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 Swim
Comments: Ah the swim. I'm not a good swimmer, but I guess I'm not the worst either. My overall rank says as much. I do a 2 min/100 M in the pool and that's what I did here. There was a lot of traffic, most of it in front of me. My sighting was decent & I did not veer off course. I felt my heart rate did go very high after about 300M I felt fatigued and just pushed through. I think anxiety at start of race played it's part. I rounded both buoys nicely and tried to sight well in the home straight, and followed a guy who was slightly ahead of me down the final stretch. I have to say the Speedvest was great, my shoulders/arms were not tired when I exited the water. 2 piece suit came off quickly and headed to T1. What would you do differently?: I've been sticking to the BT plan as best I can, but more swimming instruction is required if I am to improve.  Transition 1
Comments: T1 went fine, out of suit and into cycling gear reasonably quickly. In 13 races this was my fastest T1. Shared a joke with the big dude beside me about getting in each others way in the swim. On the way out shoe fell off the bike (transition and exits are very sandy at this race so I decided to leave shoes on bike) which was another lesson. One of the Look cleats has been coming loose recently but I went with the "nothing new on race day" (ok apart from wetsuit that ripped, dammit!) and did not change it. Only lost a few seconds so no biggie. Decent mount and away I went on the ride. What would you do differently?: Not much to be honest. Put new cleats on my shoes earlier in training to avoid the mishaps.  Bike
Comments: Really enjoyed the ride and was pretty happy with the sustained effort throughout. Only issue was the effort. My heart rate never seemed to drop below 165. I tried slowing down my breathing, and after about 15 miles it was down to around 155 with same effort. Very glad I got bike gears/brakes checked the day before, bike performed great, no issues. I made a conscious effort to break the race up into 3 10 mile efforts, check my time at each and hold some gas back for the last 5 miles. Above all I did not want to run out of engery in the last 5 miles. Drank Infinit/Carbo mix on bike, it stayed down really well and I felt I had plenty of energy over the whole 29 miles. I caught up with a few folks who had passed me earlier during 1st 10 miles down the home stretch and we got some good overtaking and collective hammering going on. Around mile 22 passed through an enourmous cloud of pollen that was so dense it looked like mist for about 600 meters. I had no idea what it was until later when I saw everyone colored in yellow dust on the run. I thought folks had some funky sun tan lotion on. What would you do differently?: Not much really, this was my fastest bike time in a Tri in terms of pace so I was pretty happy with that. My goal is to do the work required in training to be able to push toward averaging 22 mph for this race next year. Transition 2
Comments: Happy with T2, transition was pretty crowded so I had to weave in and out of folks to get to rack, slip on shoes, grab Garmin and head out the T2 exit. What would you do differently?: Not much really, this was my second fastest T2 so can't complain.  Run
Comments: I felt the hard effort on the bike as I started out on the run. I was pretty knackered so I just tried to keep the cadence turning over until my legs stopped feeling like lead. I passed a couple of people and was passed by 2 in my age group towards the end. Overall I feel I can run faster than this, more speed work required for sure. What would you do differently?: Not much, my legs gave back what they had left after the ride and I pushed through to the finish. Post race
Warm down: Drank water, chatted with some friends, stretched against a tree, hugged Elizabeth, cheered on the folks coming in after me. Mostly I just smiled at the feeling of completing another Tri. It felt great. By then it was close to 85 degrees. Walked back to car and pushed bike over a turd in the car park. It's just not fun to have to wipe turd off the Zipps and the brakes. Bear poop avoidence - not so good. What limited your ability to perform faster: An extra 10lb that needs to come off to organically improve my run time. Will probably help with the power/weight equation on the bike too. Had a busy and stressful week runnning up to the race which probably had a little impact. Event comments: Thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I'll be back next year all going well. As a post script, I reached out to TriSports.com and DeSoto and Chuck Cates of DeSoto was great. He apologized for the situation, synched up with Debbie of TriSports and reassured me today that a replacement T1 Speedtube would be on it's way to me. DeSoto and TriSports will definitely be getting more business from me. Profile Album Last updated: 2010-03-11 12:00 AM
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United States
CityTri
65F / 18C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 88/226
Age Group = 40-44
Age Group Rank = 11/20
We camped overnight in Bassman State Forest. During the night I had 2 separate dreams about being entered in a triathlon race but not getting to transition on time and missing the race due to multiple distractions, friends from college telling me to come drink beer with them & even a crazy old grandma in a deckchair who insisted on talking to me as I tried in vain to get to transition in time. C'mon subconcious, I came down a day early and camped at the race location to avoid these kinds of dreams!! Pretty funny looking back on it.
After a steak and past dinner with Elizabeth the night before and some decent sleep I woke at 5:30 AM to the chirping of a bird that sounded exactly like that kid from the Simpsons who goes "Hah-Hah" in that annoying sing song way. "Hah-Hah time to get up and swim in cold water" he seemed to say to me. It was warm, sunny and really peaceful morning all told. I fired up the coals and got the coffee pot going. Ate 1 Cliff Bar, 2 bananas and 1 bottle of Infinit and Carbo-Pro mix, plus 1 cup of coffee. I also cleared out the system in a non flushing toilet that no self respecting skunk would dare be seen within 10 miles of. It was rough. Checked the transition bag and bike, final pump of the tires. Bear avoidence was good. Check.
Hopped on the bike with transition bag at 6:50 and arrived at packet pickup at 7, checked in and was in/out and numbered by 7:30. This was leaving it too close for comfort to get to transition, prepare and get suited up for an 8 AM start so a lesson learned for next time. Thanks subconcious, you know me too well. Meh.
I had a nice spot in transition close to T1 entry point. Chatted with some nice folks in transition, very friendly vibe all round. Dude beside me in transition was huge, and attired in a red 1 piece tri suit. Noone was going to miss seeing him during the race. He passed me on the bike later zipping past like a huge bottle of ketchup with silver helmet. Eventually I caught up with him on the run. We had a good chat afterwards, he was a nice guy.
Disaster struck as I was putting on my new T1 Speedtube, it ripped a 1 inch hole at the crotch. Anxiety levels went thru the roof. I told a buddy about the rip later and he said "So was there a cute chick in front of you?". Wise ass. Anyway I had to deal with it, headed for water and got a little swim in to get the confidence back.