Well, another race is in the books. I didn’t meet my goal of 1:40. You can definitely tell a difference when you stay off training for a while. I did ride some between Wet Dog and Mt. Lakes, but that is about it. Team-Magic definitely knows how to put on a great event. Some people complain about the wait time. I’m not really sure what they expect when you have 900+ people all trying to compete. MH and I drove up to Guntersville Friday evening to pickup my packet and get checked into the hotel in Albertville. At the hotel, we just watched TV (two of our favorite shows, Monk & Psych, had their season premieres).
5:55am- Arrived at Race Site. I was the first on my rack to arrive, so I got one of the ends so I could have just a little extra room. I got my tattoos for the day and walked down to the water to check things out.
6:30am- Went back to the car to see how MH was doing. She decided to come on down to the race area. We went to the water. I swam about 300m to warm up and to make sure I still knew how to swim. I got out and stretched. Then the waiting game began.
7:45am- The first racers are off. These dudes can book it I the water. It was awesome watching these collegiate athletes compete.
8:25am- I’m diving into the water. My swim coach was one of the volunteers this weekend. She was the “marker” in the water at the point where you can start diving. She gave me a quick “Go get ‘em” and I gracefully immersed myself into the water (hoping you pick up on the sarcasm right about now). I didn’t feel too great about this swim. I did manage to pass a couple of people for a change, and my sighting was a lot better, but I just didn’t feel very efficient out there. My swim time was 16:39 which put me at 25/26 in my division. I lost a lot of time b/c I started doing the breaststroke a little and I kept looking up in the last 50-75 meters wondering when I was going to be close enough to the shore to start walking.
Swim Video
T1+Bike
T1 was OK…4:15. I’ve got to get quicker in transition. It is just too easy to lose valuable time walking/jogging to your gear, getting everything on, walking your bike to the mount line, mounting your bike and then heading off. The bike was a fun ride. No major climbs. I probably could have stayed aero the entire time. I passed a good bit of people out there. I got a little slow towards the end of the ride when you lose the tree cover. The last 2 miles went across the causeway where my dad used to take me fishing when I was little. It was pretty cool seeing all that again. With about 1 mile to go, I managed to reach down and get my feet out of my shoes to help speed up my T2 time. I wish I would’ve waited a bit longer, b/c pedaling with my feet hanging over the toe of my shoes made it difficult to get any power behind my pedaling. Overall, the bike took me 55:46 with an avg rate of 17.2mph which ranked me at 14/26 only b/c there were several folks who didn’t cross a timing mat so they don’t have a bike rate, but hey, I’ll take it.
Bike Video
T2+Run
T2 was ok. There was little bit of a traffic jam at the dismount line. I got to my rack and got ready for the run in 2:10. I really want to get this down to around 1:15 by next year. Only one word can really sum up the run…crappy. I couldn’t keep a decent pace running. I walked waayyy more than I should’ve or wanted to. I dug down and started kicking pretty good the last qtr mile or so at around 6:36 pace. The run was nice b/c it was on a paved path that ran next to the lake. The run ended up taking me 42:07 at an avg pace of 14:22 which put me dead last in my division for the run…or walk depending on how you want to look at it.
Finish Video
Here we are 2hrs and 55 secs later crossing the finish line. I ended up finishing 24/26 in my division so at least I wasn’t dead last. It was a great day, and I definitely had a good time. I’ll be there next year to “own” that race.
I’ll wrap up the season and start looking ahead in my next post.
Eric’s Quote of the Day: “You might want to check your socks, because I’m about to knock’em off.” ~ Shawn Spencer, Psych
Oops
13 years ago
