Deep Creek Lake, MD
Sept. 20, 2009
I was stressed about 3 major things on the Savageman Triathlon, the “world’s hardest half.” First, would I be able to make it up the short but super-steep 31% grade “Westernport Wall” without unclipping or falling over (which is hard enough that succeeding earns you the privilege of getting your name engraved in a brick they put in the roadway), humilitating myself in front of the big crowd and getting an ignominious video of myself posted on YouTube?
Second, would I be able to handle the bike course -- 5,800 feet of climbing, most of it packed within 30 miles of the 56-mile course -- without my legs totally blowing up and leaving me walking my bike up every little riser and generally miserable as hell? I jumped into this race somewhat casually, aware of “the wall” but not really aware of how difficult the *rest* of the race was. A month before the race, I finally took a look at the course, freaked out a little (as someone who is not an especially strong hill climber) and peppered my biking group with a series of panicked e-mails.
Third, would I be able to do the run, which was a little longer than I was conditioned for, without reinjuring my old stress fracture injury, when I thought (imagined?) that I was feeling some pain in that area after an 8.5 mile run two weeks before. Worst case scenario: sharp shooting pains during the race, followed by a DNF and 6 weeks wearing a boot.
Piled in the car on Saturday with my friends Will Colston and Dave Phillips for the drive to Deep Creek lake. Driving toward the check-in, we saw a sign that said “Mile 35” and got excited to realize we were actually on the race course. So when we came to the course turnoff, we followed it while Dave, who had pre-ridden the course several weeks earlier, narrated what it was like to ride it. Basically, we drove straight up, and then straight down, and then straight up. I took a few photos along the way. It was good to get a realistic sense of what we’d be riding the next day.
Dave and Will -- checking out Killer Miller the day before the race
After checking in and racking our bikes and attending the race meeting, we wandered off to our motel, had a nice pasta dinner and shared a pitcher of beer, and I had ice cream, then we crashed early.
We woke up at a civilized hour of 6:00 AM and had breakfast, not leaving the hotel until after 7:00. The race didn’t start until 8:30, because in prior years the start had been delayed by fog. The temperature was in the mid 60s I think, with the water in the high 60s. An absolutely gorgeous day. Our wave was the last of 4 and didn’t go off until around 10 before nine.
The gun went off and I started strong but as always concentrated on staying loose and relaxed at the start, when it is so easy to overdo it. I felt good, though after a few minutes I felt my paucity of swim training over the previous summer (hadn’t done a single swim in 2 weeks). On the first third of the swim it was impossible to sight because we were swimming straight into the sun, but I was surrounded by plenty of other swimmers so I didn’t sweat the navigation. I noticed that a bunch of swimmers pulled ahead of me and then I felt I was swimming alone, until I started passing through the back of the prior wave. This made me feel I was swimming slowly. Then a while after the first turnaround I found myself 25 yards to the left of the buoys and all the other swimmers and cursed the element of navigation, which always adds a wild card to swim times. But, at least it kept me from swimming into the prior-wave swimmers. Overall I felt good on the swim, relaxed and comfortable. My time was 30:56, which is actually a PR for me on a half ironman swim. I think it was new wetsuit, which feels faster than my old one; it certainly wasn’t my swim training. I ranked 39th of 219 male starters and 6th out of 48 men in my 40-44 age group.
I swam up the beach until my hand hit sand, stood, passed over the timing mat, and then did something I don’t think I’ve ever done in a triathlon: I walked to transition. Unlike every other race I’ve done, except the Ironman, I made no effort to log quick transitions. I sauntered over to my bike, pulled off the wetsuit, toweled myself off, put on a shirt (which I didn’t wear underneath my wetsuit as usual as I wanted to be dry on the bike), socks, bike shoes, jammed a pump and some food in my pockets, and headed out for the bike course. Having been warned about how an 18-mile downhill ride at 9:20 in the morning wet from the swim could be very cold, I had thought about wearing arm warmers and a windbreaker. Except, I forgot my windbreaker at home. But once in transition, as usually happens to me, I felt plenty warm and departed with just my wet tri shorts and my usual sleeveless tri shirt. T1 time: 3:32. Amazingly to me, despite all that leisure in T1, I still logged a faster time than all but 46 of the 219 men who started this race.
I barely got out of transition when I had my first hill experience. I coulda sworn I’d put my bike in a low gear before parking it but as I mounted I had to grind to avoid falling over as it was already a bit of a pitch and I was in way too hard of a gear. Recovered from that, rode up the hill to the main park road, and headed out for about a mile to the first steep hill – a nice little wakeup call maybe the equivalent of Tilden Road in DC. Then it was 18 miles of flat and downhill (some of it dangerously steep and winding) on a beautiful road along the Savage River. Then into a valley where we were met with what to me was the most dramatic sight of the day: a gigantic paper factory, nestled among the beautiful hills, shooting great plumes of white smoke into the air. I guess they do still make some things in America.
Then into the town of Westernport, where I could hear the noise of the crowd in the distance. “Okay here goes” I said to myself as I made the turn and looked
straight up and the hill in front of me ribboning up into the sky. I was expecting it to be bad, so it didn’t really freak me out. I muscled up the first few hills; since I was uncertain exactly what I would be dealing with on the last, toughest block with the rough pavement (see here for a taste -- but the videos generally don’t capture just how steep the hill is) I took my time and did some zig-zagging to conserve my legs as much as possible. Then I got to the big block and concentrated on keeping my weight forward so my front wheel wouldn’t lift up but not so far forward that my rear wheel would spin out, and my chest down, and just motored straight up it, concentrating on the 4 feet of pavement in front of my bike and the
crowd around me was a blur, and just like that it was over. “That wasn’t such a big deal” I said to myself. Then I looked up and saw that after like a 5 yard pause the road continued up toward the sky at a pitch scarcely any shallower than the much-balleyhood wall and I knew I had 7 miles of steep climbing ahead of me. Crazy.
The next 30 miles was a blur of laboring up mountains and twisty, frightening, almost surrealistic plunges into hollows and valleys. At one point there was a 3 mile climb (in Savage River state forest) averaging 4%, and that was my favorite, since that’s the kind of grade that’s close enough to flat that I can do well in, and I actually passed some people on that hill instead of being passed. That hill led without a break straight into the 9% McAndews Hill, which was followed by some flat and then in short order by the 8% Otto Lane. Meanwhile through all of this I knew that coming up was the formidable Killer Miller climb (1.3 mile, 8% average, 22% peak grade) that I had seen from the car the day before. After a long, steep descent – too twisty and technical to really relax on –- I was there and I labored up it, proud to be passing a guy or two walking their bikes, though I did some more zig-zagging again on this hill. Though I had seen it from the car, I was shocked just how long it was. It just kept going and going and going. Meanwhile, as on all the hills of this race, there were humorous teasing signs on the side of the road such as “How is that aero working for you now?”
If you were to think that was the top of the hill, you'd be wrong
Finally reached the top and stopped to refill my one water bottle at the aid station there. Then back on the bike – straight up another hill. The last 15 miles were flattER but not flat. We still weren’t exactly in Kansas. In some ways this was the hardest part of the ride, since the excitement was gone, and yet there were still lots of hills (even if not as crushing as what came before) and I was feeling very tired. The fact that a group of 4-5 guys overtook me and drifted ahead was also kind of demoralizing – I wanted to feel that at least on this less hilly section I could make up some ground on the field (however, I did overtake these fellows on the last 2 miles or so when there was a lot of downhill and true flat).
Such sympathy!
Climbing Big Savage Mountain I dropped my chain once, and I stopped at the aid stations on top of Big Savage Mountain and Killer Miller but otherwise never had to unclip. It is nice to know I can survive this kind of a ride. My 12/27 cassette and compact crank certainly helped -- and I did spend a huge amount of this day in my granny gear. Of course, part of the reason that it was so tough was not just the hills, but the fact that it was a race, with the time pressure that entails (no long chit-chats at the top of big hills as we are wont to do on our Sunday group rides), and also the fact that it was preceded by a refreshing but somewhat energy-draining swim, and followed by a half-marathon run.
Total bike time: 3:44:20. That is roughly an hour slower than my other four half-irons, and only 1:45 faster than my bike split on my ironman race (and I spent a lot more time in anaerobic territory on this race than on the ironman). For the bike split I ranked 100th of 219 men and 20/48 in my age group.
The run. Ouch. I’ve done a fair number of triathlons in the past couple of years, including four prior half ironmans, but good god my legs were shot as I came into transition. Again I took my time, unloading the 2 empty gel packs from my shirt, sitting down, taking off my socks, and putting on some shoes. My plan was to run the first lap with shoes on, since according to the course description there were numerous gravel portions, and then hopefully, depending on what I observed, do the second lap barefoot. I hadn’t run in shoes since my Ironman. Unfortunately I was running late when I left my house for this race and I left a number of things behind, including my Puma H Street running flats, which I was planning to use here since they did not injure me for the Ironman. So though I hated to do it, I ran in my absolute favorite shoes of all time, my Vivo Barefoot Aqua shoes. They are actually great for running, it’s just that I like them so much, they are so much like going barefoot, and I can get away with wearing them to somewhat formal occasions, and expensive enough that I hate to wear them out by running with them.
Again I actually *walked* out of transition. I was just so tired; my chest was sore from breathing so hard and so long on the bike, and my legs were pretty beat up. But, I always force myself to run the first mile of a tri no matter how bad things are (since my desire to walk actually declines once my legs loosen up after the first couple of miles) so once I crossed the timing mats I reluctantly set into a jog. I did so quite gingerly because I was still afraid of my old stress fracture which first hit me on my very first half iron race (which I ran in shoes BTW). To my surprise, what hurt was my left knee. But that didn’t worry me; a little tendon and ligament pain was something I could handle. I figured I’d run the first 3 miles, which would bring me back by transition, see how my ankle felt, and make a decision at that point. The knee pain probably came from the fact that I did the bike ride with my bike set to a brand new geometry (road instead of aero). In any case it soon faded away (and I didn't feel it after the race).
The first 3 miles were just tough, tough, tough. I suffered through the first mile, and then the second, walking wherever there was a hill. At mile 3 still no ankle pain so I kept slogging along. Around this point I saw DC Mayor Adrien Fenty. Last time I was in a race with him he passed me at mile 10 of the run, but this time he was already well ahead, probably 3 miles. I gave him a cheer and he waved and cheered back. Poor guy, I thought afterwards, he probably just wants to put his head down and suffer through the run like everybody else, but probably has to keep acknowledging jerks like me.
The course looped through a campground, along a main park road, and then headed for an out-and-back up a very rocky and steep fire road for about a quarter mile. Then back to the main road, and along some gravel roads back to transition. I just walked up the fire road (“Swim, Bike, Hike!” I thought to myself) but enjoyed the run back down it. By this time I realized my legs and the rest of me was feeling much better. I still walked every hill, but felt stronger.
On the loop at the campground and the fire road out & back I passed Will, who looked to be about a mile behind me. He and I would probably have been running side by side if I didn’t have about 7 minutes on him on the swim. About 3 miles in I was passed by a very strong and sprightly looking Dave, who was on his *second* lap. Holy cow, amazing.
After passing by transition, and running through a short gravel road, I paused to take my shoes off and jam them in the back of my shorts and race belt. Ah, liberation! It felt great to feel the road again, and I tackled the task of getting this second loop done. This also meant that the comments began – though since a widely read New York Times article on barefooting came out, I find fewer people think I’m plumb loco (though more might think I’m just some trendy guy responding to something I saw in the paper). I was periodically bedevilled by cramping in my right hamstring – a cramp that had first emerged in the latter stages of the bike ride, and cropped up in the first loop of the run and the first part of the second. Usually I find I am able to “think away” a cramp and for the most part that continued to work. I also ate some salt tablets, but I don’t have much faith that they actually do anything so any placebo effect is lost on me, though it’s possible I would have been worse off without them. In any case, with the amount of walking I was doing anyway, the cramps weren’t more than an annoyance.
By this time I had settled into a tolerable steady state of low-level pain and just counted off the miles as I ran, seeing Will again twice at about the same spots as on the first loop. I continued to walk the steep hills, and put my shoes on for the quarter-mile out and back up the fireroad. Despite some uncomfortable gravel at the end of the loop, I otherwise kept them off, and finished the run in 2:24:01, the slowest half iron run I’ve done (though only by 12 seconds, and it wasn’t nearly as painful overall as my worst run, when I persisted in thinking I should run the whole race without walking breaks). My run time put me at 126th of 219 among men and 19th of 48 in my age group. Amazingly within my age group I placed better in the run than on the bike, which has got to be a first for me and must reflect how bad I am at biking hills relative to flats. My pace was just under 11:00 a mile – pretty bad but I’m still proud I did this run.
Overall my time was 6:45:42, which put me in 94th place of 219 men and 16th of 48 in my age group. Will was just a few minutes behind me, and Dave Phillips’ performance was amazing, finishing in 5:22 and winning his age group. Although my time was 70 minutes slower than other half irons I’ve raced, I am more proud of completing this race than any of the others!
Overall, it was simply a wonderful race and I can’t wait to do it again next year! The swim was great, the bike course was challenging and exciting and fun, the run was painful but perfectly nice, the venue was gorgeous, and the production of the race was flawless. This was a race that clearly was not put on by any corporate machine –- it seemed to be a labor of love, the object of pride of a group of people that is genuinely passionate about this race. The food was good, the logistics were relatively hassle-free, the volunteers were super, and a sense of fun and friendliness pervaded the event. One thing I especially appreciated was that they had many many photographers stationed around the course, and promise to sell pictures for reasonable rates for once (when will the rest of the world figure out that photography, like everything that’s made of bits, has been devalued and is no longer worth what has traditionally been charged? But I digress...)
After finishing, Will and I went for a swim in the 68-degree Deep Creek Lake, which felt so great I have no words for it. We ate the wonderful french fries and BBQ they were serving, cheered for Dave as he collected his age group prize, and went home happy (Savage)men.
Thanks for writing this! I'm thinking about doing Savage Man, and it was nice to read a participant's experience with it!
Posted by: Andrew C | March 01, 2010 at 11:50 AM