Catching up on Races

Let’s face it. Doing a full race report for my last 3 races is just not going to happen. So I’m going to knock out the highlights instead.

Eagleman 70.3

Yes this race happened before I signed up for Lake Placid, but its still an important. Leading up to this race really sucked and as usual, I decided to do dumb stuff the week of. The next time I decide to go to Dewey Beach for 4 days before a 70 mile race, I hereby grant permission to anyone within striking distance to punch me in the face. Just because it was fun to sit on the back deck sipping on some Woodford Reserve and smoking a Black Label Partagas, doesn’t make it a good idea.

SWIM: 57:02 - MISERABLE, AWFUL, TERRIBLE swim … although when you only get in the pool twice, what should I really have expected
T1: 1:37 – non wetsuit swim and first race with leaving my shoes clipped into the pedals … no complaints here
BIKE: 3:02:50 – Goal time was 3 hours so I’m not really going to complain about this one. Although I really tailed off at the end and since the course was flat I was pretty smoked for the run
T2: 2:30 – again, not going to complain
RUN: 2:12:52 – slightly better than last year’s time but my quads were trashed

Lowlights
• Didn’t really have a structured training plan and got pretty lazy
• Swim could not have gone worse, bottom line, If I want to improve, I have to swim more
• Wore new tri shorts (huge no-no) which led to serious chafing … simply stupid
• Lack of bricks really hurt once I got to the run

Highlights
• Good transitions
• Barely missed my goal time and was 30 minutes faster than last year
• Overall improvement from last years Vineman was 16 minutes. I went back and forth on whether or not I should be happy about this and after getting yelled at repeatedly, I’ve been beaten into submission and accept the fact that this was a good race

Luray International

I continued my streak of stupid decisions prior to a race. This time I decided to go to a Redskins pre-season game instead of staying in and getting ready. I got maybe 3.5 hours of sleep before it was time to get up, pack, and hit the road.

SWIM: 39:32 – Swim felt a little better but still not anywhere close to where I’d like to be
T1: 1:33 – Same as Eagleman, non wetsuit swim and shoes clipped into the pedals … no complaints here
BIKE: 1:29:15 – Course was pretty hilly and there was a stretch of false flat that was absolutely demoralizing
T2: 1:01 – again, not going to complain
RUN: 54:20 – Not my best 10K and more bricks would have helped (I think I’m sensing a pattern)

No real lowlights or highlights. I showed up tired and that had an impact on performance but overall I had a pretty solid race.

Nations Triathlon

Not gonna lie, was pretty upset when the swim was cancelled because of all the rain during the week leading up to the race. I almost mailed it in because without the swim it wasn’t a triathlon and frankly I was just bitter. Ended up racing and really glad I did. This was my first race with my Cervelo P2 and it was ridiculous.

SWIM: HAHAHA … checked out the Potomac when I was dropping off my bike, it was disgusting. And learning that the water was moving at 125,000 cubic feet per second or something like that, suddenly didn’t mind not swimming
T1: 2:08 – Really weird time trial start letting 15 people run into the transition area to get their bike every 15 seconds. Total NUTROLL.
BIKE: 1:06:50 – Absolutely CRUSHED the bike on my new P2. That bike is stupid fast. I wanted to average 20 mph for the bike and ended up averaging 22.3.
T2: 1:58 – I think I’m getting the hang of T2
RUN: 45:40 – Gotta love PR-ing a run after a 40K bike. Hooking up with a fellow DC Tri Clubber also helped.

Lowlights
• Time trial start was not my most graceful moment. I ran into a guy who was running out of our row because I wasn’t paying attention and then I slipped in the mud while trying get out of transition.
Highlights
• Best results I’ve had from a competitive stand point. Finished 84 of 362 (23.2%) for my age group and 590 of 2427 (24.3%) for all men. I’ve never come close to breaking the top half of my age group so to finish in the top 25% was incredible.
• Great way to end the season and ready to focus on off season training to get ready for Lake Placid

Next up ... GORUCK Challenge post