Average Jo Sprint

When I come up north, it always seems to make training and racing more enjoyable. This weekends race was more of the same. The sprint race was a short swim with a 11 mile bike and 4 mile run.

Of course, when I get into transition to set up, I forgot my bike shoes. How do you forget your bike shoes!!!? ? I was very upset with myself, thank god my dad had enough time to go back to the cabin to grab them. He showed up at 5 minutes to gun, I was way to stressed.

The swim was 500 yards of pure adrenaline and kicking. I started with the big group, and came out of the water 3rd. 1:10/100yd. My best swim split at this race.

Into T2 and out in 2nd overall. The exit of T2 is a dirt road which we have to run about a tenth of a mile with out bikes. And finally we can mount when on the pavement. 

I had a solid ride, vastly improving from last year and turning in one of my fastest average speeds ever. 22.1 mph.  I was impressed and was hoping to keep it up through the run. That didn't exactly happen.  I had plans of running sub 7 min miles, for the 4 mile run. This became a real stuggle. I don't know why running comes so hard for me. Sucks! I have improved 13 second per mile over last year, but that doesn't help much when I am in 4th place after the bike, then have 5 people pass me on the run. I have to work on that.

10th overall, and 2nd in my 20-29 age group, the guy who won my group was of course 29. Damn that age difference. At least I know that'll be me in nine Flippin years! 7 minutes faster than last year, great race and great weather for the morning.

Next race is Lifetime Minneapolis,  Olympic distance.  Which is the last race before my 70.3 in Racine!

Catch me if you can!

RochesterFest Olympic Triathlon

Thank god it didn't rain this weekend. It was 445 and my sister and I were on our way to Rochester. It was race day for the third time this year. We had a straight shot of just over an hour to the race destination,  which gave us plenty of time to set up my transition and warm up etc.

We got to the park and dropped my stuff off, and went to park at the nearby parking lot. The "lake" we swam in for this race wasn't much of a lake. Let's call it a pond.

So the swim would be a double loop out in the pond. I was in the second wave with about 40 or so other athletes. The water was pretty much perfect for a race. It wasn't too cold and wasn't too warm. The pond was a man made water hole, from a nearby limestone company. That made the water a turquoise like color. When the swim started, it was around 810, I felt good on the first loop, passing people from the wave before me. Once the first was done, we had to exit the water for about 30 yards and then dive back in for the second loop. The second loop seemed just as easy as the first, but I'm sure I was passing people that were in the waves behind me too. Finally exited the water and headed up the beach into transition. 

Got the bike and took off. Only wasting about 2 minutes in T1. The bike course was an out and back, which was on mostly good roads. There were lots of rollers and a few larger hills, but I kept it mostly in aero for the ride. At the turn around, immediately you could tell you had a slight tailwind coming out. That always sucks. So the ride back to transition was tough, but I kept the pace up nicely to average about 20.6.

T2 was just over 1 minute long and I wore socks this time in my shoes for the 10k. The run had a few technical stretches to it. We were running in and out, up and down the Zumbro River banks. I started the first 5k with a very solid pace, one I thought I could definitely keep till the end. But that wasn't the case, my pace slipped to a 7:48 for my slowest mile. Eventually evened out for a 7:11 average. Not terrible, but I can do better.

Ending up with 3rd in my age group is respectable for my competition.  The results say 1st because the other two raced as elites,  which usually does not qualify them for age group awards, just overall.  But I  guess that wasn't the case here. Third is third and I am happy with it. 

Next race is Average Jo, a sprint race in Perham. Should be fun and really fast!

Catch Me If You Can!

Trinona Olympic Triathlon

So it's 4 am on race day. I wake up to absolute pouring rain. That's not a good sign. It was my mom and I in Winona, Minnesota for Lifetime Trinona.  We went down to the breakfast area to get some substance in us for the long day ahead. When we got down there, a fellow racer (in guessing) asked us if we knew that the transition opening was delayed from 500 until 530, so thankfully he told us that. We had to stand in the rain for less time, or more like sit in the truck in the rain.

We decided that we would rather go park near the transition area and wait for it to open. At 530 I decided, screw it, I needed to get out and get my stuff going. I was going to rack my bike and everything the night before, but you know, rain.

So I stood underneath a tree with my bike behind the truck and set her up. It was pretty miserable. Then we walked up to the transition area only to find out that they weren't opening up until 600. Wow. Just awesomse. So I stood in the rain for another 20 minutes until it magically stopped!

They let us in and I finally got to set up transition. Which takes me like 5 minutes, I don't know why it takes  people so long he set up transition. I put my shoes in a bag just in case it decided to start raining again, which would cause problems later.  the socks for running  debate is never ending.

So fast forward to the swim start. I was in wave 7. we were supposed to start at 6:53 but because of the rain delay , the first wave didn't start until 715, so I started at 7:25. it was a time trial format for everyone but the Elite athletes.

When I finally got to take off, I had it out for the first buoy. there were to large tetrahedron buoys that were the markers for turning hand about five littler Bouys as guide marks. I exited the water in a new PR for the Olympic distance swim. next was the bike.

So we started off on a bike and went about 6 miles over some nice rollers until we reach the turnaround. after the turn around we headed to the battle for the bluff, now this was a hill. the climb was over a mile long at an average grade of 9%. I averaged about six and a half miles per hour all the way up the hill. needless to say I was happy when it was over. we climbed for about 5 more miles until around mile 17 then we finally got to descend back into transition area. Winona is kind of a valley city, so we climbed out and then descended back in. back to mile 17 where the downhill descend was awesome. I think my max speed going down the hill was 42 miles per hour. I had my hands on the hood and my chin on my water bottle not in the aero bars the whole time unlike some people. I just like the feeling of going so fast but I still want to be able to run. coming back to the park where the transition area is I ate my second gel and got ready to dismount my bike. it was a fast T2, I don't understand why some people put all their stuff on in transition it take so long. my shoes and socks and hat and race bib we're in that little plastic bag so I decided to screw the socks and run barefoot in my shoes. and I was off on the run.

I took off unusually fast and ran at 6:36 mile for the first mile. I then settled into my pace and ran around a 705 the rest of the time. I was very pleased with my run performance because my overall split time was 654 per mile. that was the fastest 10k I'd ever ran, open or race. I saw a couple friends on the run course which is always fun. I ran a new PR I swam a new PR, and biked well.

I got 2nd in my 20 to 24 age group. and got a cool metal and stone trophy. Next race is RochesterFest.  June 21st

See you then!

Catch me if you can.