Tri at the Y

The following is a cut and paste from the cycling forum where I typed up a race report:

So this was my first race of this season. I have been doing nothing but slow zone 2 miles, but a lot of them.

Got to the race about 2 hours early and checked in, got marked and put all of my stuff away. Went and rode the bike course twice while eating a power bar and sipping some water.

It was a time trial start on the bike (winter routine) and I was up fairly close to the front. As soon as I got the go ahead I just dropped the hammer. In the words of Roy "Tin Cup" McElvoy...I got out the big dog and let him eat. I was passing tons of people and looked down and was doing 25.6 mph. For a brief second I though about scaling some back and decided Hell NO!

The course was out about .5 out and 3 short loops (each close to 2.5 miles) then back to the transition area. There was one smallish climb that you had to do 3 times and you had to almost come to a complete stop and turn around in the road 6 times. I hit the climb the first time in my 53 and just stood up and cranked it out. The next 2 times actually shifted into my 39 and went up it.

Once I hit the 3rd lap I started to really wonder if i had gone out too hard because I was starting to fade, but I just relaxed into my pain cave and held on and pushed it all of the way to the finish.

I got off of the bike completely spent. I honestly though that I might actually have to walk a bit of the run. I can say that I left everything out on that bike course. I changed shoes quickly and to my surprise ran quickly out of the transition area and started my 2 mile run. The run was a simple out and back that was slightly uphill on the first mile then obviously slightly downhill on the second mile. At about mile 1.8 you had to go over a floodwall. That was not exactly comfortable, but I did it anyways.

The swim was non-eventful. Very hard to pass anyone the way it was set up. Oh, well...I did not have any juice left to pass anyway.

For such a short race I was really spent at the end.

Last year 50:51. Bike 24:45 Run 18:35 Swim 6:23.

This year 47:21. Bike 22:36 Run 17:53 Swim 5:00.

I was THIRD in my age group! Fastest bike split in my AG (with an av speed of 21.2). This was out of 12 people in my age group.

As I posted on FB; I may as well just quit now, I can't imagine putting together a better race than this.