White Lake Internation Tri Race Report

Was really looking forward to this race but unfortunately it didn't work out quite the way I wanted. Leading up to the race my shoulder that I injured at the beginning of the year started hurting again. I stopped swimming in hopes that it would recover enough for me to get at least a desent time in the swim portion, then I wanted to really hammer the bike and run just to see what I could do after a great spring/summer of training and racing.

The race ended up being wetsuit legal. boooooooo. but on the plus side I think the wetsuit helped my shoulder track better and I had no issues what so ever on the swim. tool off to the left of the pack, jumped on some feet until they veered of course, then went at it solo for the rest of the 1200 meters. After I made the first turn I finally noticed that the buoys had meter markers on them. The first one I saw was 700. This kept me facinated and keeping close enough to them so I could read them. I think this was the straightest I've ever swum and kept my pace conservative. It was a good thing I did that as about 1300 or so my swim unconditioning starting to show and I really had to work to keep the pace up for the last 200. Finished about 30 minutes for the 1500 swim and 4th in the MC division.

After a quick transition I headed out on the bike. In the first mile I was doing 21 and I saw an MC go flying by me. He was hauling ass and I knew better than to try to stay on him. I wanted to go fast, but not totally blow it out. I managed a 21.5 mph average for the 27+ miles and felt really strong. I had that I could have gone faster feeling and didn't think my legs were trashed at all. Finished in 1:17, 5th best in MC.

took a bit more time in T2 to make sure I had everything, then headed out on the run, just as I was leaving the rack I saw Collin, another MC heading out the other side of transition. he looked speedy, so there was now at least 2 in front of me. I did the first mile in 8:50 and felt good. legs were coming around, it wasn't too hot and I had consumed all 3 of my gels and drank about 40 oz of water. Ran mile 2 in 8:30 and wanted to do 2 more at that pace then see what I had left. Of course that's when it all fell apart. At about 2.5 my left hamstring cramped up so bad I couldn't walk. I don't want to get into all the gory details, but I cramped up at least 4 more times over the next 4 miles and lost 3rd place by 15 seconds. the 3rd MC passed me while cramping the last time at mile 5.5, I tried to catch, but he saw me and had more left than I at that point.

Totally frustrated with my cramping situation on the mid distance races. Sprints, no problems, ironman, no cramps, but international distance, cramps like crazy. Oh well, got plenty of time before the next one to work on it.

Tri the Worx race report

This was my 3rd race in 4 weeks. I'm going to do a write up on the experiment I was doing this year on the multi week peak, but first I need to do this write up before I forget all that happened.

This was an awesome race, the race orgainizers have a great site and did a great job of setup and execution. I have no complaints about it at all and would definitely do this race again.

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Yeah, so much for those two paragraphs above that I wrote 3 weeks ago, and now I've forgotten all the good stuff...

anyway I want to write some info here since I will probably do this one again next year and hopefully the wife and kid will actually watch me for part of it instead of playing on the play ground the whole time.

The Pool:
It was an outdoor pool and there was plenty of time for warmup. the thing here was you had to get out and run through the inside pool area to get out to the transition area, and I caught the lady in front of me who caught the lady in front of her. I think instead of 1:28, next year a 1:24 would be better.

T1: The bike start is out the back and up a hill. get to the top before trying to mount.

Bike: loved this bike course mostly a low hill rolling type. only got out of the saddle once. the last right turn was a bit dicey with a bunch of cars at the light, they should probably do something about that as I had to go into the left turn lane to get around the cars so I could make a right. I'm sure the jerk that moved way to the right so the bikes couldn't go around and make that right did it on purpose, but what can you do.

T2: the bike finish is at the top of the hill, be careful running down this hill. slippery when wet...

Run: the run was about .2 short, don't be afraid to go all out after the turn around, the way back is easier then the way out on this out and back course.