Pre-Race:

While I was at the wedding reception of our friends Larry and Grace the night before (congratulations, BTW!), I was seriously considering ducking out of the race. Waconia is rather far from my house for a “local” tri - it’s probably just under an hour to get there by car. But more important than distance, it rained nearly all night the night before the race and I woke up race morning to find that it was still sprinkling lightly. I teetered and tottered about whether to go or not, but finally decided that I had already paid so I might as well just show up. I knew it wasn’t going to be a fast race as my legs felt/feel really dead from my workouts this past week. I suppose any time is better than a “did not start”, though.

The entire way down, the rain continued to get worse and I kept debating turning around and going home. Or possibly just getting there and not racing, but just volunteering/cheering instead. By the end of the long drive there, though, the rain and died down and by the start of the race the sky had opened up and the sun was shining down. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.

Swim:

The swim was a two turn swim with an out, a straight a way, and a back leg. I lined up near the front again and tried to clear out my goggles before the swim start. The countdown begins and the announcer yells, “GO!” I run and dive into the water, but as soon as my face hits the water water gets into my goggles when then starts swishing around my eyes. There wasn’t a ton, but enough splashing around in there to be annoying so I swam a little further to get a small gap between most of the competition and stopped momentarily to let the water out of each goggle socket. Ahhh! Much better!

The water was quite choppy heading away from the beach. It seemed like every time I looked forward to spot or to take a breath to the side I was being hit by some rogue wave, but it wasn’t too bad. I figure, the choppier the better since I’m fairly comfortable in the water.

I’d say I did the whole swim at a moderate pace. It felt much more controlled and relaxed than my previous race. But it was definitely faster than my Ironman pace. I think I caught most of the folks in the wave in front of me and even a few in the wave in front of them. I hit the beach and just decided to head to T1 and worry about taking my wetsuit off there to save a few seconds.

Time: 13:01 - 1:29/100 pace - 2/44 (!) in AG

T1:

The moment of truth. I reached back on my newly retrofitted wetsuit top and unzipped the zipper while running to my bike. Once there, I pulled on the top and it came off like butter! Success!!! Much better than a couple weeks prior.

Time: 1:44

Bike:

“This is going to be ugly.” I just knew it wasn’t going to be a good day based on how my legs were feeling when I woke up. They didn’t hurt so much from normal walking, but if I extended them straight and flexed my quads, they were brimming with lactic acid still. I can’t remember the time in the last couple of years when they’ve felt like this.

But oh well! I was already out there and couldn’t do anything about that now. I started on the bike course and began reeling folks in. How am I reeling folks in when my legs are dead? Well, when you’re the 10th of 12 waves, you’re bound to have quite a number of slower folks ahead of you.

This year the race was sporting a new bike route. I hadn’t previewed it before and all I knew is that the course was two miles shorter than last year. I remember the old course being relatively flat and very fast, but the new route was nothing like that. It was rather hilly (for me, anyway). Lots of up on the way out and with a nice little headwind to boot. I tried not to think about it too much and just get as aero as possible and grind.

It didn’t feel good, but it was OK I guess. I knew I wasn’t going very fast, but the constant passing of folks ahead of me made it seem a little better. I only remember getting passed three or four times, which I was quite surprised at. I thought for sure folks would be flying by me at the pace I was riding at.

More hills and finally a nice tailwind to carry me most of the way home and I was soon rolling into T2.

Time: 42:07 - 20.7 MPH :( - 7/44 in AG

T2:

Also a new change from last year, this year’s course had us enter T2 from a different direction entirely. This was a great change from the past year where the bike course and run course all came down the same road. Meaning bikers were weaving around runners who were coming into the finish last year?! I remember that very vividly and it was quite horrifying.

But that was all well and fixed. I was dreading the run. Ugh. All the hills!

Time: 1:10

Run:

Spectators probably have no idea that there are any hills on the run. Right out of T2, you run down this road and then it kind of goes down a small hill and hurts to the left. It looks relative harmless standing on the beach. But the spectators don’t see the rather long hill that awaits right after that part. I hate that hill. Whenever I think about this race, I always think about that hill.

I paced myself up the hill telling myself again to keep my cadence up. Folks were actually already walking at this point, which was probably less than 0.5 miles from T2, so I actually got to pass people on the run! That’s a totally new concept for me! Haha!

I can’t say that I ran hard. I sort of half-assed the run knowing that I didn’t have the best of bike efforts, that I wasn’t going to place, and that there were more hills ahead. So I kind of throttled down to a mod/mod-hard effort and settled in. It was getting a little warm at this point, but I continued to pass folks which I found quite amusing. Honestly, I rarely get to pass anyone on the run so this was a novelty.

I hit the turn around and was pretty surprised to find out that I was just under eight minute pace for my effort. It didn’t feel like I had been running at a sub-8 effort which gave me a little more motivation to run harder on the way home. So I picked it up a tad. Back through a couple more hills and soon enough I was on the straight away back home. I took a quick peek over my shoulder and saw one guy, so kicked it in hard to the finish line. Turns out, he wasn’t in my age group anyway. :P

Time: 31:20 - 7:50 pace - 16/44 in AG.

Summary:

Total time: 1:29:19 - 7th of 44 in AG - 74 of 443 overall.

I was shocked to find myself that high in my AG. I thought for sure that I’d be somewhere in the middle of the pack given my effort. I’m thinking that maybe some folks didn’t show up that normally would have due to bad weather that morning? Although the bike racks were pretty full, so who knows?

The sixth place guy was just over three minutes in front of me which I was actually pleased with because even if I had pushed harder, I probably wouldn’t have made up those three minutes. :) Even more surprising, the eighth place guy was just under three minutes behind me so I was sort of in 7th place all by myself. A little odd to have a six minute spread like that in a sprint, no? Had I have known that eighth was so far back, I’d have slacked even further. ;)

My bike split was really disappointing. I’ve had pretty crappy bikes splits this year in comparison to previous years. Granted, I was exceptionally tired this race, but 20.7? I’ve done two half Ironmans, both of which I averaged 20.7 MPH on the bike. I certainly didn’t expect 20.7 for a 14 mile ride, but oh well.

The race was well run as it always is and the volunteers were great. I love how everyone has to run the same way through transition, meaning that you have to enter and exit transition at the same place regardless if it’s T1 or T2. It sort of eliminates the notion of getting there early for a “good” bike rack location. I really don’t like how this race puts the faster age groups in the later waves letting the slower waves go first. I guess it does allow more folks to finish closer to each other and probably allows them to close down the course earlier than they would otherwise. But it just doesn’t seem safe to encourage all that passing on the bike course that’s bound to happen, and I’m all about safety first. I suppose this debate is true for any race. Do you let the faster people go first and have a more open course, but have the slower (and probably older) people be left to finish alone and probably during a hotter part of the day? Or do you have the slower folks go first and be able to open up the roads back earlier at the expense of having many more folks having to use that open road to pass the slower folks in front of them? Arguments can be made for both cases, I guess.

I think this is my last year doing Waconia, though. I do like the race, but it’s a little farther than I’d like to drive for a sprint. And I really don’t like going off in the later waves which is how they always seed things there. I’ve actually thrown out the idea of not racing any sprints in the future and only doing 1/2 IMs or above. I’ve come to realize that it’s rather hard to train for an IM and have any kind of “sprint” speed at all. I remember thinking to myself at the end of the run today that I would place so much higher if we had to go do another loop. :) But I suppose this is all another post for another time.

This marks what is likely my last race until Wisconsin. I am still signed up for Heart of the Lakes, but that’s a draft-legal race that I’ll probably skip. I don’t have anything against draft-legal racing per se, but do have beef with how that particular race handled the change this year. I’ll sure I’ll post all my complaints for the world to read in place of my race report that day.