JUNE 1, 2013
The "pond" wasn't as bad as I thought it would be even though it smelled like a backed up sewer filled with rotten fish and duck crap. I gulped down a mouthful in my warmup just to get it over with. Not knowing the race route caused some hesitancy, but I picked a fast swimmer and stuck with him the whole time. The swim times have not been posted yet, but a racer who got out just in front of me finished the swim in 14:00. I had a horrible spot in the transition area. The worst - hands down. There were around 300 racers and the transition area was packed. I was stuck in the back and realized, at the end of the race, how important it is to treat the transition area a very important part of the race. I lost critical time finding my stuff and running too far in my cycle shoes.
The bike route was filled with 90 degree turns and weird intersections. As soon as I started flying I was forced hit the brakes. With that said, I pushed hard and was above my high threshold for over 60% of the bike (172+bpm). The second lap of the bike was filled with all of the people who had just gotten out of the water. It was a mess. I spent most of the second lap close to the center line of the road an yelling at people on mountain bikes.
The goal was to run a sub 7:00 pace - according to Strava I did it, but until the race results show I guess it is not official. There were some uphill portions and then some short downhill stuff, but I kept a strong solid pace. I push my legs hard, and started to get wobbly in the final mile. There was a racer about 150m ahead of me during the whole run. I would gain on him and then he would pull away. I figured he was an elite racer, but when the final results came out he took 1st in our age and I took 2nd. Lost to him by 23 seconds. 12th overall at 1:10:40. Seven minutes behind the top finisher.
It was a great race, but overall victory will not happen until my swim time drops at least 2:00-3:00 minutes and I can run around a 6:30 pace.
Total time: 1:10:40 (12/204)
Swim: 14:24 (21/204)
T1: 1:42 (53/204)
Bike: 31:52 (4/204)
T2: 1:30 (93/204)
Run: 21:15 (14/204)
Transitions were not the highlight yesterday, but I did bike faster than the overall winner.
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