Swim
Comments: This was going to be a cake walk. And it truly was. As I came into this with absolutely NO conditioning and actually felt my arms getting tired at about 300 yards, I knew I was at my race limit with all my skipped swim workouts. This was my first ever non-wetsuit swim. I set into a nice bilateral breathing stroke, with occasional sighting. I clipped the turn buoy perfectly and head straight in. Got myself a little off course coming in, but otherwise was as expected. What would you do differently?: Actually train. Time was dead-on for my expected pace, was looking to get out of the water in 8 minutes time. Transition 1
Comments: A little slow b/c I, for some reason, felt the need to completely dry off and sit down to put my shoes and socks on. Just rusty, that is all. Bike
Comments: Last road ride was July 2010, so clearly I was rusty on the road riding. Add in my longest ride in the past 8 months was about 15 miles, I was getting to the edge of my conditioning going 18.8 miles. For some really stupid reason, I decided to keep small gear to the turn around. Call it lack of self-confidence, call it stupidity. But I kept the bike geared low and cruised along, hitting the turn around in 33 minutes. Post-turn around, I decided to go large chain ring and cranked it. Back in was at 30 minutes, so sub 3 minute difference with a negative split. But truth be told, I just wasn't confident I had the legs to go big gear the whole way. Overall happy with the bike. Would have like a little more speed, but hey - when you don't train - you don't earn it. What would you do differently?: Go into the higher gears sooner and push harder. Transition 2
Comments: none What would you do differently?: maybe try some of those zip laces, but otherwise no issues. Run
Comments: The real lack of training reared its ugly head here. My legs were definitely tired, but not shot. I came out of T2 with a full head of steam and made it about 4 minutes in and then severe side stitch. I would walk, it would go away. Then run again and it returns. I ended up running as much as I felt I could, but definitely did a fair amount of walking. This wasn't pretty and pretty much confirms exactly where I'm at in my (lack of) training. I pushed the last mile in, so happy with that. Somehow still managed 11:30 pace with a lot of walking, so will look at that as a positive. What would you do differently?: Train. More Brick training. Post race
Warm down: Chat with some BTers and nice to put some faces with the internet names. :) Otherwise, packed up and sneaked out to get some bagels and home by 10 a.m. What limited your ability to perform faster: My fat azz! Event comments: Fun race. Looking forward to doing this again next year, and crushing my time. I had race goals of: Swim @ 8 minutes Bike @ 1 hour Run @ 30 minutes. But for blip on the running, happy with the race. Motivates me to get back in shape for future races. Last updated: 2011-06-21 12:00 AM
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United States
Richmond Multisports
86F / 30C
Sunny
Overall Rank = /
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 0/
Up at 5 a.m. I actually find that harder than the actual race, which is a weird thought process because everything is uphill from there.
Shower, oatmeal, diet red bull and drive 20 minutes to the river.
My "section mates" hogged the bar and as I was last one in my section, I had literally NO room to put my bike. I ended up squeezing in and taking about 6 inches. Oh well, it wasn't like I was going to be spending a lot of time in the T-zone.
Rest room, timing chip and walk to swim. Chatted away with another race en route to the swim start. Even jumped into the river, was pleasantly surprised how NICE 86 degree water feels.