So today was the first race of the season. From a certain perspective, one could say it’s my first race, as last year was limited to one finish, and one other start, but that finish came two days after blowing up my calf, so the run was very, very slow last year. This was the first race in which I was somewhat “racing.” unlike many of you, I don’t mean that in the sense of trying to place AG, but pushing myself past uncomfortable, and really had no crutch/fallback to rationalize a slow leg/race.
Before I go on, I should give props to Stevo, who won his age group in the same race. Good show on his part. Hopefully we’ll see a RR from him.
This was my first event ever last year, so it was really nice to have some direct comparisons. Last year I covered the 500/18k/4k course in 1:24:40, which included a 13:29 swim, an epic 4:03 T1(which still comes up to this day), and a run with a bad calf of 27+ minutes. Lots of room for improvement!!
The swim started off all right. 175m to the first buoy seemed to take forever. What was different this time was actually being int he middle of people rather than way behind. At different times I was swimming almost halfway up a couple of guys, and they were closing in on each other. No path, and I’m not quick enough to hold a pace once I were to swim over them. Later, I was swimming just to the left and behind one guy. I did not have the energy to surge past him, but he kept swimming into me, and so I was crossing my right arm way over center in order to not keep hitting him. I did however get an opening at the second buoy and so I surged ahead and am pretty sure I lost him. There was about 75m from the buoy measuring the 500m and the timing mat, with the first 10-15 in water that was deep enough that it was difficult to run. The mat at the transition area had me in 11:31, which I was somewhat happy with. At times the swim felt like it would never end, so a two minute improvement with intereference, etc. was a good start. Top half of the swim times, so that is a good sign there.
T1 was less eventful this time, although I did struggle a little with the first leg of the wetsuit, and my balance. A little light headed from the swim, I had to lean on the railing a little while taking it off. Once the first leg was out, the rest was fairly easy. Socks, shoes, helmet, glasses and gloves, and off we went.
Forced my way through the opening to the mount/dismount line, and had trouble clipping in, so it took me a second there, but nothing serious. What was worse was that one side of my race number came undone, and so I spent a few K, dealing with tucking it in, etc., finally I pulled off the race belt and stuffed it in my shirt. I would say this cost me 30 seconds or so, next time just let it fly, and if it goes away it goes away. My chip will say who I am. I spent most of the ride in the aerobars, but had to get on the hoods a little as the shoulders were a little sore. What was really nice was that I passed far more people than passed me. The last turnaround brought us into a strong wind that took a little bit of a toll, but I continued to pass people though, so things were good. An 18K course that most people’s computers had at about 16.2 makes the time misleading, but my split was 53rd of 194, so I was pleased there as well.
T2, other than going to one rack and then having to go around to mine, was uneventful. Changed the shoes, grab a sip of water, and off we go. And here is where thing went wrong.
Whether it was going to hard out of T2, remnants of the bike, or just not knowing how hard is hard in a race, I’m not sure, but after about 700m of running, I had to walk because right below the center of my ribcage it felt like a balloon wanted to burst, and my heart and lungs felt as though they would explode. On my long runs I have found that a 10 second walk to get the breathing under control has helped immensely, but I could not get my breathing under control. On a 4K run, I probably walked 6-7 times because of this. Never more than 10-15 seconds, but a lot. The bad part is about 200m from the finish, I just dealt with it, and put on a dead sprint and past a bunch of people, almost ran one lady over coming down the finish chute, and costing myself a prize as finisher #113 was to receive a prize, and I could hear them saying I was 111 just before I hit the mat. drats.
So the final time was 1:12:14, an improvement of 12 mins+. Close to a year of fairly solid swim practice, a tri bike instead of road bike, and no leg injury for thr run all contributed, plus some improved fitness. I did not wear my HRM, as I have found training to be better without it, but I wonder if it may have helped keep me from blowing up on the run. The second half of the run felt somewhat better, so maybe the bike-run transition needs more work. Need to keep swimming, as the fatigue factor coming out of the water cost me time in T1. I was happy with the bike, and already discussed the run. 90th overall, 16/21 AG, 6 seconds from the next guy, and less than 3 minutes from being top half in the AG, which a good run and not worrying about the bib on the bike would have made attainable. So lots of positive to take from today, and well, need to train with Stevo more to get up to his speed! Thanks for reading.