I was slightly nervous for today. I have no idea where my fitness is. Training has been sporadic, unorganized, and simple. Aside from weekly track sessions, I swim every now and then, run with Elsa when I can, and bike -- wait don't I have to have a bike to do that?
Enter the bike: I finally got the new Specialized Transition Pro built out. I did it myself. Aside from some frustration and time-consuming glitches, it actually game together nicely. The final hurdle was cutting the seat tube to fit. And that was done on Tuesday, which means I was able to cobble two rides this week on the new bike. One of which sucked because the shop didn't reset the proper height and I failed to double check it before I left. It didn't really hit me that something was seriously wrong (mainly because it was 5:30 in the morning) until I was far enough out until I couldn't do anything about it. But, I fixed it for the next ride and all is well.
But all the race nerves go away when you're helping load a family to get to a race at 5 AM. There's all of my stuff, then all of Elsa's stuff and then all of us. Lots of distractions on a night when Elsa didn't sleep all that great. After the nice drive, the nerves drop away. It's quite the perk to have a family at a race. It's new for me and I hope the novelty doesn't wear off.
And the nerves stayed away as we got on site. I got set up, put the wetsuit on, warmed up, and just like that we're off. Around the first buoy and a guy guns it to open a gap. I let him go and continue in second. We make the turn towards the beach and I follow his lead. Unfortunately his lead was to the wrong side of the docks, and we're way off course. I still ended up in third overall out of the water, relatively pleased.
After the long run up to transition, I'm out on the bike course and get passed by many in a hurry. I'm flat, tired, and indifferent. I can tell I haven't raced in a while. But mile 5 goes by and something clicks. (It was either a mental thing or the wind turned to be behind us.) I lay down the hammer get my average speed above 22 mph and start feeling good. There's a relay rider out in front and I set my sights on reeling him in. I catch myself setting into a training pace/mental state a couple of times and have to force myself to snap out of it. I nearly have him when I realize T2 is coming up. So close.
I took a little extra time to talk with family in T2 and checked in to see how friends were doing in their races. All was well and I went out for a nice run. Right away I felt good. I don't know if it's the bike or the running, but I felt "on." I didn't look at my watch, I just ran the out-and-back, pancake flat course as fast as I could. When it hurt, I pushed it a little more. And then, what felt like all of a sudden, I'm at mile 2 and convince my self that seven more minutes of this is completely doable. I make the turn to the finish, and cross the line. In relation to get my Aquathon run split under 23, I thought it would be good to shoot for the same pace here. I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at my watch: 21:39! That's a run split 5K PR by far! In fact, my stand alone 5K PR is 21:04. Woot!
Now I've got the itch to do more races! And I need to get out on the bike more -- lots more.
Swim: 6:43 (included misdirection and long run up beach)
T1: 1:18
Bike: 44:39
T2: 1:19
Run 21:39
M30-34: 12/52 (Should really be 35-39 if following USAT age rules.)
Overall: 42/594
But really, the best part of the race is seeing this cutie at the finish: