8/23/09

Lorain Sprint Triathlon



Good race this morning and great conditions. The swim was a little chaotic at the start until we hit the North side of the breakwall and got away but other than that it was great. Start time temps. were about 64-65 degrees with a light rain and a litte bit of a wind. After I did a face plant in the sand getting out of the water and then was semi covered in sand, I ran up the hill to transition grabbing 2 cups of ice cold water on the way to throw on me so I could try to wash away most of the sand that was on my hands and legs, they had 2 foot bath basins to wash the sand off of the feet on the way to T1 too.
Once on the bike I knew my legs were going to be good today. I passed quite a few that started in the 1st. wave which was 4 minutes ahead of my group. I tried to keep turning over a pretty big gear keeping the speeds in the mid to high 20's in the wet and rainy conditions and ended up coming into T2 with a bike avg. of 24.8 mph. for the slightly less than 15 mile course. Transitioned pretty slow actually and tried to make up for it on the beginning of the run and started out fast. My legs felt great though and I figured I would just keep the pace throughout the 5k run if I could. I seemed to manage the run fine and actually picked up the pace to anerobic toward the last few hundred meters to finish 4th. overall and 1st. in the 45-49 age group. I love running in the rain!

Tony ripped the course. He was 2nd overall in on the bike and was 1:00 down on the leader on the way out of T2. When Tony, the leader and I passed each other on the run going in opposite directions I yelled to him that he had 2nd locked up and nice job keep it going. He was about 100 yards or so behind the leader at that point and they were both running fast so I thought that's where they would finish. When I finished Tony said that he won overall. I said where did you catch and pass at, he said just a little ways up from where we had passed in the opposite direction. Tony said that he could hear the guy behind him was in oxygen debt trying to keep his pace and that made him push all the harder til he couldn't hear him breathing anymore. He said when he looked back the guy had fallen off the pace and Tony ran in solo for the overall win.

Scott got his first age group win today. He had a great bike and a great run. He averaged over 23 on the bike and beat the 2nd place finisher in his age group (35-39) by over 6 minutes and finished in the top 10, Nice! He's getting better each time out. He did say though if we didn't talk him out of wearing his wetsuit he would have done much better on the swim. He's been doing great on training rides and runs and it's just a matter of time before he starts cracking top 5 overall.

Great job you guys and it's awesome racing with you.

Also a big thanks to Doug and Nate who were at the Bike Authority tent yelling support and just being there.

3 comments:

Dad S said...

Great racing today. All that serious training really shows on race day!

Unknown said...

Thanks Dad.

Ray Huang said...

Congrats guys and way to rip it up on the bike splits.