Mike Caiazzo.com

On July 26, 2008 I raced the Urban Epic in Portland Maine. This is the second year of the race which is put on by Tri-Maine. Also as a bonus Becky Lavelle is racing. They also offered $100 primes for the swim, bike, and run. I was initially hoping to get all 3 but when I saw that Derek Treadwell was racing I knew that I was not getting the run.

The race starts on Mackworth Island and we swim an S-shaped course to East End beach. We are supposed to go through 4 sets of buoys. Easy enough right? Not exactly! The elite wave was going first so, about a dozen of us started the swim. I knew that we would not have the current with us to the first buoy then we would have the current of the water flowing out of the Bay to take us to the beach. I got a great start and was on the feet of Becky and another fast pro woman from Canada. Things were going great. The first buoy was maybe 600-800 yards away. After we were about 200 yards away I started to loss there feet slowly. No big deal, I just told myself keep swimming hard to the buoy. I kept looking up and I was not getting any closer to the buoy and the two leaders were slowly pulling away. Keep swimming harder! After what seemed like an eternity, which it was I got close to the buoy. The problem was that I was a bit below the the buoy. I had to make a hard push to curve my body around the buoy. The problem is when I did my body got caught half way on either side of the rope holding the buoy. The current was so strong that I could get my legs around the buoy. After a bit of a struggle I get my legs around. I look up and the two leaders who were 25 yds up were 100+ yds up. I had lost major ground on them. I let the current pull me to the next buoy. As I was approaching the next set of buoys I had to make sharp right to try and make it through the buoys because the current was taking me way left of the buoys. As I was approaching the beach a group of swimmers appeared around me. By this time I was exhausted and just wanted to get out of the water. I came out of the water just behind 3 good swimmers from Maine, my swim coach Larissa Boddie, Catherine Sterling and Angela Bancroft. In the mini T1 and T1 I moved into 3^rd place. A ways down from Becky and the Tenille(the fast Canadian).

The bike was a real struggle. I had no power at all in my legs. I averaged 278 watts on the bike with a NP of 285. I also had many close calls with cars. After going through the first couple intersections with minimal traffic control I decided to slow down going through every intersection just so I was safe. I ended up catching Tenille at the half way point. With about 2 miles to go I was about 20 seconds behind Becky. Then I see she hoped off her bike. I wasn’t sure what happened but later found out she got a flat. My coach Kurt Perham gave her his rear wheel so that she could continue.

The run started and I knew that I had about a 6 minute lead on Derek Treadwell. I really wasn’t sure if it would be enough. This was by far the worst I felt in any tri. I managed to get across the line first and even carried Jack across the line. Here is the picture that was on the front page of the Portland Press Sunday Paper.

I ended up having the fastest bike, but only by the skin of my teeth. Below are the results. There are two divisions because after the race director saw that only 3 people in the elite wave(Becky, Tenille and myself) were going to make the 1st buoy he sent all the other waves straight to the beach.

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/08/me/Jul26_2ndUrb_set1.shtml

I raced a local sprint the past weekend, the Scarborough Sprint triathlon. This was the first year of the race and the race takes place near where I lived last year. The course went over the same roads I used to ride and run everyday so I was excited to race on familiar roads. The day before I was able to get out for my longest ride of the year, 4 hours. It was great ride from our house in Westbrook up to Sebasco Harbor. It was probably the best I had felt on the bike in a long time.

Race morning. The race has two transition areas which makes it a bit more stressful in the morning making sure that you put everything where it needs to be. I went for a brief run with my coach, Kurt, before the race and felt terrible! My legs were really heavy and I felt like I was working really hard just to jog. I try and not let that bother me too much and just hope that by the time I have to really run, my legs feel better. After the warm-up we went to the beach. The waves were huge! There were 5 foot waves pounding the beach. After getting in the water for a brief swim I was a bit nervous about the swim. Luckily it was only 1/3 mile. I was in the first wave, with a bunch of fast guys in the wave behind me. I knew that I would have to push to make sure I stayed ahead of them. They lined our group up and we were off. Luckily when we started there seemed to be a break in the waves. I was at the first bouy before I knew it. I was about 10th or so at the 1st bouy. Swimming to the 2nd bouy(and last bouy), I moved into 3rd. On the way back to the shore I moved into 1st. I ran across the beach and was the leader heading into T1. After a slow transition, I headed out on the bike in 2nd place. I had about a dozen rocks in my shoes from T1. I thought about stopping and taking it out but figured it was only 15m. The rocks shifted and didn’t really bother me after a few minutes. About 1-2 miles into the bike I pulled into first. My goal was to really push the swim and bike. I had pushed the swim and was really pushing the bike. I felt really good on the bike and averaged 26.8 mph, and 320 watts on the bike. I came into T2 not know exactly how far up I was on the people in my wave or the other waves. Just to make sure I kept the run pace fairly quick. I came into the finish with a time of 59:48. The next finisher came in at 1:05:55. Overall I was very happy the way I raced. I had the 2nd fastest swim, fastest bike and fastest run. I also felt really strong in all 3 sports. Now it is off to Racine to race the Spirit of Racine!

If someone had told me the night before the race that I would come in 2nd I would have considered that a great result. The way the race played out I felt this was the most disappointing races in my tri career. Because of top guys getting lost and falling I found myself in 3rd place with over 20 miles left on the bike. I was just 3-4 minutes down on the leader. I rode the two loop course very even. Even though there was a lot of climbing my VI was just 1.02. I averaged 277 and 279 watts for each of the two loops. I started the run 2:30 behind Daniel Bretscher and right with Chris Bagg. I never really felt that good on the run from the beginning but I was closing slowly. It was down to 2:00 after 2.5 miles and was down to 45 sec with 5 miles to go but I was unable to close anymore. I really had nothing in my legs. I guess that is what happens when you only run a handful of times in 10 weeks. I do take my hat of for Daniel he is strong runner and kept pushing not to let me close the gap. My achilles was very swollen and sore after the race so it looks like it is time to go to the Doc.

Overall the Spirit of Morgantown is a great race and I would highly recommend this to anyone. It is well run and is a great course. It is challenging yet not too hard. The only negative about the race is the swim is not in a very clean body of water. Other than that I can not say enough good things about this race. It is really ashame that everyone flocks to 70.3 races but independent races seem to have a tough time attracting racers. I have done a bunch of 70.3 races and this is just as good as the best 70.3 races! It is also much cheaper!

I was scheduled to be home at midnight on Sunday, but after many delays and circling around the Portland airport for 45 minutes we were diverted to Albany New York where we were put up in hotels for the night. After waiting in the airport all morning I did not make it home until Monday afternoon. It made for a very long weekend.