Race Results - Silverlake Sprint Triathlon

Race Number Two for the year is now in the books, and it was both a fun and frustrating day. The long and short of it is that I did very well . . . especially on the bike and run, but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed for the race. Here's the short report:

400m Swim: 7:07 (1:47/100m)
Transition 1: 0:52
10-mile Bike: 24:34 (24.4 mph)
Transition 2: 0:57
3-mile Run: 20:33 (6:51/mile)

Total Time: 54:00 (13th overall)

Overall Results Link
Age Group Results Link

Pre-Race:

Not much different than usual. Lisa and I were staying with her friends Becca and Grant, who live in the Silverlake subdivision in Pearland. They were great hosts, even giving me a big carbo-loading meal on Saturday night! As for the race prep, I just had everything out and ready to go that evening. Went to be at 10:00 PM and woke up the next morning right before 4:30 AM, when my alarm was set to go off.

I had a banana and an english muffin with peanut butter for breakfast, gathered my stuff up, hopped on the bike, and lightly pedaled over to the race start, which was not more than 2 miles away. I got there at 5:20 AM, or so, just as people were starting to arrive. Got body marked immediately, and then headed into transition to set up. Turns out the guy who won the event was in my age group and was already there setting up. We chatted a bit, with him complimenting my Guru and my set up, while I was taken with his Zipp disc wheel and his nice Cervelo bike.

After what seemed like ages, we finally got our timing chips and headed to the lake to get ready for the swim. By a little after 7:00 AM, we were off in the first wave.

Swim:

The swim was very frustrating. Our wave was the first one to go and also the largest of the event. I started out pretty good, but some guy to my left kept bumping me and pushing me into the guys on the inside. I got poked and smacked and kicked a lot in the first 200 meters, so I finally eased up a bit and let the guys trying to smoke it just go on by. As a result, I got out of my rhythm and never got back into it. I felt like I was laboring a lot more than I should have been on that short 400-meter swim. My pace was pretty slow, too, at about 1:47/100-m. Even at such a slow pace, I felt like I was working WAY too hard. I think I need to swim more.

Anyway, I came out of the water in something like 11th or 12th place in my group.

Swim Time: 7 minutes, 7 seconds.

T1:

My transition from swim to bike was going pretty well, except that I couldn't get my helmet snapped on. I was using my new Rudy Project Syton aero helmet and somehow got the chinstrap twisted around so it wouldn't fit around my chin. I had to take the helmet off twice to get it unraveled and in the correct place. I'm sure it cost me a few seconds, but more importantly, it got me a bit ticked off. Still, my T1 time was good:

Time: 52 seconds.

Bike:

I think it's time for me to start practicing my swim to bike transitions a bit more. Once again, I had a LOT of trouble getting my feet into my shoes on the bike. This week's debacle was MUCH more frustrating than last week's, and also much more costly. I did a pretty good flying mount onto the bike and took off well with my feet on top of the shoes. However, once I got going well, I still couldn't get my feet into the shoes. It was frustrating because this time I made sure the straps were locked so the opening would be big enough to slip in. It still didn't work well. I got the left foot in alright, but while putting my right foot in, I actually unclipped the shoe and almost lost it on the course. Luckily, I managed to keep it on and then pulled my shoe on using the loop on the back. Still, I lost a lot of momentum and got passed by a couple of guys while I struggled with it. ( I would pass them back, though.)

Well . . . the course was not exactly a great one for speed. I bought my 11-23 cassette because I knew the course would be flat and I wanted to be able to fly. Unfortunately, the organizers decided to make it a very twisted and turning course rather than have 2 loops like they apparently had last year. So, it was frustrating to build up the speed and then have to slow for a hairpin turn.

Anyway . . . about 3 miles into the bike, the guy who won it all came zooming up past me. I'd beaten him out of the swim and transition, but he was pushing it on the bike. I was actually able to stay with him, though. I just settled in about 3 bike lengths back and followed. We were passing almost all the guys that beat us out of the water. Another guy that I had beaten out of the water passed me about 9 miles in, but I then turned on the jets and passed both him and the winner. The guy that won, however, passed me again and I got tired of playing see-saw with him, so I settled in and just followed him to the bike in line. Turns out we passed everybody except one guy, so at the end of the bike, I was in 3rd place.

Somewhere in the middle of the bike, I heard Lisa and Becca cheering for me. They had started walking over to the event at about 6:50 AM. I got to see them twice because they saw me right before we did our big turn around, so I came up behind them first and then saw them coming back about a minute and a half later. That was nice to have cheering right about there!

At the bike in, I was a second behind our eventual winner and we could see the other guy in transition. I did a nice running dismount and headed into transition. Turns out I had the 4th fastest bike split overall.

Bike Time: 24:34 (24.4 mph)

T2:

Not much to tell with my second transition. The only bad thing about it was that the bike racks were too short and my bike wouldn't stay up. After two tries, I just let it "fall" over to the side a bit and hang crooked. I slipped on my shoes, grabbed the race belt and visor, and took off.

Time: 0:57

Run:

The run was not too bad. It was all on a sidewalk/running path, though, and it was not blocked off for just the triathlon runners. So, we had to contend with folks out for a Sunday stroll. More about that in a bit.

I saw Lisa and Becca again on the run at a little past the first mile marker. I had just been passed by one of the faster runners, so I was now running in fourth place. Also, I'd lost sight of the eventual winner, but could see the guy in second place about 400 meters ahead of me. I really thought I might be able to catch him, but I just couldn't get into a good enough and quick enough run cadence to get caught up.

At about mile 2, I had the run-in that ruined my run zone. I was coming up behind a woman walking her dog on a retractable leash. She was walking way to the right and her dog was weaving all over the path. I should have gone around her on the right and just run on the grass a bit, but I saw her dog move right and so I went to pass on the left. That's when the dog heard me and moved way left, turning around to sniff me. I got the leash full in my chest and got wrapped up by the dog. Luckily, I was able to just shove the leash off me and keep going, but it broke my stride and my concentration and I was a mess after that.

With about 200 meters to go, some little guy from my wave appeared behind me from nowhere and passed me. I ended up finishing 2 seconds behind him for 5th place in the age group. The official results say I'm 4th place, but that's because the overall winner was from my age group and he got taken out for the awards purposes. So anyway, I was somewhat pleased that I was able to run faster than a 7:00 minute mile pace, but the dog incident was disheartening and very disruptive to my overall race feeling.

Run Time: 20:33 (6:51/mile)

Total Time: 54:00

So, there we have it. Two races in the books. Two good finishes. Next race is the Cap Tex Sprint Tri here in Austin on Memorial Day. More to come then!