Puerto Rico ITU Triathlon Perspective

Peter Mallett, June 2007

There was not much blood. Not the kind that oozes down limbs for that matter. No, these were scrapes and wounds clogged with pavement. They hadn’t yet started to sting. It was too soon for that. Adrenaline was still pumping from the crash.

It was my fault. He made the right move. Breaking from the pack was what we should have done a mile out from the finish of the bike course. They were not working well together. When his turn came up to make the pull he pulled away and I went with him. When no one followed it was time to go. We could make it to the run at least thirty seconds ahead of them.

For the first time in four attempts at the ITU continental cup level the plan was working out. I had attacked the first lap of the swim with the necessary speed, finally managing contact with other swimmers as opposed to flailing far behind. We made our way through the warm waters off the Puerto Rican coast line in a derelict bunch, straining to reach the shore in one piece.

Through the first transition there was a scramble of bodies. This was my moment. There were others to bike with. There was the possibility of scoring ITU points. I could make a world cup team. This was why I came here. I had tried at Pro Nationals twice now and the field was too strong. I had tried at another continental cup. But I failed to finish. I lacked experience. Then I lacked the necessary patients to accept so much defeat.

This was fresh and alive, surviving the swim in decent shape, making a bike pack. I was racing at the level I expected of myself. This was the last mile of the last lap on the bike course. We were locked in the third pack, having already absorbed one group of riders. Our move off the front end of it was fast and decisive. There was the look back, then the realization that we were on our own. A quick exchange of raspy words “No one’s coming. Screw em.” So we pushed, accelerating at an exhausting pace to make the split complete.

A slight tap of my wheel on his and that was it. I rode up too close. That was the problem. The bike wobbling left to right, trying to control the shift in weight, I was down. Back home at the crit loop my coach had embedded it into my psyche, “Don’t Lose Your Cool. Keep Your Head on Straight.” You panic you lose. It was the same on the swim, sighting buoys, that voice commanding, “Look up, look up”. “If you can’t find them, sight off something else on the shoreline. Look up again”. As I slid along the pavement there was little sensation. My hands had torn open trying to catch the fall. The entire right side of my body was a blistering sore of blood and gravel. I could not tell. I could not care. My shoulder moved. There was no break in the collarbone. My legs moved. This was all that mattered. The pack I had just escaped from was closing in. Get up! Get up! Don’t lose your cool. Those commands burst into consciousness. The reaction was immediate.  Emotion was distant. We had passed through that point in practice. Only deliberate mechanical action now.

I tapped his wheel. I slid. I found my bike. I got up and began the chase to recapture what I could of the race. Adrenaline had flooded my system. Time lost could not be calculated. It was brief. Somehow they had not made it out of sight. Somehow I still stood a chance. I came here for ITU points. I was going to get them. Five percent inside the leaders’ time, I pedaled as if I could make it back.

My hand could not comfortably steer the bike through transition. They were getting away. There were two full water bottles on my bike. Both were completely drained. Thirst persisted even then. The course was rolling, the majority of it along one street, out and back. The leader had made it past the turn around on the first circuit of the run. I was still on my way out. He was very far ahead. There were runners scattered throughout. Pick one off, then another. The group of bikers I was in had strewn out along this hellish strip of road. Every cup of water drank from the aid stations provided only the slightest of relief.

If there was ground to be regained it was here. Each man brought back meant moving up one more position to where I had been before the crash, until agony began to creep in. ‘Damn that fall, I could be that much farther along. I should not have to chase them down.’ Slowly, through the end of the first lap of the run, legs began to wilt. I chased them all until there was a gap too big to make it to the next. This was no man’s land. I saw my coach. He yelled, “You are within range to make the cut off for points.” “You’ve got to push.”

What did I want? It took another mile to figure it out. I knew what I wanted. Push! Around the block to the line, legs draining into mush. I propelled them on the best I could anyway. I ran to exhaustion, felt like I was moving all out, while from the sidelines I could have been crawling. I’m not sure, only that I crossed the line in a heap. Finished, they carried me to the medical tent, laid me on the cot, let my lungs spasmodically heave until I could relax again. The news came. I had not made the cut off for points. There was not to be any shot at a world cup team anytime soon. The effort of the race was debilitating. The news was crippling. I raced with intent. I only knew that I raced with intent.