Thursday, May 6, 2010

Race Report

May 1, 2010

Tri Charleston Sprint

Great venue for this one. Went down on Friday night and stayed in HB's condo for the night. Nice place and less that 5 minutes to the race site -.


Got to the site at around 6, already had bike ready, and the only thing to do was to set-up transition and warm-up. Its so much better to pick up everything up the day before rather than waiting in the lines on race morning. The line for bodymarking was just stupid long. TAKE A SHARPIE people and get a friend, family member, the guy/girl next to you to do it. That was insane.

Warmed up with Wes but only rode 2-3 miles to make sure the bike was ok. Got a good mile and half run in though with 3 striders but no warm-up swim. Oh well...The Half racers went off first and I was in the 8th or 9th wave overall to start. We swam in the same pond that "The Notebook" was filmed in. Alligators had been removed and our swim was just a short 500 meters so no problems there. Felt really strong on this swim and pulled hard the hold time and just tried to stretch it out with a much faster stroke than I am use to. It was good, no problems, not traffic problems but that rarley bothers me anyway. I like the washing machine, fight it out, effect of the mass starts. I wish they were all mass starts at every event! Got out of the water and sprinted the 100 yards or so to transition. There were wet-suit strippers but I did it myself by my rack. Slow T-1 time however, not good at all. Guess I was just slow getting the suit off, i don't know.

The Bike was an out and back on flat roads for a total of 11 miles. I was flying on the out section, 26-27 plus mph no problem and kept the watts over 260. I was just flying and could not figure out for the life of me what the hell the deal was. Was I just that rested and could maintain this power longer now. I was flying by people like they were going backwards. Crazy FAST! I got to the turn around and BAM, figured it out. Good tail wind all the way out at about 10-12 mph. Does not sound like much but immediatly lost 3mph, back down to earth. The power output dropped but I was getting a little winded and I could only manage 22-23mph on the way back in with the wind. I was only clipped in on the pedals with one shoe, my left shoe just would not clip in for any reason. I stopped to a check it twice as I started but only for a few seconds but I could not get it back in and said screw it, this is what I have and this is what I have to deal with. Always something that comes up. Anyway, I had the 3rd fasted split and 2 seconds out of the 2nd fastest split. Not slowing down for those 2 stops would have put me there and in contention for the fastest split. I like having that!

T-2 was fast, no problems whatsoever again. The run was flat and I was quickly passed by some 18 year old runner. This guy was freaking mooooving. I jus settleted into my pace and quickly got it down to 6:40. 20 seconds slower than my 5k pace and I need this to be 6:30-6:35 but I was giving it all I had. First mile came in at 6:42 and the second came in at 6:38. Ok, I can deal with this, I was feeling ok and knew I had to run a 6:25 on the last mile to make this a good run. Actually felt good and starting picking it up, looked down at the Garmin and was running a 6:15 pace at one point. Oh yea this will be a good one I thought, looked up and BAAAM there was the finish line, WTH????? 2.52 miles????? Ahhhhh Crap. Finished with a 17:04 or 17:06. Did I miss a turn? It can't be this short ? Went up to Jeremey and asked him what the deal was and he said he measured it out to 3.1 on his bike with his garmin and bike computer so it could not be short. I just said man that thing is waaaay short. He got on his bike and rode out to the turnaround point and came back, found me, and said his guys put the turnaround sign at the first aid station and not THE turnaround point. Oh well, everyone ran the same distance so no worries.

Finished 1st in my Age Group and 8th overall male. Not to happy about the 8th place but it was a good points day for me in the series standings. Props goes out to the 2nd place OVERALL finisher, a female from Mt Pleasant, who was just 23 seconds from winning the whole damn thing, (finished 5th at the nationals I hear) and had the fastest run split at 14:50 something. DAAAMN!

Great venue, great awards, great shirt, great food. Will be back next year!