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 Swim
Comments: Swimming has not been my strong suit. I decided to go out hard at the gun to get a little separation from the pack, which worked out well. I then settled into a steady stroke and got my heart rate back down. I really thought that I swam the course better than my time showed. I never checked up during the swim, I did go to a more of a 'Tarzan' style of swimming when rounding the bouys as it got very crowded and with people doing the breast stroke, I didnt want to get kicked in the face. What would you do differently?: I just need to keep working on my swimming speed. I finally have the endurance part down, I can swim all day, I just need to do it faster!  Transition 1
Comments: Transition was HUGE, so most of that time was spent running through it. Got my wetsuit off without problems, grabbed my helmet and glasses as I had my shoes on my bike. Ran with the bike to the mount line on the street jumped on bike with feet on top of shoes and took off. My left shoe had come loose from the rubberband holding it up and was a little tougher to get my foot directly on it, but I reached down and grabbed it and put my foot in. My right one went on with out a hitch. What would you do differently?: The loop on the back of my left shoe broke off this week so I dont have a good place to rubber band it when on the bike. Time for new shoes :(  Bike
Comments: I was worried about the bike leg of this race. I have really been working on my cycling and have had some great races this year on my tri bike. Unfortunately when I took it into my LBS for a pre race tune up, I was informed that the frame was cracked and unrideable. So I put aerobars on my older road bike and was going to make do. I decided to not make excuses though and kept the line from the title of Lance Armstrong's book in my head..."It's not about the bike" I think I probably pushed harder then I would have on my tri bike, but was very pleased with the result. What would you do differently?: New tri bike :) Transition 2
Comments: Again, just a really big transition area. Didnt realize the first curb was there and really bounced the back tire of my bike on it, but nothing fell off (except my chain) Fumbled a little bit getting into my running shoes as I had forgotten to lossen the elastic laces all of the way. What would you do differently?: Lossen the laces on my shoes.  Run
Comments: I went out a little hard, and then pulled back some during the middle as I wanted to be able to finish strong. I knew I had to put in a sub 51 minute to hit my goal of breaking 2:30 for the race, so I knew that I needed to really push it. I have been logging longer distance runs lately for my ironman training, and have not been doing speed work, so I was a little concerned about blowing up during the run. I felt good after mile 4 and 5 and knew that I had it. What would you do differently?: Nothing. My PR on a 10k is 45:30, so a 48:02 after really pushing on the bike is more than acceptable to me. Post race
Warm down: Had some Powerade and water, walked a little bit. Got my dry clothes and stood in line for transition. Loaded my gear in my backpack and rode back to my hotel. Chilled out for a little while as I had a late check out, showered and went out for some killer Vietnamese food before driving back to Richmond. What limited your ability to perform faster: This race kind of fell in the middle of my IMFL training plan, so I had no taper and havent really been working on speed for this distance. Event comments: This is my third year racing this event. Two years ago, it was completely different, they moved it to the new transition area and course last year. The course is good, the streets could use a little repaving in spots. Even though the long walk between finish and transition last year was a negative to some, I really preferred finishing on Pennsylvania Ave with the Capitol Building in the background. The walk back to transition was a nice cool down and recovery time. Last updated: 2009-05-02 12:00 AM
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United States
TNT productions
80F / 27C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 336/3933
Age Group = M45-49
Age Group Rank = 20/290
Got up at 4:00 (earlier than I needed to) Made a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee at the hotel. Checked the results of Patriots Half to see how friends of mine that raced it the day before did. Did a last minute gear bag inventory, filled my bottles with Gatorade and caught a cab down to transition area.
Once there I set up my transition area. I felt my tires as I had topped them off the night before when racking the bike, the back one felt fine, the front one felt a tad softer. I decided it wasnt bad enough not to ride it, but if someone nearby had a pump I would top it off. About 6:20 a guy arrived on our rack with a pump, I asked him to borrow it and proceeded to lossen the presta valve. It was still pretty dark, but I have done this a million times so wasnt worried. As I lossened it I felt a little air seep out which was strange as usually without pressing down on the valve no air comes out. Suddenly the entire top of the presta valve shot out of my fingers with a blast of air, and then the tire went completely flat. Now I had extra tubes on my bike and in my bag but with transition closing in about 15 minutes the last thing I wanted to do was rush through a tube change in the dark. I felt around in the grass for the valve, an unbelievably I found it. It turned out the the whole valve core (almost like an extension) had come loose instead of just the presta valve itself. That was probably why I was leaking air out of that tire. I got the valve back together, put 125 lbs in and did a last minute check on my transition layout.
Besides the heart rate raising experience with my front tire, we were not starting for over an hour so went to the swim pen and stood around. After hitting the porta john for the last time I did some jogging to get the HR back up a little. One downside of these big races is there really isnt any opportunity for warmups as the logistics to getting everybody in the water at their designated times prevents it.