BE the BALL Group - OPEN (Page 8)

Got my first sprint tri of the season on the books. I love the Friday night race time! I am not a morning person, so being able to race in the evening (6:15 start time) is awesome! Overall, I was happy with my race. My training has become inconsistent over the last month or so and I've dropped my workout rate by nearly 30%. I'm hoping to get back on track with only a month to go until my first Oly.

Most of the race was relatively uneventful, but it didn't start that way. I made the turn at the first buoy on the swim, spotted the next buoy and started to swim that way. As I turned to take a breath, I noticed a group of swimmers that looked like they were off course and heading toward the middle of the lake. On my next breath to that same side, I saw they were heading even farther out. That's when I thought I should figure out what was going on. When I picked my head up to look around I saw that I had made almost a 180 degree turn and was heading back toward the first buoy! I adjusted my course to be heading in the right direction.

I knew a PR was out of the question (based on my lack of training the past month), so I was pretty damn happy to have lost less than a minute from last year's time. It might have been just over a minute, but as I was coming to the finish line I peeked over my shoulder and saw someone coming up hard. I tried to sprint as hard as I could to the finish line, but he passed me literally two steps from the finish! I hated to give that up, but it did help me to stay within 58 seconds of last year. My official time was 1:11:52.

The full race report can be found at the link below.

https://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid...

Nice race Randy! It’s early in the race season, you have time to “master” the flying dismount. Personally, I’d like to master it as well, but my training needs to be “mastered” before i can spend some time practicing a flying dismount lol.

I’ve been logging some miles on the run. Feels like i’m Starting over again. Aargh! The duathlon appears to done a number on my motivation. Took too much time off after the race. I did log some rides on my mountain bike, but they were more relaxing rides at a comfortable pace than training rides. So not sure if they were really worth logging.

Anyway, keep at. I’m getting back into a routine and plan to have some fun moving forward.

Scott

Thanks, Scott. I think the thing I needed to do was to hold my shoe with my hand. I just pulled my foot out and the weight of the shoe flipped it around so it was under the pedal. When I lifted my other foot to get that one out of the shoe, the first one got trapped between the pedal and the ground. I heard it snap, so naturally I tried to get out of the other shoe quickly and spin my pedals so the first shoe didn't get caught again. Of course, that meant that now the first shoe was trapped between the pedal and the ground. It almost seemed like some kind of Laurel and Hardy skit! I may try it again, making sure to hold the shoe with my hand until I can get my foot on top of it.

I feel your pain. It isn't easy getting back into the routine if you've been away for a little while. I'm sure you'll get there!

R.

I'm slowly getting back into a groove. I'm away for training again so I have time in the evenings to run. Starting to really enjoy running again and enjoy how easy it is to just go for a run. I'll worry about biking and swimming next week when I'm back to my usual work and family routine. Next race is June 23rd and plan on using it as a time trial to set up training goals moving forward. Swim will need some focus as will the bike. Right now my focus is on the run, it's what I know how to fix relatively quickly lol.

Scott

Yesterday I competed in my first Olympic of the season. For all extensive purposes it went well. Exceeded my expectations on every aspect of the race.

I arrived onsite about 6:20am. Looked at the water and it had a light fog off to the distance but could see all bouys and the water was about as calm as Lake Huron can get. Seeing this, I decided to stay with my Olympic distance and picked up my race packet, body markings, and setup my transition area. It was excesssively humid so I went against my rules of liquid intake before a race and took in extra fluids. Attended the prerace meeting took one last trip to the bathroom before zipping up my wetsuit and lining up for the mass in water start.

The swim took place about 50 yards offshore and I was the last swimmer counted in at 54 for the Olympic distance. I lined myself up in the middle of the other competitors and took off with the horn. The swim was a rectangle format and we had to swim around our set of bouys 2x before coming into transition. I clocked into T1 one at 30:45, thinking I did great but then I was only middle of the pack and 4 of 5 in AG. T1 went well. I was able to get the wetsuit off faster than I have in the past and was running out to the bike leg.

The bike route was a flat and fast out and back course. The only issues I faced on the bike leg was my visor condensating making it very hard to see and eventually gave up on it clearing up and set it out of my field of view. I past a few riders, not as many as I’m accustomed to and I looked at my pace it was still about 20 mph so not sure where everyone was. Finished the ride without issue, entered T2, guzzled some more Gatorade and GU, laced up, grabbed my belt and sunglasses and onto the run. Bike leg was officially 1:13:02.

The run was the leg of the race I feared going into this race. Even though my focus going into the race was the run I knew I would go hard on the bike and pay for it on the run. Once out of T2 I settled in to a 8:31 pace for the first mile followed by 8:21, and 8:17 and then I slowly started to fall apart. The sun came out and the air had minimal movement. I managed 9:03, 9:32, 9:26 the last 3 miles. Was able to pick up the pace to finish the last .2 miles in 1:36 for a final run time of 54:46.

My fofficial time was 2:42:06, good for 3rd in AG and 21st overall. In the end I’m glad I stayed the race I signed up for and had fun. Happy with my performance and have some ideas where to focus moving forward. Had some time to chat with friends/competitors I haven’t seen in awhile and finished the day on the beach with my family.

Hope everyone is doing well. Been kinda quite around here.

Scott