Memphis in May Sprint Tri Race Report

It has been a while since I had raced a sprint race, actually it had been 3 years since I have done this distance so I was really looking forward to this race. Another reason I was looking forward to this race was because it would be the first time I got the chance to race alongside my bride, and a third reason I was looking forward to this race was that a lot of my friends were doing this race as their first triathlon! So it was a big day for all!

To bad the weather decided to make this day a lot harder than it needed to be. It rained ya'll!  Hard. The day before and even into race morning, it was a mess. The expo tent was ankle deep water and honestly, it would have been very easy to say "forget it". I have raced in the rain before and I hated it! Thank God for radar apps on the iPhone! We were checking it  often waiting for the rain to move out, which it finally did. We were then able to get our transition areas setup and get in the water for a swim. I was mulling over the decision of whether or not to wear a wetsuit because they said the water was 75 degrees at race time and I leaned more to the short swim vs. time to take off wetsuit and decided to go without the wetsuit, which  in hindsight was the right decision for me. It started raining once again once we started to line up for the race and I was shivering, I couldn't wait to get into the water. So, with no further delay, let's get into the race itself:

Swim: 13:57

Finally a race picture I like!

The swim was a basic triangle shaped swim that was said to measure 580 yards. We all started on a time trial start going off every 3 seconds. The line moved pretty fast and before I knew it I was jumping between people that were walking and wading into the swim. I felt very little bumping heading towards the first buoy and was doing OK. It was a little tough to sight due to the weather conditions and I brought the wrong goggles. I meant to bring my clear lenses but for some reason, they did not make the trip. As I got to the first green buoy, there was a lot of bumping. It was awesome! We all made it around the buoy and started heading for the next green buoy. There was about 8-10 of us I am guessing that were all in a group. Out of nowhere, I see a canoe near me and someone yelling, so I stop to see what's up and they are yelling that we are suppose to go around the orange buoy before hitting the next green one! So I make a 90 degree turn and head back to the buoy!  I know!  What was I thinking? I should have just kept swimming. This really cost me some time and added an additional 100 yards or so to my swim. I was very upset at myself for messing up the swim. I just did what I could and I knew my time was going to suck. As I was running up the ramp, a friend of mine yelled that my wife was about 10 seconds ahead of me! My reply was "you kidding me?" and he assured me she was already in transition. Now, my wife is a strong swimmer, but I had a good minute or two on her and while she might beat me in a pool swim, I am more at ease in open water, so yeah, I was surprised. It was only later that I found out my swim time and it was no where close to the 10-11 minute time I was expecting. Swim pace: 2:23/100

 

T1: 1:06

Knowing that I was already behind my expectations, I think I had one of my fastest transitions ever. I was slamming things down and getting out of there. I really wanted to beat my wife out of T1, which I did because she opted to wear the wetsuit.

Bike: 39:34

After the crappy swim, I decided I needed to crush the bike, so I went out harder than normal. I knew it might affect my run, but I did not care. I was able to pass a ton of people and felt fast! I stayed in aero a lot. The roads were wet with some flowing water going all the way across the roads, wasn't an issue but it made me nervous. My max speed got up to 27 mph and I tried to hang on to top speed as long as I could. I averaged 18.2, which I was happy with. I felt good on the bike, I felt fast.

T2: 1:30

My feet were so wet from all the water on the road that I had trouble slipping my feet out of my shoes as I was riding in, so I just kicked out of my pedals and ran it in my bike shoes to rack my bike. I had my shoes tied up in bag incase it rained some more and I had trouble getting my shoes out. I made a bonehead decision to go without socks on the run. My thinking was that my feet were already so wet that shoes probably would give me an issue for the 3 mile run. Yes, this will come into play shortly.

Run: 29:42

Yeah, I can't believe I was under 30 minutes either. This run was tough because (1. I was undertrained and (2. I made the bonehead call to run without socks. My watch never picked up after T2 and that messed with my head also. The 1st turnaround seemed really close and I thought that was a good thing, but since I did not know the run course well, I did not know about a 2nd turnaround point. After the 2nd turnaround point, it was much hillier and my feet were blistering up pretty good, so yeah I was hating life. I think the one thing that turned my attitude around was that I was talking to someone along the course, telling them about my bad swim and how I went harder on the bike, they simply said, "those are over, run this race". True words indeed. I knew I needed to suck it up and finish strong, so I quit worrying about the other legs and hit the levy and ran it home.

Finish time: 1:25:52

All in all, it was not a bad overall time, it was only a few minutes off my sprint PR time. Yes, I wish I had a better swim, and yes I wish I had worn socks on the run, and yes, I wish it had been dryer, but that's the way it goes sometimes. That is what is great about triathlon, you never get what you expect and then sometimes it works out better. I expected to do better, but I was right on the mark of where I wanted to finish. I also found joy in doing sprint races. It doesn't have to be long races anymore for me to feel like a triathlete.

Another win for me was racing with my wife. She always has a big smile on her face when she hits that finish line and truly looks like she is having a great time. Sometimes I wish I had that joy of finishing rather than the disgust of missing a buoy!

And Congrats to my friends who did their first triathlon!  Jay, Jason, Philip and Dwight!  Proud of you guys and I hope you enjoyed the sport as much as I do, and I must warn you, my journey started with a sprint race...just say'n.

4 Years Ago???

This happens to me a lot. When people learn that I am doing a race, or realistically when I tell people who don't really ask me that I am doing a race, one of the first questions I am asked is this? What is your goal time? Normally it is not a big deal and without hesitation I always fall back on my PR for that distance. But lately, I have been asking myself, How long can I hang on to the PR?

For those of you that might not know, PR stands for "personal record". It is the fastest time that one has raced that particular distance of a race.

I started looking back at my PR's. While they are not that impressive to many, here they are as best I could locate them (who am I trying to fool, every runner/triathlete KNOWS their PR's better than the kids birthdays right?)

5K-   23:43  March 2012
10K- 52:26  February 2012
1/2 Marathon- 1:56 March 2010
Marathon- 5:01 December 2012

Olympic Triathlon- 2:47 May 2012
Half Ironman - 6:09 Sept 2012
Ironman - 15:53 Sept 2013 (1st one is always a PR)

So here is my question. Can I still claim a PR for something 4 years ago? And if I can, how depressing is that? Maybe I should just change it to PB (personal best) and forget the whole 4 year old personal record. I know the old saying that records are meant to be broken, but 4 years ago I was 4 years younger than I am now! :)  So is it fair to hang on to it?

I know in the long run, this does not matter, and it shouldn't really I guess. This is just something that crossed my mind and got stuck. So let me ask you blog reader, how long do you claim your PR??? 

 



 I think I want a new PR...

NashVegas 70.3 Race Report...New PR!!!!

I spent my birthday driving to Nashville with my bride worrying about the weather. The forecast was calling for thunderstorms all morning on race day and highs in the low 70s. So as we drove in 90 degree weather, I was not looking forward to racing in the rain...again. Last year at Ironman Branson 70.3 is was a monsoon, so while I knew I could do it, I wasn't looking forward to the rain.

RACE DAY:

I had my alarm set to go off at 4:30 AM, which would give me plenty of time to eat something, and get everything ready. I wanted to be at the race site by 6AM for the 7AM start, which we made very easily. I was able to rack my bike in the first rack and get everything setup like I wanted it. i also remember to bring a plastic bag to wrap my socks and shoes in since the forecast was calling for rain. They stated the water temp was 84 degrees, which was surprising since it did rain all night, so that meant no wetsuit. I always feel more confident with my wetsuit on, but I really wasn't to nervous about not wearing it. All I had left to do was get body-marked, spend some time talking with my wife and friends and then get a little swim in before the siren started!

SWIM: 37:15

The swim started as a wade in the water wave start. I was in the second wave, basically the over 40 age group. We had about a 150 yard swim the the first buoy, a right turn, then about a 1000 yd swim, a right turn, another 150 yards, then a right turn back to the exit. The first two buoys were rough. People were bumping me a lot, it had to them because I swim in a straight line. It wasn't until that last buoy that I actually felt like I had room to swim. Once I saw the swim exit, I was actually surprised it was over. My swim time was 37.15, which broke down to a 1:46/100 yds!

T1: 1:26

T1 went fine, not a whole lot to talk about here. It had not started raining yet and with no wetsuit to get off, it was basically just a matter of putting on gloves and shoes and going!

BIKE: 3:08:27

I had not gone 6 miles before it started raining and then it started raining harder and harder. The wind really picked up also, which at times made it a little scary. The course itself was pretty good, it had some challenging hills to it, but a lot of rollers.My bike computer quit working around mile 15, so I had to wait to hit the mile markers to tell where I was on the course. I made sure to hit all my nutrition on the bike, which included salt pills, 2 bottles of GU Brew, 3 gels, energy shot blocks and 2 bite size Snickers (which was like manna from Heaven). I wanted to have fuel for the run, I left nothing in the bento box. I do not enjoy riding in  the rain and wind. This weather system made me hold back on some of the downhills because the wet roads and winds scared me some. There were parts of the course where I could see no one in front of me and no one behind me, which was weird. I mean the course was well marked, with signs and law enforcement, but there were still times when it got lonely out there. The rain finally stopped with about 25 minutes left on the ride. I was ready to get off the bike, and I was so looking forward to having dry socks and shoes on my cold wet feet.

T2: 2:07

The only thing that took time in T2 was getting my socks and shoes out of the bag I brought, and I gladly gave up those extra few seconds to have on dry shoes. This is a lesson I learned last year, and it made a huge difference. it felt so good putting on something dry.

RUN: 2:20:00

Awesome run course to run!!

I felt surprisingly well off the bike and starting the run. Really surprised!! I actually felt good! The run was about a mile of road, then it turned into a Greenline run. I had a great pick me up moment, when I spotted my wife about a mile into the run, I was wondering where she was when I came into T2, so it was a nice surprise to see her and to stop and get a quick kiss. I knew at this point I had a chance to go under 6 hours, I just needed to average under 10 minute miles, which was doable...for the first 9 miles. I was actually on pace, and this is with me walking through the water stations long enough to drink the water. Some stops had Coke, that sweet elixir of the Gods!  It was good! At mile 9, things starting getting really tough on me. I resorted to a run a mile, walk a minute. The legs were hurting. At one point, I decided I was going to run to mile 11 and then walk some, but my wife was at mile 11 taking pictures!  And I can;t walk with my wife standing there!!! So I shuffled through 11, walked ran through 12 and started cramping at 13. Right where everyone was! But I did make it.

Wanna know something interesting? I ran a half marathon in March with a time of 2:07, I ran a half marathon after a 1.2 mile swim and a 56 mile ride in 2:20!!  Who has been working on his run???

It was sweet crossing the finish line. 6:09:15. A new PR! 16th in my AG!  My last attempt at a 70.3 was 7:35, so I was thrilled with knocking off that amount of time.

My cheesy Olympic medal winning pose!!!