BIB #: 564

TIME: 1:08:18

PLACE: 7/230 overall, 2/15 in AG

 

Same course as Cascade's Edge (CE) Sprint Tri (see below).  My goal was to beat my previous time.  It was a beautiful day, but the recent rains had definitely left the grass a bit wet around the start/finish.  A pretty strong field, about 2x of Cascade's edge participants I believe.

 

[9am start]

Leave house @ 5:35 - have clif bar and protein shake with 27g protein.

get coffee on the way, nursed this a bit.

ate half clif bar about 7:15

ate carb-boom @ 8:40, as I didn't quite feel 100% on the carbs.  It was cool out and I felt like I was burning energy just to stay warm.

 

The 9am start turned into a 15min wait in 61F water.  I was shivering in the lake as they waited to start the race...COLD!  [it was a good thing I ate the carb-boom!]

 

I wanted to take the swim harder than I did for CE, so I started closer to the front.  However, since I was cold, I didn't feel quite right until about the half-way point, at which I totally amped it up and worked to have a fast cadence with strong catch.  Overall, the swim felt good but it's hard to get out of the lake and run up the hill after you've been going flat out in 61F water...go figure.

 

T1: [the official time appears to be horked; they seem to have given everyone 3min]

I lost tons of time @ CE in T1.  I wanted to fix that.  No socks, no gloves, no computer, nothing.  Helmet, glasses, shoes.  Gone.  It felt much faster than CE.

 

Goal: 30:00 or less

I wanted to ride the course harder than CE and take less time to dial-in at the beginning.  I knew my legs could handle the effort, so I rarely looked at my watch and went primarily by RPE.  This was my first ride with my new Helmet, LG Rocket.  Took almost no getting used to, as it fit well and felt good.  Much quieter than open helmet.  I felt fast...that's always good.  One guy passed me, and we traded places a couple times.  He eventually pulled away, and it was going to be too much RPE to take him on again, so I focused on passing other people. 

 

I saw the leader come back as I was still heading to the turnaround, and that annoyed me.  Dave Treadwell was a bit behind him, so I knew my hope of chasing Treadwell was sort of dashed, but I wasn't *that* far behind.  There was a bit of a headwind coming back, which slowed me down at times.  I managed to reel in 1 or 2 guys before the end of the bik...All total, only one guy managed to pass me.   When I entered into the transition area, I heard someone tell me I was 7-8 back, so I felt pretty good, but wondered how my legs were going to do on the run after the relativey hard bike.

 

NOTE: In general, the bike felt fast.  If I could change one thing, it would be how i took the last hill before the turn-around...too big a gear.  Also, my legs took what seemed forever to warm up after the swim.  I would like to have did a standing climb/effort a bit earlier to warm them up.  The cold was probably the biggest detractor of my performance.

 

quite fast. off with helmet, on with shoes.

 

Again, since I only train/run in water, the run is always a mystery.  I started with a nice effort [low 170's] to recover my legs and started to slowly reel in a competitor.  My legs felt pretty good.  As the lap went on, I felt better and I started to amp it up.  I passed the rabbit I'd been chasing and started my sprint drills for the second lap.  Just like at CE, I ran really hard the second lap.  I worked really hard on the hills and pushed when I wanted to slow down or where I thought others would slow down.  The slower sprint folks were in the mix now, so I didn't know which was which - who I was lapping and who was in my lap. 

 

It seems my second lap was fast enough that I eventually caught the 7,8,9th place guys.  However, I and they didn't realize it.   After I passed the 7th place guy, I started my full sprint towards the finish.  He realized I just passed him and went all-out too.  We had a 200% effort 50ft race to the finish, and since I'd already been running hard, I was tired.  We were side-by-side, and apparently he elbowed me and I lost a bit of balance on the wet grass and he got 7th by 1 second.  My legs were so tired at that point, I didn't feel stable ... and also, i misjudged which mat to race for, and slowed down a hair after crossing the first one.  Good thing he wasn't in my AG! :-)

 

NOTE: just looked at pictures of finish.  No wonder I misjudged and went for the first timing mat, because that's where the big Red Bull arch was over...anyway, a day later I'm now much happier about the fact that I went from 10th to 8th in the last 1/8th mile than the sprint finish.

 

NOTE #2: Now that the official results are out, it appears my sprint "buddy" had a 4min drafting penalty and actually I moved to 7th!!!  I find it interesting that my official time is slower than CE.  It certainly didn't feel that way, however I probably was slower on the first lap than I realized.

 

SUMMARY:

The race went really well, I wouldn't change much.  Considering I'm still fighing some sort of respiratory issue, I held together pretty well.  I beat my CE time by almost a minute, which in a sprint race is a lot.  Placing in my AG felt great and even more so because this was a tougher field than CE.