Rose City sprint Triathlon 9/18/10 in Tyler, TX
So this was probably my first race where I was looking forward to the swim portion. I’ve been doing my swim workouts very religiously and with my full effort so I was hoping to reap the rewards in Tyler. I had a good night’s sleep, got to the site, set up my spot, and started out on my warmup. My Louis G windscreen was fogging up pretty badly due to the humidity that morning, but I figured by the time the race started and I was on the bike it would clear up a bit. Nope. The first ¾ of the bike I had to occasionally reach up under my helmet and wipe both sides to see. Anyways, back to the swim. Once I finished my warmup I headed to the water to be told I had about 5’ until the mandatory pre-race meeting. Those things are so pointless to experienced racers. No drafting, pass on the left, must have your chip and race number, blah, blah, blah. I decided at packet pickup the night before not to go into the “elite” wave that they created thinking it would keep me from being age group eligible and that if I didn’t get an overall win I wouldn’t get anything. I was thinking about trying it out solely to try drafting on the swim though. Anyhow, I did shoulder rolls and arm swings as we stood there and during the Star Spangled Banner. Then the elites went and as soon as we were allowed down the ramp to the water I got in and swam a pretty quick out and back. 5’ later we took off. I started off like I had been working on with an allout effort for the first 100M and after turning the first buoy slowed down to race pace. I was feeling really strong and was able to get on my friend Elliot’s feet. He was right behind Marc Noble, whom I know to be a good swimmer, and they both usually beat me out by a minute to 1.5 minutes. I was able to stay on course pretty well for the long straight and then rounding the last buoy to head to the exit I felt super strong so I put my head down and was determined to pass Elliot and shoot for Marc. I went fast, but the wrong way somehow. Up until that point I had been sighting often to stay on track and didn’t think I could get off that much putting my head down and hammering to the end. I had gone about 30 degrees off the line I should have taken and then kicked it in to the exit once back on track. Marc did a 12:00 and Elliot a 12:04 to my 12:52. I knew I’d have to make very few mistakes if I wanted to place and I started off from there with the fastest T1 of the day. I felt pretty good overall on the bike other than fatiguing earlier than I thought I should in my glutes. I passed Marc about 5.5 miles into the bike and Elliot just after the halfway point. On two of the hills after that I didn’t want to downshift into my small ring and chance the chain coming off and on the second one Elliot passed me back. I dropped out of the draft zone and, immediately repassed him, and then put more than two minutes on him after that. I had the 3rd fastest T2 excluding relays (Marc had the fastest). I could tell I haven’t done any run training in 6 months b/c it took a while to get my leg turnover to my race pace and even then it just wasn’t quite what I was wanting. Last year was a high 17 in rain and this year was 18:23, but muggy so it’s hard to compare there even. I caught 7 people on the run and a few were in the elite wave. One relay beat me so I was 5th overall out of the individuals and 1st out of 19 in my age group. Overall I’m pretty happy with this race but know I need to figure something out about open water swimming, or actually get out and practice in the lakes, and also get in some short, intense rides. Two triathlons to go, 4 road runs, a bike race, and a duathlon to finish the season.
Swim - 12:52 (42nd)
T1 - 0:57.0 (1st)
Bike - 39:09.4 (11th) 22.2 mph
T2 - 0:27.9 (3rd)
Run - 18:23.1 (7th) 6:08 min/mile
Overall - 1:11:49.8 (5th/288 overall and 1st/19 age group)
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