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 Swim
Comments: Ran into the water with the entire group of 30-39 5150 Athletes. I was in the front row and had a nice run and dive in. Shit, water filled my left goggle. Ignored it for a while but had to stop swimming to empty my goggles. Probably cost me a few seconds. Oh well. There was some bumping and kicking but not too bad. I felt good in the water but it felt slow. Caught a handful of the guys in the wave in front of me. Couple passed me from the wave behind as well. One guy in our wave took off like a bat out of hell. He was fast!!! Overall, swim was a good swim and I'm happy with my performance in my first OWS race without a wetsuit. What would you do differently?: Not let my goggles fill up with water on the dive start.  Transition 1
Comments: Decent T1. It's a long run from the swim exit to transition and then to where my bike was. No problems in transition at all. I was really happy to see so many bikes still on the rack too. The mount line is out on the road by quite a ways. I was on my bike fast. Got my first foot in easily and had troubles with my left foot. Once in, I was off and riding. What would you do differently?: Not much. Good transition.  Bike
Comments: This was a fun / fast / crazy ride. We started off going along the north side of the lake. Turned north and then East onto MLK. for a mile or so before another turnaround. (Several turns on this course). Came back over on Fleur drive and then into Water works park. The Park's surface was smooth glass and fast. There were 6 of us in the same pack passing each other. Trying to avoid any drafting, but it was close. I know I was close to violations but it was hard to pass and get ahead, especially with all of the turns. Turned out of the park and out onto the Highways towards the airport. One group of partiers were at the top of one of the hills handing out wedding cake and PBRs. I really wanted to grab a PBR but who knows what that would have done to my system. Continued to work the hills and the wind. The wind was tough in parts and really played a mental game on me. I was working off of a guy back and forth for most of the ride. Eventually I had a burst of energy and dropped him. Came up on one of the para athletes. He was a strong biker and I had a difficult time passing him. Came to the entrance to Grey's lake, got my feet out of my shoes and had a nice dismount and crossed the mat. I had my aero bottle full of with an Elixer tablet and my down tube bottle with gatorade. Took in two gu's and almost all of the aero bottle. Should have finished both bottles and maybe one extra Gu. What would you do differently?: Drink more but not over do it. Felt good on the ride. Really concentrated on keeping my HR in check. Transition 2
Comments: Helmet off. Sunglasses off (they were covered with sweat and hard to see out of so decided to not wear them). Running hat on. Socks on. Little problems here as my socks did not want to cooperate with me. Shoes on. Grabbed my race belt and took off towards the Run Exit. What would you do differently?: I keep telling myself to figure out this run thing without putting socks on. Otherwise, this was a good transition.  Run
Comments: It was a HOT run. The temps dropped down about 10 degrees from Saturday and it was still one HOT mutha fcker. The finish line was pretty sweet. You ran really close to it before heading back out on the course for another mile. Stacey said she saw me heading out towards the last turnaround and new it was almost over. TONS of aide stations with plenty of workers. Hy Vee did it right again. I think there were easily 20 volunteers at each water station handing out water, gatorade, cold sponges and cold towels. It was sweet and I took advantage of every one. My first mile was 6:55. Too fast. Mile 2: 7:09 Still a little fast Mile 3: 7:32 Better Mile 4; 7:37 Don't lose it Matt Mile 5: 7:39 You are losing it Matt Mile 6: 7:57 Lost it. LOL I was tired and felt like I did not have any energy. I did not walk a single step though so that was much better than Milwaukee. Also, I felt okay on the last mile or so. I kept telling myself, keep going, keep going, keep going. I think I was in the top 5 or so of my age group after t2 and gave up several spots on the run. The worst part about having out age written on our legs is that you know when someone passes you that you don't want to pass you. Couple of times I felt like going with the guy passing me and I did for a 100 yards or so. What would you do differently?: Train more. Run faster. Run smarter. Post race
Warm down: Some stretching. Ice Cream Bar for sure. Fruit, water. and some more fruit. Got a massage. My quads were sore and the therapist worked them over really good. Stood around for a while taking pictures with Stacey and the boys, Merle, Terri, Thomas, and Kamdyn. It was really awesome for them to come spend their morning with me. Printed off my results. 16th in the Age Group. Ugh. Needed one more place to get to 5150 next year. Now I need to find a race to compete in that can get me there. What limited your ability to perform faster: Not much. Could have run faster but I was not unhappy either. I ran the whole time and felt like things were okay. I should have red lined myself more on the run and tried to shave a few more seconds off, but that was just not in the cards today. Event comments: Hy Vee puts on an amazing show. They get volunteers to show in in massive amounts. There were so many volunteers out there. It was awesome and I will be back again. If I don't make the 5150, then I will do the age group and try again. Post race was plenty of food, water, gatorade and I always love the Wells Blue Bunny free ice cream. This was a great event. My only "issue" with the race was that I could not watch the pros. The last few years, the pros have started well after the Age Group triathlon was over. This year they started first. Maybe there was a need to change the schedule but I was not really happy with that. However, we did get to rub elbows with the pros at the swim start and I knew they were doing the exact same course as I was, only about 30 minutes faster !!!! :-) Great job HyVee and great job to my fellow Sux Tri Club members. Last updated: 2013-08-29 12:00 AM
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United States
Hy-Vee Triathlon
75F / 24C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 122/596
Age Group = M 35-39
Age Group Rank = 16/38
The Hy Vee Triathlon is one of my most favorite events I get to participate in. My performance in 2012 provided me the opportunity to compete in the US 5150 Championships this year.
Stacey and the boys traveled with me this year. We went to Des Moines on Friday PM so that we could get Ryan registered for Ironkids Championship. His race was scheduled for Saturday AM. I think the air temp at their race was in the upper 80s/lower 90s. Ryan did as good as he could have expected considering he would rather watch TV and play video games then spend any time training. He wants a road bike so we will see if that will happen......
Anyways, back to me!!!
After Ironkids we went to the Hy Vee hall, hit the required meeting, packet pickup, Expo, and then back to Hotel Fort Des Moines. The Hotel is still an old hotel. It's classy in some cases, but generally, its old and beat up. Probably won't stay there next time but it is really close to the race site and Hy Vee Hall.
After registration I met up with Randy at Grey's lake. We rode the run course, checked our bikes in and I ran for a little while. It was still sooooooo frcikin hot out. The running route trail was burning hot. Headed back to the hotel, got a little R&R then met up with Diane (and her family) Randy, Eric, and Ben for some dinner at Chuck's.
In bed by 9:00 and I think I was asleep by 9:15. Got in a solid 5 hours of good sleep before the tossing and turning started.
Alarm off at 4:00 AM. Packed up the whole family and we were on our way to transition by 5:00. It was a monsoon of a rain storm as we arrived to Grey's Lake. The radar looked like things would blow over in about 45 minutes. We waited it out in the car for 30 minutes following Hy Vee Tri's Twitter feed.
RD delayed the start of the race and closing of transition by 45 minutes which worked out perfectly. Storms gone. Sun came out. Turned into a beautiful race morning. Set up transition. Helped Randy and Diane out a bit and went into warmup mode.
Ran for about 15 minutes. Stretched out quite a bit. Did some dynamic stretches and then headed over to the other side of the lake where the swim start was. This was a great idea by the way. Last year, the swim start and exit were right next to each other and it was a major cluster fck. This year, soooo much better.
Walked the 1/2 mile to the swim start, did some more stretching, and got into the water a couple of times for some swim warm up. We got to see the pros take off on the swim and that was about it. They would basically be off the course before we were out of the water. I liked being able to watch the pros race last year, so it was a bummer that we couldn't watch them this year.