Pre-Race:

Being in the middle of a base period for Wisconsin, my goal for this race was more less to not push too hard and cause any extended recovery for the days following the race. Tomorrow starts a new base week and I need to be able to go out and give it a solid, long course day. As fun as these sprint tris are, racing one can make me feel quite wiped for days after if I’m red lined the whole way. My goal was to leave my ego and pride at the door and go at around a 1/2 IM pace.

The race itself took place in Annandale, MN. It’s about an hour drive from the Twin Cities here. It was a fairly quick drive and quite uneventful. The days leading up to the race have been very hot and very humid. The forecast for today predicted temperatures into the upper 90s with the relative humidity probably not that far behind. But with a whole week of biking and running in that mess, I felt pretty comfortable racing in whatever conditions the day would throw me. We arrived at the race site about an hour before the race so there was plenty of time to pick up my packet and get marked and all that good stuff.

I got setup in transition without any incident. As this course would have it, the transition area was quite long and setup such that the entrance and exit to it were both the same. In other words, if you were assigned a rack close to the entrance/exit that would save you a significant distance of running each time in transition alone. It’s probably not a huge deal, and it seems that most local tris actually setup their transition areas this way. But it hardly seems fair. By virtue of where our heat was to rack our bikes alone, my T2 times were at least 30 seconds to a minute slower than those in the first heat. How hard is it to make everyone have to run through the transition area on one end and come out the other making it the same distance for everyone? Grrr…. I don’t know why more places don’t do it that way. It just doesn’t satisfy my OCD. :P OK, I’m done ranting about that. New rant! I was in heat 8 of 10 (or was it 12?). Another late heat and another crowded course in what is historically the most competitive age group category. More on that later.

I didn’t warm up at all. This was part of my plan to take it easy and trump the ego should it decide to make a guest appearance. I figured I had a good 15 minutes to warm up while I was swimming in the lake! I sat with Carol until about five minutes before I was scheduled to go.

Swim (0.5 mi):

Because of the recent heat wave that we got, the water temperature was 83 degrees!! And some folks were still wearing their wetsuits?! AND, some folks were wearing full wrist to ankle wetsuits!! I get hot enough when the water temperature is in the mid-70s and I’m wearing my wetsuit. I don’t know how those guys did it. They must have felt like they were swimming in a hot tub.

I lined up at the front of the pack, but as the horn went off I had little motivation to sprint into the water. I was taking this easy after all? By the time the run into the water ended, I swam swimming in the middle of the pack - not the best place for me. I ended up having to swim over a few people and sprint out a few short spurts to get some clean water. From there I just got into a comfortable rhythm and started focusing on sighting and just swimming at a nice steady pace. I ended up catching folks in the wave or two in front of me (it was hard to tell because they gave everyone the same color caps) and made my way around the swim course in no time.

Time: 13:17 (1:31/100 yards, 5/50 AG, 30/473 OA)

T1:

Again, to make sure I was taking it easy I slowed down to make sure I spotted Carol coming out of the water. I smiled for the camera (although I had my eyes closed for the picture :P) talked to her just briefly and went on my way. I also stopped to put on socks which I normally wouldn’t do for a race this short. “If I don’t care about my time, I might as well be comfortable!” I grabbed all my gear and headed out onto the run course. Time: A blistering 2:25! ;)

Bike (21 mi):

“Let your heart rate settle and just pedal at a nice, steady pace…” Or so the plan was anyway. It didn’t really like I was pushing very hard at all, but looking down I was in a relatively hard gear. “Bah. It’s just that tail wind cooking. Just ride by RPE.” I could tell I was taking it somewhat easy when folks started passing me within the first few minutes of the bike.

Ego: “What are you doing? Didn’t you see that guy go by? He didn’t even have race wheels and he passed you.”
Me: “Ego?! I thought I left you at home?”
Ego: “Nope. I’m here, and I’m not letting go.”
Me: “Well, shut up and quit bothering me today. I’m riding easy.”

A little further up the road, it started to get more crowded as we caught up to the waves that left before us. It was either settle in behind someone to avoid drafting, or start riding on the left and passing people.

Ego: “YEAH! Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
Me: “… I’m only doing this so I don’t get caught drafting. I’m doing back to the right side after I made this pass.”
Ego: “But… there are people everywhere! Why bother getting back to the right and behind someone else?”
Me: “*sigh* Fine!”
Ego: “Weeeee!!”

And on and on it went. I didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard and my heart rate was in the high 140s and low 150s the whole way. But somehow, I ended up with what was probably my fastest bike pace for the year despite feeling like I was pushing harder in my other races. I don’t know how it happened… I really don’t. Time: 55:10 (22.8 MPH, 15/50 AG, 72/473 OA)

T2:

The transition took forever for reasons mentioned above. For as long as I had to run, they should have included that mileage in the run distance. It was at least 1/10 of a mile all together. Time: 2:00.

Run (5.3 mi):

It started to heat up a little bit by now, but nothing compared to what I had been running in earlier that week. We also had a nice breeze the whole while out on the course.

Me: “Nice and steady… Just settle in and make it a nice little training run.”
Ego: “Haha! You just got passed by a girl!”
Me: “Shut up. I get passed all the time on the run by girls.”
Ego: “Touché.”

The volunteers were great and they had hoses and sponges out there for us to help keep us cool. That’s the first time I’ve seen anything like that in a race less than a 1/2. I took full advantage. I saw the second mile marker and checked the watch. It read 15:00.

Ego: “7:30 pace! Rockin! Floor it!”
Me: “7:30… wha? That didn’t feel like 7:30. The course must have been marked wrong.”
Ego: “PR! PR! PR!”
Me: “I’m so not listening to you.”

So I slowed down a bit more. I let people pass me and told them that they looked good and to keep on going! I figured that was a good way to make sure that I wasn’t pushing too hard. If I were still able to talk and not needing every possible precious bit of oxygen to keep me alive, then that’s a good sign! Another couple miles down and I was getting closer to town. I was still feeling strong and my stride must have looked pretty good because I heard someone on the side cheering tell her friend, “Man, that guy looks great!” Or it may have been that I was generally smiling and giving thank yous to everyone that was on the side cheering. It was a nice, happy run.

Ego: “You have less than a mile to go. And you still have all this energy. You’d better not get passed or else!”
Me: “Hmmm… Yeah, that would be bad.”
Ego: “I think I hear footsteps coming behind you.”
Me: “Wha? *checks over his shoulder* That guy is like way behind.”
Ego: “But closing in… goooo!”
Me: “OK. Going!”

I took the last half mile or so to the finish line in pretty hard. I kept checking over my shoulder to make sure that guy wasn’t going to pass me heading down the finishers chute and was happy to see that he wasn’t gaining on me anymore. I crossed the finish line happy that I was done and happy to still have plenty left in the tank. I felt like I could have gone around for a second loop if I needed to. Time: 41:32 (7:51/mi, 25/50 AG, 144/473 OA).

Summary:

Total time: 1:54:22 - 16/50 AG, 85/473 OA. That’s about 5 minutes faster than I anticipated going, but I didn’t really feel like I had pushed that hard so I was pretty happy as that was the primary goal here. The fact that I’m not really sore or tired this morning confirms my pacing yesterday.

Also, my age group is brutal! That time in the age group below me would have had me on the podium in second place and only out of first by 2 seconds! And I would have been in 8th instead of 16th in the age group above me. Six of the top nine overall male finishers were from my AG! Crazy.

But it was a great day none the less. Thanks to the folks in Annandale that came out and cheered - it was the 20th anniversary of this particular tri! And thanks to all the volunteers out there to donated their time to make the race a success! These things just wouldn’t happen without you folks.