Shannon Callies' Cascade's Edge Race Report

Goal: Finish. Feel what it’s like to go anaerobic, go hard.

Pre-race: This is a training race to build up fast twitch. For over 15 years, I’ve done just Ironmans and marathons. I’ve never done any race shorter than an IM or marathon, nor did I have a clue how to run much above AeT until Jill “made me” start doing this a few weeks ago. All I can I say is ouch – this fast stuff hurts. It’s a very different type of pain than endurance events. Because this race was a training race for Ironman Canada, I logged 20 hours under my belt on race week, including a 5 hour ride on Saturday. I was really worried because the legs felt like lead on the Sat. bike ride. I didn’t have high expectations for this race, other than finishing and making sure I forced myself to go as hard as possible without blowing up. This is difficult for me because I don’t know where that threshold is, and consequently I raced too conservatively at the Issaquah Tri, fearful just blowing up.

Swim: Time: 15:38

The swim start was a great with respect to the fact that there was very little congestion except in the very beginning, lots of room to spread out. I feel bad because I’m so used to huge mass swim starts of 2,000, so I didn’t think twice about swimming over the top of one side of a swimmer’s legs when I got stuck in a big bottleneck early on. The swimmer then stopped, treaded water and gave me a dirty look. I apologized...felt kind of bad when I realized this was probably a little too aggressive for a sprint that has wave starts. Other than this incident, the swim was fairly uneventful although I did have a difficult time sighting off the white buoys and ended up swerving quite a bit, especially coming in. I felt like it wasn’t my best swim – my form seemed a bit shaky, but it wasn’t my worst either.

T1: Time: 2:50

I need to work on this as my transition times were quite slow comparatively speaking. One of things that occurred to me (unfortunately AFTER the race, not prior) is that EVERY second counts. for example, I don’t need to put my swim gear back in my bag until AFTER the race. Duh. I had a terrible time getting the chin strap in on my helmet – my hands were freezing!

Bike: Time: 34:56

It poured!! This made visibility pretty difficult. About 4 miles into the bike, a girl passed me. That was the only one that passed me the entire race, much to my pleasant surprise. I tried to hammer on the straights as hard as I could. Man, it was cold. I couldn’t feel my feet at ALL. I did a poor job maneuvering the turnaround and went way out to do a U turn. My bike performance seemed a bit flat to me, especially on the hills. I’m sure it was from the 5 hr. ride the day before (or the sprint work on Friday), but all I cared about was my goal – go hard, know what it feels like to race anaerobic. The only part I was conservative on was the descents. In the rain and with the traffic, I was apprehensive about descending aggressively. When I got off the bike, I heard Jason and Char cheering me on. They were planning on racing today but decided not to the day of the race given the conditions. I don’t blame them, given they are doing IMCDA next weekend, but I did give them a hard time (jokingly J) while I was dismounting in the downpour with mud all over me. But I thought it was great that they came out in the miserable weather to cheer us on, along with Michael H. and Savanna, Michael Fry and Steven. Our group ROCKS!!

T2: Time: 2:09

I could barely tie my shoe laces…I couldn’t feel my hands at all, ugh.

Run: Time: 22:38

I could definitely feel my hamstring injury on the run. Both hammies were very tight. I have serious microtears on both hamstrings that make it painful even to sit. I’m working with a physical therapist on this, but it’s definitely a limiter and I have to be careful about not damaging them further, but luckily they loosened up by lap two. It was pretty funny to see people caked in mud and drenched from the rain gingerly stepping around the mud puddles – I don’t think we could get any wetter or muddier, so I just tramped through the puddles. Going through the crowd on my way to loop two, I heard our group cheering me on, which was a huge motivator. I sped up to the point I felt kind of sick but tried to keep the speed hard. It was almost like I was surging – going hard until I felt like I was going to blow up, then reel it in for 30 seconds, then go really hard again. I don’t know if that’s normal or not but it seemed to work for me. The finish line felt great! I’m still a slow-twitcher at heart, but I’m starting to kind of like this shorter stuff - just a little bit… :-)

I had to leave early for Father’s Day out at my parents’ house, so I didn’t wait around for the results. I honestly had no expectations anyway. I was absolutely SHOCKED when I found out I got 1^st in my Age Group!! I’m very happy with this, although admittedly it’s coupled with some very serious concerns….oh no, does this mean that Jill going to make me do more sprints?!?!

Total Time: 1:18:11

7^th Overall

1^st Age Group (35-39)

Congrats to all the JFTers who raced!!

This website is dedicated to the sport of triathlon, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Jill Fry is a triathlon coach and an athlete who competes in triathlons ranging from Sprint Distance to Ironman. Jill and many of her athletes and friends have also formed a team, Team JFT². Information on Jill's coaching services can be found under Coaching Services & Info. On this site you will also find a large number of personal race reports, as well as event reports, with many event-specific photos.