Racine 5.4 Race Report

5.4 Race report...but wait, I thought that racine is a half ironman...what happened to the other 64.9 miles? I went into the Racine 70.3 planning on a strong execution and to have fun at the race which was my first half ironman experience 5 years ago.  However, the day didn't quite end up exactly as planned.

I drove up on saturday, checked in, racked bike, and then headed over to dinner to meet some of my teammates from Endurance Nation.  We went to an italian restaurant in Kenosha called Mangia which was great.  We had a good time discussing all things triathlon, talked out our race strategies for the next day.  We laughed, enjoyed the dinner and generally we were all looking forward to Sunday's race.

I slept pretty well on Saturday night and work up feeling refreshed and ready to go on Sunday morning.  After drinking a bottle of Infinit (275 calories) I packed up my bags, left the hotel, and drove to the race site to get everything set up.

Upon arrival, the transition area was already buzzing, and race preparations were in full swing.  The sun was rising over Lake Michigan with a reported water temp of 69 degrees. 

After getting my gear all set, I met up with the members of Endurance Nation again and we took our team photo and had a chance to meet some of the other people that were not at dinner.  Great group of people and I was looking forward to seeing all of the EN Jersey's on the run and bike to help motivate me throughout the day.

After leaving transition I headed out to the swim start, meandering my way there knowing that my wave was going to start 64 minutes after the pro wave started.

The weather was perfect, the sun was out, there was just a slight wind from the north/northwest and I got my wetsuit on and moved on down towards the start line.  I positioned myself in the second row, slightly away from the bouy line.  I wanted to try something a little different this race.  I figured I would position myself just above my ability, try to catch some feet, and stay out of some of the chaos that is the rear of the start.  I had also watched several of the heats prior and it looked as if there was a lot of walking at the start, I wanted to get in the water and go.

My strategy seemed to work.  I was moving along, had enough water to myself and didn't have too much contact.  Most importantly I found feet to follow nearly the entire race.  I had to alternate and find new feet every now and then, but ultimately I spent a good amount of time drafting and felt very, very comfortable.

I exited the swim in 34:08 for nearly a 40 second improvement compared to my last 1.2 mile effort in a race.  

Looking at the Garmin map I did a pretty good job of swimming in a straight line. There was a little curve at the end, I got stuck on some errantly directed feet but quickly redirected and found the sighting I needed to get to the exit.  The water got pretty shallow a good distance out and just seemed too shallow to swim and was tough to run.  I worked on getting out of the water and taking off my wetsuit top.

The run to transition was a little long but not nearly as brutal as I thought it was going to be based on scouting out the transition area the night before.  Nice surprise was to see some wetsuit strippers near the entrance to transition.  Unexpected and absolutely great to have them. Total time 5:17 which I'll take given the long run-in.  Sure I could have been more efficient but at the end of the day for this race, it wouldn't have mattered.

Alright, part I done, feeling good, ready for the bike.  I head out of transition, bike is geared appropriately for the climb out.  I have absolutely no idea why I am looking off to the left, maybe I just wanted to look at my normal left shoulder one more time... (BTW, I love how my Rudy Wingspan helmet matches the jersey...)

Anyway, I hop on my bike and I just spin past people who are struggling to get up the first hill.  It looked like at least one of them was going to fall over for sure.  I had put my bike into the small ring up front and biggest gear on the cassette to be prepared to climb out of transition.

So off I go to begin the bike.  I try to spend the first couple of miles settling into a heart rate and power output given my HR had slightly spiked from the run into transition and the quick little burst to get out of the transition area and up the hill.  I settle down, start the watering process and then start to focus on steady power and staying away from the other racers.

I'm cruising along around 20-21 mph, on 4 mile road getting ready to make a right turn onto charles st.  I had just passed a group of 5-6 riders who were bunched up together and I was looking for clean roads.  As I approached the intersection I looked forward, saw officers had the traffic stopped, and looked back and saw the group I had just passed.  I moved to the left side of the lane (still within yellow line) to allow myself to avoid a tight curve and maintain speed out of the curve.  I checked ahead one more time and still recall seeing clear road at the intersection.

As entered the intersection to make the turn to the right, a large SUV type vehicle was entering the intersection from the opposite direction and was seemingly heading and accelerating into the lane that I was in and in the exact same direction as I was turning. Moving at 20 mph and about 15 feet away from the car, I knew that there was only going to be one outcome to this scenario. I slammed on my brakes, yelled some very colorful words and made a direct impact with the left side of my bike/body into the right side of his car.  By the time we collided the car and my bike were headed in the same direction.  I tried some defensive mechanisms that I had learned with regards to collisions with other riders....but unfortunately cars have a lot more mass than riders.  I leaned into the car to try to keep my center of gravity over the bike and kept my hands on the brakes to bleed off more speed.

I recall the impact into the car, I remember staying upright after the initial impact and then fell forward and to the left taking the full impact of the ground on my left shoulder and rolled onto my back.  During these acrobatic maneuvers I somehow became unclipped from my pedals and didn't hit my head.  Immediately there was pain to my left shoulder.  The garmin file is pretty interesting.  I think looking at the speed is the most fascinating:

Apparently hitting a car and then the ground causes speed to drop instantaneously.  

I also wanted to see what happened to my HR at the time of impact so I zoomed in on that part of the file:

• At the time of the impact - just after the vertical red line as power is precipitously dropping and speed drops to zero as well, my HR actually increased
• The small dip in my HR to the far right, and falling nearly down to to 50 was when the pain was getting really bad and I felt as if I might pass out.  Pretty cool to see a vaso-vagal physiologic response to pain in action...not so cool to occur as a result of a crash.

Somewhat in a state of shock that I had just been hit by a car on the race course I did a quick survey to see how badly I was injured.  Didn't hit head - check, no neck pain - check, chest, abdomen, pelvis - check, moving extremities / no weakness - check.  I got myself up from the ground, the officers controlling traffic at the intersection were at my side within seconds and I walked over to the side of the road. I was able to range my left shoulder but it was really starting to hurt and any movement was not helping.  I came pretty close to passing out a couple of times due to the pain, but held it together, lied down on the grass to recuperate a little.  I tried to see if I could gather enough energy/ decrease the pain to keep going but it wasn't going to happen.  Luckily, there was a race person there very quickly who was smart enough to tell me that my day was done and he pulled my chip.  I knew something was wrong with my left shoulder, in fact I looked down before the swelling started and made the diagnosis pretty quickly, I just didn't want my day to be over.

I heard at least one EN person yell out to see if I was ok.  I have no idea who you are - so thank you!

Here you can see the accident site.  It is just crazy to me to see my tracking just stop.  The mess on the right was me wandering around, sitting down, lying down, and getting help from EMS upon their arrival.  The other car came from the road on the left and made a left turn right into my path.

The ambulance brought me back to the medical tend where I had the dubious distinction of being the first patient from the race for the day.  This was my first interaction with a medical team at a race and they were all fantastic, caring, and so incredibly helpful.  They provided excellent care, helped get me iced up, offered a phone to call family, cleaned up my wounds and kept me company while worked to get up the courage to get up and walk around.

Eventually I got everything all packed up, one of the medical tent volunteers got all of my gear from transition and I was able to head on home and back to my hospital where my colleagues provided excellent care.  There is just something ironic about the juxtaposition of these two wrist bands:

My swelling had increased even with the ice and the X-rays done confirmed my suspicion on the course, I had separated my AC joint.

Several days after the initial injury I am still working on the recovery process.  Range of motion is limited, pain is still present, and the swelling is still there.  Ice, trying to rest, and minimizing activity are all starting to help the healing process.

I have had many thoughts since the accident.  People have always said that there are two types of cyclists - those who have crashed, and those who will.  I guess I am now in the former.  There is no doubt that I am frustrated about not being able to finish the race.  After exiting the swim and knowing how my training was going along I had great hopes for the race.  But even more disappointing, I have had to accept the fact that the rest of my triathlon season is most likely done for 2012.  This means no IM MOO training camp with the team, no more long rides or runs and ultimately, no more goal A race of IM Wisconsin in September. 

Ultimately I still am a bit surprised that with all of the riding that I do on the congested streets of Chicago and the lakefront trail that the first really bad crash that I have is during a sanctioned triathlon at a protected intersection in broad daylight.  I guess I am lucky that the "only" major injury that I sustained is a separated shoulder.  Sure, I had a bunch of scrapes and bruises, but working in a specialty that sees the results of traumatic bicycle and car accidents on a daily basis I know just how much more horrific the outcome of an accident like this could have been.  Eventually, with enough rehab and retraining I should be able to make it back to the sport.  I also have no idea about damage the bike might have sustained.  The front tire blew during the crash and the brake levers are bent, but the bike is going into the shop before I get on it again for a complete safety evaluation and replacement of damaged parts.

Until then I am going to get on recovery with the same dedication and determination that I have had towards training.  Rehab will take some of the time that I cannot spend training and that I cannot work due to my injury.  The funny thing is that I had been feeling a lot of frustration at not being able to figure out how to plan my 2013 season....looks like the return to Madison will just have to wait until 2013.

One other thing.  I always train with a road ID, never leave home without it.  However, it is an ankle version and I have never raced with one thinking that all of the info that might be needed is associated with the race number and is accessible to the medical people during the race.  As an EM physician and a racer who has been involved in a bad crash in a race, I will NEVER race again without a road ID.  Luckily I didn't pass out I was able to answer all of the medical questions that the paramedics and medical staff had.  Before I race another triathlon  I'll be getting the wrist version so it can go with me on the swim, stay out of the way on the bike and be with me on the run.  Time can make all of the difference and if something really bad were to happen on the course I would not want there to be a delay in my care or contacting family. 

Thanks again to everyone's well wishes and texts after the race.  Looking forward to recovering and getting back into the game.