Race day has come and gone for the season opener

So I start out the season with a short sprint race ( well sort of sprint but the swim was set for 750 meters not the standard 500) This is the opposite of what I have been training for which is long distance but I figured need to get a few races in before for some race excitement, working on transitions and having fun. This is the race that back in 2006 I showed up not actually having swum 750 meters nonstop before. Oh how far we have come.

I took the whole weekend and meandered over to Albany on Saturday morning, we had a free hotel night so that helped. jennelle got to do some treasure hunting via Geocache and we spent time swimming in the hotel pool ( a nice one not a super 8) and she is quite the swimmer. She gave me some tips as well.

Race day I went and set up transition at 7 am even though the race is at 9:30 for my wave so the family could sleep in and not be rushed through breakfast etc. all set up and race packet picked up along with my free t-shirt. Is it just me being jaded or are we sick of race shirts? I would almost rather get some bike lube or a few tubes or someting. This also was a shirt I would likely not wear....ok any way.

The pool is a 50 meter pool but they put in the bulk head so we are swimmining in a 25 meter pool. for 750 meters the amount of turns we have to make is mind numbing in a race along with croweded with 4 people in alane.....on top of that I was trying to keep track during the race but pretty sure as I passed two people and one of them twice that I ended up doing an extra meters as the lap counter seemed asleep and looked like he got wrangled to help, now thank god for volunteers but at least do the job you are asked to do. so I fugure this was a 800 meter swim. in the scheme of things not a big deal but yikes.

swim time in 2006: 22:15 (2.58) swim time yesterday: 16:13 (2:09) Dropped 6 minutes


T1 went smooth and I was off, I wore the mountain bike shoes as I want to run through the long parking lot they had set up before you could mount...worked well, I decided to use the dame bike detup to see how I had improved from 2006 even though Bruce graciously offered the cannodale reps bike to use. (the sweet bike I will use at Ironman in Idaho) so When i saw a few bikes in my age category with full carbon wheels i had to say to myself..." racing your past and the clock not that guy" off I went and the bike felt awesome. there were some slight headwinds the whole way it seemed. I think as the tip was ricing the air was moving and I felt like I was fighting it a bunch but it still went well. Once I got going I was "pacmanning" the swimmers like dots on the board and that always feels good. one guy passes me with a full disc rear wheel on a cervelo and I watch as the sound of the carbon goes by. He was about 50 years old though so no bog deal for may age category. I started using my count to 10 plan. I would put the bike in 1 gear harder than I thought I could spin and push it 10 times hard and then go back to my regular gear. this ended up being a great idea as I started realizing by doing that I was gaining time and even upped the gearing slightly where i could stay in the hard gear for a count of 20-30 at times. almost like a spin class. i could hear Jonathon saying " you can do anything for 30 seconds" as I hit the speed. At about halfway I see carbon wheel guy eating and drinking...he is hungry. I pass him and take off and never see him again. As Bruce says...got to have the engine as well as the machine.
bike ends well no issues and pretty happy with it.

2006 bike time: 36:18 (20.5mph) Bike yesterday 38:03 ( they did not count transitions so about the same as far as i could tell.......no change in bike to be expected.)

transition to run went well and off I was, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh the legs. My brick work has not been as much this year and it took a good 3/4 of a mile to get the legs going well. I got passed twice one by a guy that looked like I was not moving as he zipped past me, later found out he was about 22 years old so no harm there and another by a female ( got chicked) that was a runner. ended stronger than i started which is always better than fading at the end, a decent run.

2006 run time: 26:02 ( 8:23) run time yesterday 27:10 so with no transitions counted about the same

In the end got 6th place in my age group and felt the race was decent. I have discovered over the years I am a slow twitch guy not a fast twitch guy but nice to see my swim time improve and no lost fitness in the bike and run over 3 years of age as well, When I break into the 40 cat. I will clean up.....


Now most racers will take the day off on Monday as they go back to work etc. ME?????? nope I am off to ride a century today and then run a 10k......