As one of the race directors for the Horsetooth 10K, it has been years since I have thought of actually racing instead of just participating in the event. Usually, I approach the race highly stressed, low on sleep and having to do a lot of physical labor the 24 hours before the race. None of these things make for a good performance. This year was different. I had a more solid base then I have had since 2001 from my ramp up for the Malta Long Distance camp in April. I wondered if I might actually be competitive this year. As the race day approached, the stress level was much lower then normal due mainly to an awesome event committee that were on top of all the issues. Due to some reassignment of tasks, I had considerably less heavy lifting in the 24 hours before the race. The morning of the race, I get up at 3am to inflate buoys and set up the event. Things went remarkably smoothly so that by 5:45am, I am done and wondering what to do next. I wished the organizers of the finish line good luck and headed to the other end of the lake for the start. I was actually able to get to the starting line well in advance and was able to prepare myself in a relaxed fashion instead of the usual high speed skid into the parking lot, unload the canoe, strip and start.
The conditions for the day were nearly optimal. The earlier forecast was for cool and overcast. As we gathered for the start, it was cool but there was not a cloud in the sky. The water was flat and smooth. The temperature of the water had dropped in the last week a few degrees but it was still a pleasant 70F (21C). Shortly after we started, a wind picked up pretty significantly from South/SouthEast. For most of the swimmers, this was a great tail wind. Talking with some of the novice open water swimmers (read pool swimmers), they had trouble with the waves
interfering with the recovery part of the stroke. For the more experienced open water swimmers, we were in heaven as the waves pushed us to the finish. The real issue was with the support canoes and kayaks. They were having trouble keeping close to their swimmers in the wind and waves.
My race strategy was pretty much the same as I have used for years at this race (it was 10th year). Start off slow and then accelerate the last part as the less experienced swimmers started fatiguing. In the past several years, I have been under trained for the event so I would start out the first 4-5 miles at double dog slow pace to conserve my energy. This year I felt stronger so I decided to hold the first 4-5 miles at a strong moderate instead of slow pace. From a feeding perspective, I used the race to practice shortening my feeding speed as training for feeding in the channel. I made a concentrate mixture of Hammer's Perpetuum with hot chocolate mix.
For the start of the Horsetooth 10K, we have the paddlers move about 1000 meters down the course to allow the swimmers to separate a bit before trying to match up. This allows the start to be uncrowded and our usual relaxed start (unlike a traditional triathlon start). As the horn went
off and we headed toward the line of canoes/kayakers, I stayed a little closer to the front of the crowd then I usually did. The eventual winners pulled away quickly but I found myself in roughly the first chase pack. After the first mile or two, I was in somewhere around 8-10th place.
My feeding plan was every 30 minutes. My first feeding was a bit of a bumble but the next couple were pretty good. I had my wife and son (who were paddling for me) time the feeding. I was pretty consistent at about 8 seconds. If I can feed at this speed in the rougher channel waters, I will be ecstatic.
As we passed the halfway mark, I started slowly passing some people. My stroke felt strong and consistent. As I approached the 2.4M race buoy (about 1.2M from the finish), I was starting to mentally get ready to pick up the pace. I had been slowly gaining on the swimmer that eventually placed 5th overall. My arms were beginning to feel fatigued and tight but I still felt I could do a reasonable pick up of pace. I looked over at my canoe as it was close to my next feed. To my surprise, I found my support canoe was upside down. My wife and son were in the water trying to pull the canoe to shore to empty it. A wind generate wave hit the canoe broad side as they had their wieght shifted reaching for my feed and rolled the canoe. I swam over to them to help drag the canoe to shore. In theory, I would be disqualified from winning place for both touching the boat and touching ground but it was a moot point given I was not going to place
anyway. We emptied the water from the canoe and as I pushed them away from shore, I slipped and rolled the canoe again. We dragged it back and repeated the emptying. When all was said and done, I lost about 3-5 minutes and about 7-8 people passed me. The good news is the boat hauling and flipping gave my tired swim muscles a chance to rest. When I hit the water, I was flying. I quickly started passing people back. I had passed about 3-4 people before I ran out of water. I had enough energy to finish the last 20-30 meters butterfly.
My time was a reasonable at 2:31, my second fastest time in the 10 years of doing the event. I know that the wind helped considerably. Some swimmers reported going 5 minutes faster then expected while a slower swimmer reported nearly 30 minutes. My guess is it helped me by 5 minutes which pretty much offset my 3-5 minutes of lost time playing with a capsized boat. What I really liked was that the swim did not fatigue me like past swims had. I definitely could have jumped in and headed back. The endurance training seems to be working. Now I just need to get the cold training started again.
