Tidewater Triathlon - Triathlon

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning with the sun rising over the Chesapeake Bay and a steady breeze blowing out of the south-southwest. The water was warm and the swells didn't feel too bad while warming up. However, once the race started, I was definitely having trouble with the size and the direction of the swells and had to work hard to get around the first turn buoy on the left as I kept drifting left. In fact, we started far to the right on the shore and still drifted too far to the left. It was also quite crowded at the first buoy - which was encouraging because I was still with my wave... I was pushed shore-ward on the leg that paralleled the shore enroute to the second buoy and had to swing right again to get around it. I couldn't see the Wiggly Man on the beach and ended up drifting right again but was directed back by the whistles of the lifeguards who were trying to corral a bunch of swimmers drifting away from the course. This was a lot different than protected bay swims... The run to transition was long but not as long as the one at the Rock Hall races...

The goal was to be quick, quick, quick - and, indeed, I was. The run from my spot all the way out to the mount line was pretty far. No socks, just shoes, glasses, gloves, helmet. Grab bike and run!

This was a very short bike course and so things were very nervous. Because the swim had been really short too - only 500m - there hadn't been a lot of selection coming into T1 and so there were clusters leaving out onto the bike course. We traveled about 0.25 miles to get out of the park and then swung onto the 2.5 mile out and back course that we were to do twice. Mallory Street and Mercury Boulevard were 4-lane roads with inner lanes coned off for us to use and cars could pass on the outer lanes. Space was tight! And there were a variety of bike speeds in evidence. Mallory Street was also pretty rough for being a paved road and, in fact, on the second pass southbound, I nicked the edge of a pothole and my water bottle came unseated... I also noticed an entire water bottle lying on the road further up. There were cross-lane ruts as well as potholes. The same 15 mph wind was consistently blowing from the south-southwest so the outbound trip was tough - especially going across the bridge on Mercury Boulevard. The northbound trip was much easier - except for fighting through the crowds. The key seemed to be to pedal hard at each turn-around point to get back up to speed because it was crucial to slow down and not cause an accident with the other cyclists also turning. After my second time through the course, there was some confusion from the volunteer as to which way I should go to exit the course but it got sorted after I'd passed the first marking cone so I swung back into the park and raced back to the dismount line.

I was under-hydrated coming into transition as the air was starting to warm up. I downed most of my runner's water bottle, changed shoes, snapped on my belt, and headed out for the run course.

Because I hadn't been passed on the bike course, I figured that I had been among the last in my wave on the swim so I knew I was going to have to fight hard on the run course to make up time. However, though I was beating my virtual race partner - set to run at 9:15 min/mile - from the start, the increase was occurring very slowly... Then two runners in my AG passed me and I knew things were not looking good. Still, even though the first mile marker seemed to take forever to arrive, my first mile was 8:32 min/mile - up there with my fastest times. Mile Marker 2 also seemed to take forever to arrive - something to be said for knowing the course, I think - but I also was in the 8:30s so this was shaping up to be a very good run for me. Mile 3 went by at 8:28 because I was looking for the finish and so was running harder than I thought. However, I had no real finishing kick - which was probably due to the humidity - for the last 0.1 mile to the finish line. I'd had sips of water at each water station but never felt in the danger zone like I'd felt like the previous week at the Colonial Beach International race. While this was my best 5K in years, I still have a huge gap to cross to be competitive in the VTS...

This was a very well executed race and a good race to do as a first-timer or as a highly competitive event. The venue is fantastic - and we couldn't have asked for better conditions overall - with some challenges on the swim and bike courses...