My first ever Half-Iron Aquabike race. Not even sure how to do a race like this, but I am ready and it is time. The day before I did a practice swim in the 83 degree water. That is literally twice the water temperature from Lake Superior during my last race. No wetsuit for anyone, and I am glad I invested in a swimskin.
Swim
It was a wave start with my age group of both aquabike and triathletes in it. I took it easy at the start and once at the first buoy turn we began to spread out a bit. As we made the first RH turn, the next buoy was straight into the sun. No way you were ever going see it. So it was just follow the other swimmers and hope they are going in the right direction. Same really with the next leg back to the beach. By this time, it was starting to get crowded. Running into slower swimmers from earlier waves etc. I hit the beach, turned around and headed back out.
The second loop was terribly crowded. There was more than one time that I had to just stop because there was a wall of slow swimmers in front of me. I swam around a lot of swimmers just to try and keep moving which slowed me down quite a bit. I swallowed a couple of big gulps of water on this leg too, but I got through that. Overall my breathing was fine through the entire swim and no asthma issues at all!
Bike
Once on the bike, things quickly calmed down, with my HR was right where I wanted it. The first 8 miles went well, and I was feeling good. My power was about 5w lower than I had planned, but I was feeling good and cruising at a good pace so I just kept trying to maintain it.
What was weird about this race was the large amount of people I passed. None of the races I have done have been this big and I had to pass a TON of people. I estimate I passed 100 people. Some were easy to pass as they were going pretty slow, others were a bit of a challenge. Or I would end up having to pass 4-5 people in a row and put out some serious power to do so.
At mile 30 or so the wind went from light to strong and gusty. It got brutal out there and much of the return back to the park was dead into that wind.
At one point I am going 15mph into this headwind and still passing people. It was tough. By mile 40 I am starting to suffer a bit. My legs are getting tired, my butt is getting sore, my HR is way high. The wind was obviously having an effect on me so I tried to keep it under control the best I could for the last 10 miles and maintain the same power.
Then with just a couple of miles to go, we are back on the north road that leads into the park, and I get stuck behind a car. He was hugging the left side of the road so I would have to cross the double yellow lines to get past him and I didn't trust him enough to pass on the right. He just refused to speed up and go around the bike in front of him either. It was ridiculous. I easily lost 2 minutes on that part of the course due to that one car.
Finally back into the park and hard until the dismount line. Then run my bike to the entrance to transition and I am DONE! I stopped for a bit to catch my breath before slowly walking my bike back to my rack. I changed my shoes and then ran through the finish line to get my medal.
Bike 2:37:17 12/19 age group, 61/169 Men, 74/312 overall
Overall 3:22:37 14/19 age group, 68/169 Men, 86/312 Overall
So immediately following the race I was a bit disappointed with my result. Though I crushed my bike split I felt like I didn't do well. I was 2 minutes off of what I thought in my race plan was stretch goal total time and that had me down. As I settled down and reflected more on this I realized that these thoughts were STUPID!
This is only the 3 time I have ever actually ridden 56 miles on a bike. I have only raced this distance twice and the first time I had significant asthma issues so it really doesn't count, so I am still figuring out how to ride/race this distance. Plus this is only the second year of doing triathlons. I just finished the race and had the 12th fastest bike spilt of my uber-competitive age group, and nearly top third bike split of all men!
So HOLY CRAP, what am I so down about?!!
I have turned those thoughts around 100%. I am unbelievably happy with what I have accomplished this year. I am really glad I did this race and ended my year on a high note. It was a great venue, a great race, and much different than I have experienced. I learned a bunch, realized I have much more to learn and experience, and I look forward to winter training and next season.
No comments:
Post a Comment