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 Swim
Comments: Had a nice clear run to the first turn which makes 2 years in a row I've been lucky that way. Sighting was good except got a little off track in the last leg. Did mainly freestyle, but flipped over on my back 3 or 4 times just to break things up. What would you do differently?: Just make sure not to get off course coming home.  Transition 1
Comments: Generally good, but had decided to wear my shirt this time and should have had it on top of the helmet in the pile... so lost about 10 secs redoing that. Used low profile socks which I think sped up that process a bit. Should try sockless sometime... but not without practice. Oh, and I counted the rack rows before the race. No hesitation about the right row... will do that in the future too.  Bike
Comments: Not surprisingly, I felt myself wearing out a bit on the bike. Also back was stiffening up as well. Mainly just wasn't able to attack the hills as much as I would have liked, but generally did okay. Pace was slightly slower than last year's, but not too bad. Turns were better than usual. I've got to say I don't think I've ever been passed as much as I was on this bike segment. I hope that means that my swim was good, but the passing did not help my mental state. What would you do differently?: More training, but I knew that going in. Also time to go clipless. I'll need those to improve on my OLY effort from last year. Transition 2
Comments: Smooth. This should be an improvement over last year. No hesitations, no problems.  Run
Comments: Well, it wasn't pretty but I finally ran the whole thing. Mile splits were all under 10 mins (just barely on the 1st two). Back hurt the whole time, but I did what I could not to think about it. I'll tell my yoga instructor that I imagined peaceful images... yeah right. I'll be interested in seeing my official run time... I think slightly better than last year, and if so, that was all due to running rather than walking on the hill 'cuz the rest of the run was nothing special. What would you do differently?: Training and no day before chainsawing. I'll put average in the greater scheme of things, but I was pretty happy with it given my lack of training and yesterday's quality time with my chainsaw and poison ivy. Post race
Warm down: Nothing special. What limited your ability to perform faster: Lack of training, too much yardwork the day before and poor sleep. Differential from last year: Overall -10 seconds. Swim +10, T1 -10, Bike + 53, T2 -28, Run -35. Event comments: As always well organized. Saw lots of people really hustling behind the scenes. It was noticed and appreciated. Last updated: 2010-07-29 12:00 AM
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United States
Set-up, Inc.
72F / 22C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 211/341
Age Group = Master Clydes
Age Group Rank = 6/17
Preface: The Culpeper Tri is my favorite race and this was the 3rd time I've done it. It is well organized with plenty of everything that is important, it is a challenging course for a Sprint, and it usually attracts a large, fast, yet diverse field. Plus it is only an hour or so from home. Last year, the women's race was won by Susan Williams, who is the only US triathlete to have medaled in the Olympics... winning the bronze in Athens in 2004. Also, she makes for a great retort to the whole "chicked" issue... as she was right there with the lead pack.
Okay, on to the race. I had only been back into the training routine for 2 weeks, so I signed up for this for a great workout, to enjoy the race, and to practice some things I needed to work on. Since I was fairly sure I wasn't going to be setting any PBs, it was easy to look at the race in a new light... kind of a freeing notion. So, my 3 goals pre-race were a) improve my transitions, b) be mentally tougher on the run as I was likely to feel similar to how I'll feel in the OLY in Oct (e.g. run the whole friggin' Montelago hill), and c) see if I can hit top 20% of swim (unlikely, but at least I'll be fresh for that part of the race, so what the heck).
Saturday spent about 6 hours chainsawing and clearing debris from fallen trees, so another reason to have few expectations (except for likely back issues). Woke up at 2 am... Gawd I hate it when I do that. Then went in and out until 4am... having dreams about oversleeping. Breakfast of cereal and Gatorade (not on the cereal, silly... really...). Felt pretty dehydrated when I woke up. Anyway, got to the site around 6:40... lots of traffic at the site. Should leave at 5:15 in the future. Though there was plenty of time for everything thanks to it being well organized as always.
Stretched... nothing special.
Weather forecast from the night before was that it was supposed to rain and it was miserable at home when I left, but by the time I arrived, the clouds were parting and the sun was coming out. It ended up being a gorgeous day to race. Came home and it was still raining... so I felt very lucky... really wasn't in the mood for a long, wet bike ride today.