kaburns1214 and UHCoog's Mentor Group-Closed (Page 46)

I like using the same pair for everything, well almost everything.  I have a slightly more cushioned pair I used for IMTX.  I find that once I get over 15 miles, which isn't often, I like slightly more cushion.

Road Trip!  Think you can teach me in a weekend?  

Have fun, don't stress, and just ride your ride.  This is supposed to be fun after all.  It's easy to lose that in Ironman training.

I got to sleep in today.  Have 2100 in the pool and tabata intervals on the bike today.  Also going to hit the grocery store and cut the grass.  Day off huh?

Light morning in the pool today, 1050m total.  Most importantly did 250m without the snorkel, took just under 5:30, so only slightly slower than my relaxed snorkel pace.  Very happy with that given my arms were a bit done from swimming every morning this week.  Tomorrow's my rest day and then my mini sprint on Sunday.

Good luck everyone!  I look forward to hearing race reports.

 I have 1.5 hours on the trainer today and a quick run.  Race tomorrow.

Talk about a night and day difference between organizing bodies for a race.  I'm really hoping that this one was as haphazard as it was due to it just being a mini sprint and there were so many people new to triathlon that they decided to give it a more lax atmosphere.  

There was no set schedule for when transition opened/closed, the bike racking was first come first serve wherever you wanted, and up to 5 minutes before the scheduled start of the race they were still asking for volunteers to help out on the course.  

The swim was supposed to start at 7:15am, the first person hit the water at 7:32am.  Supposedly our numbers were sorted by swim seed time, but from the very beginning you could see something wasn't quite right.  I understand there are going to be a few people here and there that either put down the wrong time, or aren't feeling up to their normal time on race day, but there was "traffic jams" constantly.  This was a snake style, and each lane was one way.  Three different times (in a 250m swim) I had people two wide in front of me (doing breast stroke) so that I couldn't pass.  I had to wait until the wall when they got back into single file to push it and get past them.  Given all that though the swim felt good for me given it was my first competitive swim without the snorkel.  

When I got to the bike stand my bike had been knocked over and my helmet/sunglasses had rolled away.  The father and son that were on the bike stand with me had already gotten their bikes, so I'm assuming they were responsible for the situation.  After finding my helmet and sunglasses I headed out on the bike course.

Even with this being a mini sprint the bike course felt very compact.  I never felt like I could get into a good rhythm.  As soon as I started to feel as if things were smoothing out I had to do a tight turn or turn around.  The full sprint versions of this event involve you doing laps of this same course so I'm really going to have to practice on my intervals and slower speed turning.

When I got back to transition the father had taken my spot on the bike stand, and my shoes had been knocked off of my transition towel.  Got my stuff together, grabbed a quick drink, and was off on the run.

Got some side stitches early on, but slowed down for them to ease and then picked it back up to a steady pace for me.  The run went well other than that.  The run course was on the sidewalks through the campus, so nicely shaded.  Early on part of it wrapped around by the finish line, and it was a little strange to hear the announcer calling out the names of those who were near the beginning of the run and not announcing the people who were crossing the finish line.

The shirts were supposed to be passed out at the finish line, but when I crossed there was no-one at the table and the boxes were still sealed.  The RD came over, apologized, and opened the boxes.  Several racers and myself set the shirts out by sizes, stuck around to hand out for a little while, and then let the rest of the people grab their own.  

All in all a very disorganized event, but still I enjoyed myself.  Added bonus it was only 20 min from my house so I was home for my massage (again it's great being married to a massage therapist) by 9:15am and that included a stop off at the grocery store on the way home.  No clue on my times since I forgot to start my garmin.  I was too nervous about swimming without the snorkel and didn't realize until the 4th length that I hadn't hit the button.

Bit of a rough race today.  Ended up with 3rd in my AG though.  Not sure if that's a reflection of the field or a reflection on my expectations for myself.  I knew that the run may be an issue.  I reached back for that extra gear and it just wasn't there.  Can't complain too much taking home hardware and all though. 

Matt sorry about the race.  A good RD and good organization make a race.