[[Note: This report is pretty over due, I have been pretty busy with work and life, so I have been working on this in sections]]
The last tri in the series snuck up on me quickly. I couldn’t believe that the fun was almost over. I was planning to do the longer full sprint, but my wife convinced me to do the tiny tri again. And by convince I mean she said “Want to do the tiny tri?” and I said yes. I was determined to have a good swim after the last two or three roughones. how did it go? Erm, Yeah.
Swim
Like I said, I was determined to have a good swim. I was pretty nervous still, but I made my way to the front of the pack. It’s a tough thing to do because everyone wants to start in front, even the slower swimmers, so I got as close as I could. I could hear my heart beating it was racing so much. The horn went off and I dove in. I swam between a few people, sighted here and there, and after what seemed like a long time, I ended up at the turn. I swam around the turn and headed back. I was more or less alone the whole way. People in front of me were swimming at least at my pace, and no one caught up from behind. I did stop a couple of times and found that I was floating pretty well, which is encouraging. I came out of the water breathing heavy, but otherwise feeling good.
T1
What can I say, it was what it was. I put on my shoes and made the trek up to the bike. It’s a long run, and that makes it take deceptively long time to get to the bike.
Bike
I wanted to go hard on the bike. I had newly adjusted my front derailleur, which is a long and complicated story, which had given me so many issues, and felt like maybe my chain wouldn’t pop off this time. I also had adjusted my seat to a proper height and thought that I was really in a good place to push it. Thankfully I wasn’t nearly as winded as I had been in previous races, so I gave it a go. I was hammering the bike, I passed a number of people for a change, and things were feeling great.
About 2/3 of the way through the course there is a section with a lot of sand. There is a way to get around the sand by following a track on a narrow berm to the right of the sand pit. I had done that before, and went for it again this time. I hit the berm just right, and then noticed that there was a big divot in it. Before I could even react my front tire fell in the hole and I flew over my handlebars and on my side. It was in slow motion. I felt my shoulder hit, and then my head slam into the ground. The good news is that my helmet stopped me from hurting my head. I got up, looked the bike over and tried to ride but I heard some rubbing. I pulled off to the side and worked on trying to figure out where the rubbing was coming from. Eventually it went away, I still don’t know what it was. I jumped on the bike and took off.
While I was figuring things out my wife passed me, asked how I was, and when she saw I was fine she kept going.
I chased her through the rest of the trail, but because of a couple of tactical errors, I had to walk a hill and never saw her on the bike again. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.
T2
There isn’t much to say, dropped the bike off, threw off the helmet, and headed out on the run.
Run
I could see my wife not far ahead of me and I thought it would be cool to finish right with her. She says she is a slow runner, and typically she is at least a minute or more slower than I am. Catching up to her won’t be a problem I thought. I ran through the trails and my heart rate and breathing were out of control. I couldn’t make a dent on her lead. Eventually I sprinted to catch her. I ended up beside her with about 1/4 mile to go. My breathing was erratic, just really huffing and puffing. About 100 yards later she dropped me. I just couldn’t keep up! She ran through the shoot about 30 seconds before me.
Even with all of those issues, I finished with a PR. I don’t have an official time because my timing chip ended up somewhere on the bottom of the lake, but I did a decent job of setting my stopwatch splits.
Race Results
Total time: 37:02
Swim time: 4:44 (200 yards, good pace for me)
T1: 3:02 (a really long transition run)
Bike: 20:08 (3 miles)
T2: 0:01 ( I just tapped the button twice)
Run: 9:08 (That is a zippy pace for me, and wow, my wife killed it!)
All in all I was happy with my race. It gives me a little confidence boost for my tri in Madison. Oh, and I got a nice souvenir too:
