This was my first triathlon so I didn't know exactly what to expect. Over the last few weeks I kept lowering my expected bike time and fluctuating my expected swim time. In the end I just wanted to do as good as possible. My only set goal was a sub 18:00 run. This was a great race because my wife, 2 brothers and 2 sisters-in-law were also doing it. Also a cousin.
It turned out that the race was on the coldest day of the summer. We were at the start standing in occasional rain and 55 degrees. The major thought before the race was that I didn't want to get into the water and that I knew I would freeze on the bike.
Swim: The water was cold, but not too bad. Once we were swimming it was actually a great temperature. In the pook I could do 500 yards in 9:20. It was not going to be that quick today. Since I am a relatively slow swimmer I decided to hang near the back at the start. There were about 125 guys in our wave and this resulted in a huge bottleneck as we did two 90 degree turns about 100 and 125 yards into the race. I got boxed in and could only manage a very slow doggie paddle for the 50 yards around those turns. I estimate that I lost a couple minutes there. The rest of the swim went OK, except that my goggles were completly fogged up so I couldn't see anything and I was also spending a lot of time and energy weaving aroung slower swimmers whe were in front of me. If I could do it again I would go all out at the start of the swim and take the rurns wide if I had to. Swim time 11:54.
T1: I declared before the race that I wanted to have the fastest transition time. Most faster swimmers have a wetsuit to mess with, but I didn't. There was a decent amount of running to get to the bikes and I went full speed. My shoes were already attached to my bike so all I had to do was put on my helmet and number/bely and take off. Did the transition in 1:01. 10 seconds faster than any of the other 500 people. Cool!
Bike: The first 3 miles were mildly hilly with a net downhill. I was passing a lot of people. Some of them in my race, others in the olympic distance that started 25 and 30 minutes before us. The next 5 miles were relatively flat. I don't live by any flat roads and I was amazed how fast I was going. I was also amazed to discover that I was not cold. The rain quit and the sun was trying to come out. I was averaging a little over 23 MPH, which was 1-2 MPH faster than I thought I would do. At the turn around I discovered why I was going so fast. Tailwind. I then had three miles into the wind at about 19 MPH. Last mile was a nice downhill mile with a crosswind. The spring course as a litlle long (12.8 miles rather than 12.4), but the olympic course was supposedly certified and accurate. My time 34:18. I passed a ton of people on the bike without getting passed. My cousin is a biker and he got within a few seconds of me, but I held him off.
T2: Disaster. I entered the transitian and ran to what I thought was my towel and shoes. Turned out to not be mine then I looked aroung and could not see mine. I think I wasted about 20-30 seconds searching, but it felt like forever. Once I got there it was a quick application of shoues and I was off. Somebody shouted that there were about 10 people in front of me. T2 time 58 seconds.
Run: This was awesome. It is really fun flying by people in a race. I was mad (and a bit rested) from my terrible transition and I took off like crazy. At half a mile Garmin told me I was going about 5:15 pace.I did not feel like I was 45 minutes into a race. Eventually the agrenaling lest and I slowed a little. I passed about 7-8 guys, butI had no idea how many others were in front of me. Turned out I was in 4th at the end. Splits 5:30, 5:38, 5:44, 52. The run was a bit long, verified by several garmins and a good look at the course map. (The certified olympic distance did 2 laps, but the start/finish were a little past the turnaround). Run time (about 3.15 miles) 17:44, equivaly to a 17:26 5K by my calculations. Not bad considering my best 5K in the past 4 years is 16:51 and my 10 year old PR is 16:30. Maybe I need to do a flat fast 5K, I might set a PR. I had the fastest run by 40 seconds, and that included my terrible T2 time because the timing got messed up.
Total time: 1:05:54. 4th overall. 3 minutes behind first place. Pretty good considering that I have only been biking and swimming for about 6 weeks. I am definately hooked on triathlon and will be making much bigger training effort next year. I really liked the training variety and the many new possibilities of seeing myself inprove in new areas. But for now I need to focus on the marathon training.
Special awards I made up for myself. Fastest run. Fastest T1. 1st place in the non-shaved legs division. 1st place in the relatively cheap bike division (not completely sure about this one). Fastest bike/run time. | 