2010 Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon Race Report

Professional’s Race – Sunday, June 27^th, 2010

Holden Comeau for the Cadence Cycling Foundation

This week is heavy. I knew it would be. I’ve been through it all a few times before. Every year, Philly Triathlon race week gives me the opportunity to gauge my career’s successes and progresses. I see where I’m at with things. And I see it all at once; which makes things busy. I’ve got my hand in a variety of different places when it comes to my involvement in the sport of triathlon, and they were all on display at Philly. So I’ve got three parts and here is the first...

Part 1 - Athlete

I’m a professional triathlete. And I’m really focused and trying to move forward with it. It’s incredibly difficult. Physically, I’m an almost constantly sore, pained, and fatigued. Mentally, I have not yet been able to nail down my true motivation, and this creates a big, huge, dilemma. It makes it difficult to answer “why?” when my legs hurt so badly but I’m still riding my bike, and I’d really like to be with my wife and family and friends. But I’m very patient, and I have a feeling that one day the “why” will reveal itself. Which I suppose is reason enough to keep rolling!

This year in the race, it was a duathlon. It was also very humid. And very hot. I took both the weather and the format for granted, and made the penultimate athlete mistake of being overconfident. I had trained for weeks in the heat and humidity that has bogged down Philadelphia this summer, where I live happily. But I have given in to it during my training, no longer concerned with the drenching sweat. I’ve drank more liquids in response. Ate more salt to hold the water in. Ran faster in it too! I’ve had PR run intervals. I explored my neighborhood and the woods at an exhilarating pace. I floated like a runner that I’ve never been before! And when the race director announced “no swim this morning” and turned the race into a run-bike-run…I was smiling and inwardly eager.

The gun went off, and for the distance of that first run, I was in the contest and competing. There were Olympians and Olympic Medalists. It was an international field. The strong cyclists faded first. Smartly, I think. The runners ran as usual – very quickly and calmly around 4:40 mile pace. The swimmers did what they always do – take the race out fast. Get to transition first. Great strategy for triathlon. Foolish instinct in a running race. But still instinct. And since I’ve been swimming for a very long time, my instinct was undeniable – get as close to the front as possible.

It worked. I was there at the front. This is a huge success. I have never run so fast. It was the single biggest performance advancement in my entire career. And I’m very excited for what this means for the remainder of this racing season. Unfortunately, it wreaked havoc on the rest of my morning. The riding was uncomfortable and my peak performance had been stifled by the fast first run. The second run was just a jog to the finish, with lots of pain and little delirium thrown in there to make it that much worse. But I hit the line as always. Then the medical tent. Then a hug from wife, and a great afternoon with friends.

It was not the performance I was hoping for, but like every race, it answered many questions and realigned my perspective on the progress I've been making. There were a few glimpses of very good things! And an overwhelming vision of how badly things can go for an athlete. But I'll take it. There's not much sense in getting caught up in performance. Good or bad results, neither fully defines my ability as an athlete, which is too complicated a thing to explain in just a few hours on a Sunday morning! So I'm gonna let this one pass, and wait for my next shot.