kaburns1214 and UHCoog's Mentor Group-Closed (Page 47)

Originally posted by everlong

Originally posted by jarvy01

Originally posted by ccmpsyd Congratulations Larkin and Michele and Matt.

X2!!!!! Nice job racers! I want to read some race reports

X3. 2200 OWS this morning. Air was 60 degrees, water about 67 and a sheet of glass. Perfect conditions.

So since there isn't a race listing for Sylvan Beach I'll put something up here.

Was up early due to kids with nightmares.  It was an hour drive to the race site and was a pretty straight forward race prep.  Breakfast, drive with coffee, gel 15 minutes before gun, etc, etc.

I’ll be the first to say that after racing IMTX a 500m sprint swim looks REALLY short.  It was a beach start so after the anthem it was cap and goggles on.   Men under 40 were the first wave out (small race).  It was a pretty rough start.  Caught 2 heels on the chin.  Ouch.  The waves were up so it was against the waves on the way out, take a left, and come back in.  Everyone had slow swim times except the uber swimmers.  Not sure if the course was long or what.  It might be the timing mats were at the entrance to transition.  No clue.  11:26.  Felt crappy but I knew this day was going to feel that way.  It was really my first week back at it since Texas.

This is a pretty flat and fast bike course.  There are a couple of “hills” or uh steeper overpasses, but that’s it.  One bottle on the bars did me right for the whole deal.  Didn’t really get passed (except for the elite bikers from the Du that went off about the same time as the tri) and I did a lot of passing.  I settled in to a painfully comfortable pace and just stayed there (about 160-170 bmp).  About mile 9 I was mentally questioning the sanity of doing a race on 1 week of shaking off the rust.  The last mile of the bike was through the older section of La Porte and there were a lot of manholes where the covers were a good 2-6 inches below the road surface.  Getting out of my shoes and dodging manhole covers was fun.  Time 41:58 for 15 miles.  21.4 mph

The run was pure pain from step one to finish.  I ran a couple hours tops last week and all really slow.  Started out at 8:30 pace, which was fine, but when I went to hit the gas there just wasn’t another gear to go to.  I knew this was a possibility after months of running in the high 8s/low 9s day after day.  So I just tried to pick people off to keep the pace up.  Time 24:47 for a 5k.  8:16/mile.

Honestly when I crossed the finish I wasn’t happy with my performance.  When I looked at the big board it had me listed as #2 in my AG.  Ended up getting bumped to 3^rd when they moved a guy they had listed in the Du back to where he belonged in the tri. 

My experience is trust the Garmin more than the official measurement.  Judge your swim in comparison to others instead of by time.  I've had sprint RDs confess that their 500m swim was closer to 600. 

Woohoo way to go Michle!

Originally posted by kaburns1214

Originally posted by everlong With the date coming closer I just went and checked the weather for Williamsburg for race day and it's calling for a high of 97 with 90% humidity and a real feel of 106 degree. I've done an Olympic in those conditions and nearly landed in the medical tent. I know it's still a week and a half out but I wanted to puke when I saw that.

Its do-able but you will need to DRINK DRINK DRINK early and often. Also, as has been previously stated, extended forecasts are a crap shoot. You may up with 70 and cloudy.

In addition to this cold water on the head and ice down the pants if available.