Pre-Race:

This would almost be the race that never was. I didn’t sign up for this race until maybe two weeks ago. I usually choose not to do any races that have less than a 1/2 mile swim since the swim is my strong point. But with only three races on the calendar for this year, I decided to break up the monotony a little and do another short race.

Packet pickup for the race was at Penn Cycle on Thursday and Friday afternoon and evening at their Bloomington and their Woodbury locations respectively. Now, for those that don’t know the Twin Cities very well, MinneMan itself takes place in Oak Grove, MN, a very northern suburb of Minneapolis. Bloomington is a good 42 miles from Oak Grove if you head straight south. Woodbury, MN is 44 miles southeast of Oak Grove, almost in Wisconsin! If you’re going to hold a race and aren’t going to have packet pickup available on race day, you might want to consider having packet pickup somewhere closer than on the opposite ends of the metropolis! Ok, my ranting is done. I promise. :)

Having raced the weekend before, things seemed to go much smoother before the race. I packed up most of my gear the night before and slept in a little longer come race morning. We ended up leaving a little later than I anticipated so I was rushing to get there as quickly as possible. As it turns out, my timing was perfect as after parking my car and walking my bike to the transition area, I ran into TriMama (that’s obviously NOT TriMama in the picture on the left)! Actually, she ran into me and was nice enough to stop and say hi. “Do you ummm…. blog? Chivalry.net, right?” I was impressed that she recognized me from just the pictures that she must have seen on my website. I guess it helps that there probably aren’t as many Asian people at these races. ;) Anyway, I was too star struck by her to have thought to ask for a picture with her to show you all that I met a legend. So for now, you’re just going to have to be jealous and believe me. ;)

I got to the transition area, racked my bike, laid out my shoes, and debated with my friend of whether or not we should bother wearing a wetsuit for the 0.3 mile swim. I finally decided it would probably be a wash and opted not to. We met up with his family and my fiance and made our way towards the start line.

Swim:

This would be the shortest swim leg that I’ve ever done in a race before. I jokingly always say that if the swim isn’t at least a half a mile, it’s not even worth getting wet for. Looking out at the swim course from the beach, the buoys just seemed so close to shore. Add to that the fact that the people that were warming up could stand up quite a ways out from the beach and I was wondering what kind of swim was this actually going to be? The two waves in front of us had folks walking out a good 100 meters off the beach before they went horizontal and started swimming. With 100 meters out and 100 meters back, we’d only end up swimming something like 400 meters? Oh well, so much for my head start that I usually get from the swim.

My friend and I lined up and were joking around quite loud all the way up to the sound of the starting horn. I don’t know if we were being loud or obnoxious (or both?!) or if everyone around us was just nervous. We seemed to be getting odd looks. Anyway, the horn went off and the water ru… I mean swim got underway. I started out in the front unlike last week and there was a decent amount of contact I was getting from the folks behind me. All that contact soon ended a minute or so in when folks actually had to start swimming. The buoys came up very quickly and I was heading back to the beach before I knew it.

My only mishap in the swim was that well… I was trying to relieve myself during the swim leg so I wouldn’t have to go on the bike or the run. Try as I might, I couldn’t get relaxed enough to go while swimming. I tried slowing down a little bit to see if that would help, but just couldn’t manage. Oh well… hopefully I wasn’t going to be out there that long. “I’ll just hold it!”

It was awfully shallow coming back to the beach as well. I trotted in for the last 50 meters or so. It was nice not having to worry about taking a wetsuit off for once! I headed into T1… Time: 6:53 (1:19/100 yards, 4/42 AG, 17/347 OA)

T1:

T1 was kind of a blur. I remember it not being as quick as I thought it would be seeing that I didn’t have a wetsuit on. I managed to get everything on and headed onto the bike course. Time: 1:00.

Bike:

I got onto my bike and started pedaling hard right from the get go. This is generally where I try and keep too many folks from passing me before I get to my real weakness being the run. Basically, I’m racing scared the rest of the way and just trying to do damage control. :)

The course conditions were pretty much ideal. Just a little wind and the course was quite flat. Around the 4-5 mile mark, I got passed like I was standing still. It was some guy on a black bike with a Hed disk on the back. I was pretty much going as hard as I could and he just flew by me. Looking at the results, there was a guy who averaged 26 MPH (top bike split of the day) on the course and he was in my AG. It must have been him.

Around mile 8-9, I started to lose my ability to keep pushing as hard as I had been. My HR started to drop and I just tried hanging on. My friend passed me here giving me his usual, “Already?” taunt. :) He’s a very strong biker and runner and actually ended up winning our AG today! He just ran a marathon two weeks earlier, so it was good to see him recovered and having fun out there.

I eased up just a tad before approaching T2, trying to save something for the run. I had no idea what my bike average and split was like at this point. My HRM also acts as my bike computer which was fading in and out while I was on the course. I ended up being fairly happy with my results. Time: 34:55 (22.3 MPH [that's closer to reality compared to the 23.3 MPH that they over calculated last week], 7/42 AG, 21/347 OA).

T2:

It seemed like it took forever to run from the dismount line to my area. I rack my bike, get my running shoes on and go to put on my hat. Clunk! Oh yeah… my helmet is still on. I should probably take that off. Unbuckle helmet, drop sunglasses. Fumble sunglasses. Finally get sunglasses on my face. Start heading out of T2. Grrr… I’ll figure out this T1/T2 thing one day and not be so slow at it. Time: 1:03.

Run:

Ahhh, my nemesis. Typically speaking, running and I just don’t get along. We never really have. But it only had three miles to taunt me this time, so I sucked it up as best I could. My legs felt much better out the gate than they had last week. I was careful not to start out the run as if it were a 100 meter dash. I think that and the fact that there wasn’t a hill right out of T2 made this to be a much more enjoyable experience than the week before.

The run to the turn around was hard, but manageable. I saw my friend coming back from the turn around a minute or two before I would be there. I said, “Go get ‘em!” and he could barely muster a response. As it turns out, he was pushing pretty hard trying to catch the guy who ultimate ended up 14 seconds behind him and in 2nd place. I guess that’s a pretty good excuse. Anyway, I get to the turn around myself and I’m happy not to see anyone too close on my tail.

As I approach the 2 mile mark, my friend Mr. Side Stitches pays me my normal visit. Right on schedule today, aren’t you Mr. Stitch? I do my best to ignore him but did end up slowing down just a tad for that last mile. I got passed pretty close to the finish line, but looked down at his calf in the process - “27″ and not in my AG. No need to try and out sprint him to the finish line. I look behind me and I’m clear, so I have a nice relaxing trot to the finish line. Time: 22:00 (7:20 min/mile, 16/42 AG, 80/347 OA).

Summary:

Total time: 1:05:48. 7th out of 42 in our AG and 24th out of 347 overall. This really ended up being 5th out of 40 in our AG because the real first and second place guys normally race in the elite category and weren’t eligible for rewards for whatever reason? I think it’s some USAT rule or something? Anyway, that put me two spots just below a podium finish and moved my best friend up to 1st for our AG! Good for him. He’s been at the sport for five years or so now. He deserves it.

I’ve pretty happy with my effort today. I didn’t push too hard on the swim, but gave it a good go on the bike and run. I’m much happier with my 7:20 pace than my 8:00 run pace the week before. It’s still slow, but it’ll get better. It’s hard training for Ironman which is more less all slower paced, long distance training and then trying to crank out some speed at a sprint tri. I think a good winter of speed work will do me good for next year, though.

All in all it was a good day. MinneMan actually ended up being a very good and very organized race considering it was only its first year! Other than my gripe about the packet pickup, they did a superb job with things! My hats off to the RD and all the volunteers, who are the real heroes behind the races. It was awfully nice for them to give up a Saturday morning of a long weekend to help us out. A big thank you to all of them!