2:32:47. No lie, I was disappointed. 83rd out of 120. Back when I thought I’d be able to properly train for the run I wanted to be top 50% of my age group at Nationals and instead I was barely in the top 70%. When I knew I wouldn’t be able to run well I wanted to go top 50% on the bike and instead I was 35th percentile. I felt like I had ridden well and hard, so this result especially has gnawed at me. How can so many women be so much faster than me on the bike? I feel like I’m going at it with all my might and they’re just turning out such bigger, better paces.
Honestly I’ve felt crappy about it since Cleveland. The bike confidence I’d been building after Escape the Cape was pretty well destroyed. I try to tell myself that it’s not a fair comparison, that Nationals is by definition the fastest women in the country and it doesn’t mean I’m so far behind the curve. But the seed of self-doubt has successfully supplanted my burgeoning self-confidence.
I didn’t let myself dwell outwardly though. Madi and the moms had been at the finish line so there was post-race celebrating to do. We found a picnic table by the lake and Madi and I procured some 10am brewskis. It was great to just sit in the sun and relax for a bit, and great that this year we were both finished early.
After a bit we collected our gear and our steeds. While on a somewhat lengthy line to check Tina and Koopa Troop back into tribiketransport I remembered I’d dropped a chunk of stroopwafel into the hole where the shifting cables enter the top tube during my ride. I could see the misplaced nutrition but I couldn’t reach it. Surrounded by other waiting athletes, and with Madi’s encouragement, I flipped Koopa over and began shaking him up and down over my head until the offending snack found its way back out. I definitely got some stares but at least I didn’t ship my bike home with rotting food bits in him.
Eventually we headed out of the Edgewater Park area and ordered a Lyft back to the Airbnb. Logistically it was so much easier this year and I think tribiketransport was worth the $300. If I decide to go to Milwaukee – 2020’s Nationals venue – I think I’ll pony up for transport again. Of course, maybe my ego needs a break from these fast ladies.
Afterparty
After cleaning and cute-ing up, Madi and I joined Speed Sherpa teammates Kathy, Larren, and Kim at a spot called Townhall which was on 25th St a few blocks away. (Madi seriously hit it out of the park with the Airbnb location.) We snacked and drank and made friends with passing dogs before heading out to dinner with the mamas.
I’d made a reservation a short drive away at a restaurant called Distill Table. It had won best new restaurant in Cleveland and the write ups were glowing. And honestly we should have just stayed on 25th Street. Between the sad wine list (all Ohio wines – just no) and fully mediocre food (and service) I wish we’d just gone back to Bar Cento from Friday night.
So the food scene in Cleveland is still lacking as much as my bike game. But we had a fun weekend in a cute neighborhood with friends and family. Madi raced great and will hopefully get another Team USA spot and I very much succeeded in my goal to blow up on the run. Oh and we watched Coco when we got back to the Airbnb and it’s impossible to be unhappy watching that perfect pelicula. Great weekend overall and a great couple years racing in Cleveland – though I won’t miss swimming in Lake Erie.
