Midwest Meltdown Triathlon - Short Course - TriathlonSprint

Started on outside (righthand side) today, normally start on inside to sight off pack when breathing but with fairly short stretch to first turn bouy I always get beat up and pushed too far inside on this course so tried something else and went outside, got a bit out front of the big pack and cut toward the turn bouy, worked great. Zig zagged all over for a couple hundred yards after the first turn before settling down with long even strokes and managed to swim pretty straight after that.

navigation in the early part of the race

Got a little confused in transition looking for my bike right by the exit, hadn't pre-run the swim exit and was heading in a slightly different direction than I though, just kept running uphill until I got my bearings.

walk the swim exit to my bike pre-race

I was on fire on the bike today. Came out of T1 2 people behind Kevin (doing the long course) and pushed hard to keep him in sight for the first half of the first lap then suddenly closed the gap and had to back off a bit to keep from getting a drafting violation, hung back for a while then made the pass and rode "running scared" to stay ahead of him, he came back around me near the end of lap 1. We basically repeated on the second lap. Definitely helped with the effort level to have a rabbit to chase.

Course was wet and some new slick asphalt in a few places so took the corners real conservatively. First race over 24 mph, felt great.

nothing

Fumbled with my helmet strap then took a bit long to put on socks and shoes as they were wet from the rain.

Knew that I smoked the bike leg and had a strong swim but wasn't sure if I was in front or not as there was already a lot or runners on the course. Just kept my focus on standing tall and keeping the cadence up, tried not to think about the finish. Had a pretty good idea that I was in the lead for the sprint tri at the turnaround and ended up catching all but 4 duathletes. Made each mile faster than the previous.

nothing

food and BSing.


Training has been a bit sporadic lately but got in a couple key workouts to sharpen the sprint intensity levels in the last week. Think that I performed fully to my current fitness level as this was a slightly better than 4 minute improvement over 2 and 3 years ago. Flat courses and cool weather are my friends.


A well run smallish race.