The Short Scoop:
400 meter swim, 10-mile bike, 3-mile run
Swim: 7 min. 37 sec.
T-1: 56 sec.
Bike: 25 min. 12 sec.
T-2: 44 sec.
Run: 20 min. 37 sec.
Total Time: 55 min. 4 sec.
The Long Story:
Lisa and I drove down to Houston on Friday after work. I had ridden my tri bike into work that day so that we wouldn't have to leave a car downtown. It just so happened that Friday was "Bike to Work Day" in Austin, so I had another reason to ride the bike that day, too. Anyway, on the way down, I got a flat tire about 3 miles from the office. The previous two days there had been some VERY severe weather in the Austin area. Lots of trees were down and the bike paths were littered with debris. I apparently hit a thorn and punctured my rear tire. I had an extra tube, but no CO2 canister. Another cyclist stopped and gave me canister, though, so I managed to get to work on time. Thanks for that!
So, after work, Lisa picked me up down at the office and we headed over to Pearland. We had a wonderful visit with Becca and Grant and little Connor that weekend. It was very nice. Friday, we didn't do a whole lot, but just got caught up on happenings since our last visit. My goodness, how Connor has grown so much since we last saw him! Most of the weekend, we just hung around and relaxed, but I had to race on Sunday morning, so I got to bed early Saturday night.
Pre-Race:
I woke up around 4:45 AM and just lounged a bit since I didn't have to get up for a few more minutes. I did get up at 5:00 and started getting things together. After dressing for the race, I made a bowl of oatmeal and drank some water. I didn't feel bad, but something just didn't feel quite right about the morning. I just felt a little sluggish and tired. I forgot to make my coffee and I think that might have been part of the reason I felt a little sluggish all morning.
Becca and Grant live really close to the race start, so at about 5:30 AM, I hopped on my tri bike and rode up to the event. After setting up transition and getting my chip, I did a very short jog up the first few hundred meters of the run course and then came back to stretch before the swim.
The Swim:
The swim was 400 meters long. It consisted of a point-to-point "angle." Basically, we started at one point on the shore, swam out to a buoy, made a right turn, and swam back to another point on the shore closer to the bike racks. The Male 35-39 group (my group) was the first wave to go off. I like that because it meant that there wouldn't be many people on the bike course before I got to it. This was important because there was a "no-passing" zone half-way through and I didn't want to get stuck behind somebody slow. Going first meant that was unlikely to happen.
After the National Anthem and a few pre-race announcements, we M35-39 guys got in the water and got ready to go. The horn sounded and we were off. I knew I was in trouble on the swim when I noticed early on that I was in second place about 100 meters into it. The guy in first (who eventually won our AG) was gone pretty fast, but I went out WAAAAY too hard trying to stay on his toes. By the time we hit the turn around buoy, I had dropped to 3rd and was rapidly losing ground to everyone else. I never felt very good on this swim, but I was happy that it didn't last long. I came out of the water in 11th or 12th place, which I thought was pretty good considering we had 41 guys in our wave.
My final time in the swim was 7 min., 37 sec., which was about 1 minute, 44 seconds per 100 yards. That was about 30 seconds slower than I did last year, but still pretty respectable.
T-1:
There's not much I can say about my first transition. It was pretty fast at 56 seconds. I always start with my bike shoes already clipped in, so all I have to do is run to my bike, but on my helmet and sunglasses and get going.
I'm actually kind of surprised that T-1 took me as long as it did. I must've been running slowly from the swim-out to my bike. I didn't wear a wetsuit, so there were no issues with that. All I had to do was put on the sunglasses, put on the helmet, grab the bike, and go . . . which I did. I think I passed six or seven guys in transition, because when I got on the bike, there were only a couple of guys ahead of me.
T-1 time: 56 seconds.
The Bike:
The bike leg is always my best, and this one was no exception. It's really too bad that the bike leg in Silverlake was only 10 miles. It doesn't give guys like me, with good bike times, a chance to put much time on our good-running and good-swimming competition.
For me, I got into my bike shoes pretty well, but during that times was passed by a couple of guys whom I had passed in transition. It didn't matter because I passed those guys back pretty quickly. The course was very technical, meaning there were lots of sharp turns. This makes getting lots of speed a difficult task. I still managed to get a good turnover going, though, and I began reeling in the competition. By the time I hit the No Passing Zone, I was in third place and the second place guy was only about 50 meters ahead of me. After we got through the zone, I started gaining ground on him and by the time we hit the transition to run, I was about 10 feet behind him. Other than this, the bike was pretty uneventful.
Final bike time: 25 min., 12 sec. which equates to 23.8 mph. Not bad, but I'd have thought it would be better, given my recent focus on bike racing.
T-2:
My second transistion was one of my fastest ever. I was out of my bike shoes on the bike and off the bike pretty fast with a rolling dismount. I crossed the line right behind the second place guy in our division and ran right to my space on the rack. I managed to get in my shoes very quickly, took off my helmet, grabbed my race belt and hat and I was off. I managed to pass the guy who was just ahead of me in transition and headed out on the run in second place.
The Run:
I'm mystified by my run split. I thought for certain that I'd average well over 7 minutes per mile, especially since I hadn't been running much. That was not the case. Although I was close to 7 mins., a 6:52/mile is a good deal better than I expected.
What really surprised me was that I got close to half-way through the run before I got passed. The first guy to pass me was not the guy I passed in transition. It was another guy who was clearly a very good runner.
Here's a pic of me that Lisa snapped just after the first guy passed me:
The next guy passed me at Mile 2 and it was also not the guy I passed in Transition. That guy passed me at about 2.5 miles. After that, I managed to hold off everyon else in my division. I came into the finishing "chute" feeling pretty good, but knowing I had raced a bit slower than last year. I managed to finish in 5th place in my division. Last year, I finished in 4th, but was passed twice only a couple hundred meters from the finish. At least this time, all the passing occurred before I got within sight of the finishing line. All in all, I guess it was a good run, even though I didn't feel great during the whole race.My final run time was 20 min., 37 sec., which works out to 6 min., 52 sec. per mile. My time was only 3 seconds slower than last year, which surprised me since I was not in as good a running shape as last year. So, that at least was pleasing.
The Wrap-Up:
So, my final finish was 5th place out of 41 men in M35-39 and 18th overall. That is down a bit from last year when I finished 4th in the M35-39 age group and 13th overall. So, although I was disappointed that I didn't finish as well as last year, I was pleased with a good run and a competitive swim. Still, I need to focus more on those two disciplines.
No comments:
Post a Comment