Florida’s Great Escape Triathlon 2006

Race Report

Drew Hartman

So this race marks the beginning of the 2006 triathlon season for me. I set myself up for a long season again, which is always good by me. The four of us, Chris, Keith, Brian, and I did this race last year and decided to make it an annual event. It’s nice to get away from the cold for a few days and hang with some Floridian triathletes as well as several well known professionals (e.g, Heather Gollnick, Lisa Bentley, etc). The race has a big swim to really get a feel of how the winter training is going, a shorter bike (18 miles) to get you aero but also set yourself up for a nice brick, and a big run to break in the system for the season. Is it for everyone? I don’t know. Works for me!

Let me start by saying that despite the race results, I officially DNF’d (or should say DNC’d - Did Not Complete) my first race/triathlon/anything. Yes, despite my best efforts to tell race officials, they not only tried to first hand me a finishers medal, they also tried to hand me a 4^th place award plaque to boot. And after explaining the situation again I still came up a finisher in the results with a “congrats” email from them. So you ask, “S’up Drew? Why the DNF?” I did not have physical, mental, or mechanical issues. I had a situation of timing that left me no other choice but to do the only thing and that required a very small bit of sacrifice. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing if it replayed a thousand times over. Just one of those things that happens that I’ll try to explain in words later.

On Thursday night before we head out, Mr. Daniels came over to get his bike packed up. He brought along a tri-top jersey for me to try on since it didn’t fit him. Fit me like a glove and I thought this was going to be the race jersey for the season that I can mucky up with some good hard earned sweat. More on the jersey later. Friday came along and we were off to Clermont. The day before the race was very windy and it was looking to be a repeat of last year without all the rain. The black gator lake was bringing some good white/black caps and the only real hill on the bike course was into the wind. Such as life. Lets go have some fun.

Race morning:

We get out to the race site and there’s nothing for wind. The trees are still and it’s going to be a beautiful day. The lake is glass, 64F degrees, and if the water were only clearer than 6-inches of visibility it would have been absolutely perfect. We’re really going to have some fun today!

The Swim (1.5 miles)

Chris and I are in the same wave and Rossi and Keith are 2-mins back in the last wave. We take off and the stroke feels pretty good. Open water clears and it’s basically smooth sailing for nearly the entire swim. My stroke was “updated” the last couple of months so this big swim is a good test to see how well the form can stay in tact. I would lose it from time to time then make a big effort to get it back. I hit the matt in 38:51 and felt pretty good with that. Still have some work yet before the summer so that’s all good.

The Bike (18 miles):

T1 goes a little slower, but as expected in March. I get out on the bike and I feel pretty good. Not a like a monster or anything, but I feel like I can put out a good effort today. On the first down and back I check the watch then see Chris about a minute later. Was a little surprised by that, but he later told me his swim didn’t go as planned, which is another great reason to shake the cobbs early when we’re doing a mid-season Ironman. All is good. I get to the small climb and at the top is another turn around. It’s basically the entrance to the park then you head back down that hill and fly.

When I got out of the entrance area everything changed, went down, got ugly, whatever. In front of me is a young lady on the ground next to her bike in a small puddle of blood. She is SCREAMING at the top of her lunges for someone to help. I dismount my bike and fly it into the ditch and run over to her. She’s screaming and screaming and trying to wiggle around. I tell her to just lay still and tell me what’s hurt. She says her hand hurts really bad. I ask her if anything else hurts, her head, anything. There was blood all in her hair so I thought maybe she hit her head. She said, “NO, just my hand. I think I cut my finger really bad!” I yell at a couple bikers going by and scream at the entrance area to get a medic. That new tri-jersey Chris gave me is now slowing the bleeding in her hand. I tell her to hold her hand the best she can until help comes and keep breathing….keep breathing…I’m taking big deep breaths with her and she’s starting to calm. I could see the pain well back up and the poor thing would start crying again. I was feeling SO bad for her at this point, very helpless, and extremely frustrated.

Seconds are feeling like minutes and no one is showing up. Bikers are whizzing by asking what they can do I tell them to call for a medic at the next aid station. Another triathlete stops and it’s a lady and she just wants to help. Then a guy about my age (I noticed his age on his calf) stops and says that he’s a doctor. I was so relieved, you have no idea! So the other lady and I are keeping her calm and the doctor asks her to turn head away so he can take a look at her hand. He opened the bandage then closed it right away. The doctor then pulled me over to the side and said very quietly, “Her finger is completely missing and we need to find it.” I didn’t have that “Oh my God” thought, I had that “find the finger” thought and started combing the area.  For some reason, I had a sick feeling he was going to say that. I started looking around from where all the blood was at and I ended up seeing something about 10-feet away. Sure enough, there laid her finger in the grass. The entire finger was cut clean off, laying there in the grass. It only had been 10-minutes or so since the accident and the damn ants already got to it. I handed it to the doctor and he cleaned it up then eventually got ice and a container for it from somebody.

The medics had a tough time getting to us because of all the bike traffic, but finally able to get to her. The doctor was able to cell phone the nearby hospital to get a surgeon on standby so they could try to reattach the finger. She was starting to calm and they loaded her up in the ambulance and she was off. I have no idea what the outcome is at this point, but will do my best to get an update. I’m just really sad for this girl. It turns out she dropped her chain on the inside ring and tried to get it back on while riding. Something I know a lot of you have attempted. My best guess is she was going very slow when she was fiddling because she had no road rash. I think she then lost control of the bike and sent her finger through the ring. It’ll be a constant reminder for her for a very long time and should be a lesson to all of us bikers and triathletes. Do your best to be a master of your machine and use common sense. Take the 30-second penalty and get off your bike to fix your chain. PLEASE!!!! It’s so not worth risking such bodily injury. I witnessed a worse case scenario and never want to hear about or see it again.

Now that things were under control by the professionals and there was nothing more I could do, I had a small debate in my head. The thought of racing in my head is done. All the guys went through once and knew I was stopped.  Rossi came by on his second lap and thought maybe it was me that crashed, but I yelled to him that I was fine. Since it’s a 2-loop course I decided I would hang it up and wait for Chris to come around. I could hammer with him into the transition area and get out and run. I thought a lot about just getting out and officially finishing the race. The doctor got back out and did the entire course and I thought that was cool, but it didn’t seem that important to me anymore. I thought maybe I could get out and run with Chris and we could share a good run. Heck, I had some pretty rested legs now so maybe I can push him a bit more.

Chris comes by on the bike and I say, “Hey…I’ll catch up with you.” Not sure if he heard me, but it didn’t matter. Apparently my legs needed a bit more time to re-warm-up because I couldn’t catch him to save my life. I got into T2 and see Chris getting on his running stuff so I hurry up and get my running gear on and sprint to catch him.

The Run (About 6.75 miles):

I sprint to catch up to CD and say HEY MAN! I think I freaked a couple other guys out because I flew out of T2 about as fast as I could go. Chris asked me about the lady and we got into that. He brought his little disposable camera with him so I took it and started snapping shots. I felt pretty good running so I knew I could try to push him along and vice-versa. The run course is great with a mix of asphalt, dirt, sand, and grass. The first mile was a little slow, but I think I talked his ear off too much so we buckled down and picked it up. After that we kept a pretty good pace. The run overall went great and the last two miles was a great push. As we rounded the final corner together I stopped and snapped a shot of him finishing. All the spectators were a little confused, but gave me some hoots for being a dork. I then ran through the finish line.

It’s a weird thing not wanting a finisher’s medal. The lady tried to hand it to me and I said no thanks. I walked over to the race director and explained to him what had happened and to just go ahead and put a DNF on my time. He said no problem. Rossi took 2^nd in his AG and snagged another Alcatraz slot. And yes, he needs a nickel from me for every time I give him crap about not taking the slot. Brian REALLY made the day for the kid who got 3^rd place though. Since Brian didn’t want the slot it rolled down to the 3^rd place guy and that guy REALLY wanted that slot. So Rossi got a couple good handshakes from the guy, which was cool. Chris and Keith did great and it looks like they are on track for another great year.

After the race and doing some gabbing I went back to my bike to pack up some of my stuff. I had some alone time and I got another major case of the downers thinking about that lady, what she’s going through right now, and how frustrated she must be for doing what she did. We all do not-so-smart things from time to time and most of us get lucky, but there’s times like today where things happen and it should serve as a nice reminder for the rest of us to just not go there.

I can hear awards being announced then I hear my name get called. So I had to run over and explain again the situation so they could give the award to the other guy. I should have just skipped going through the finish line and none of this would have happened. O’well. Everyone got their award so we move on.

So that’s it. A very interesting day to say the least.

Stay safe. Train smart,

Drew.

Next Race. Sullivan Sprint Triathon, April 30^th.