Overall race critique: awesome race venue, weekend, city and time with my wife, Kristin. The race logistics here are awesome if you stay downtown - hotel, race site, expo and food are all centrally located. The Rev3 staff is amazing and they hosted a great event. The olympic distance amateur male field was unbelievable, crazy competition at this race from all over the country (MD, DC, VA, MI, FL, MO, CA, CO, AL, GA, TN, KY and those were just the guys I talked to). Basically, almost every fast guy I've ever raced was at this race. I'm hoping Rev3 events continue to draw this type of competition as I would like to race more of the series in the future.
Pre-Race: woke up feeling pretty good race morning. breakfast went down okay then cup of coffee and down the the race site. Same ole same ole. Got down to transition and set up then 15 min jog, legs felt so-so and energy level the same. Packed up and headed down to swim start.
Swim: long wait for the olympic age group waves to start since the pros and 70.3 distance were off first. Got to chat with a few friends but felt way too relaxed. Also, no possibility of a swim warm-up - not good. Finally, it was time to roll. In water start with all males under 39 - this was a pretty large wave. Jumped in and water was definitely cold - 68 degrees. Last year it was around 60 and I got hypothermia and was pulled out by a kayak so this was on my mind the entire first half of the swim. BOOM!!! Show time. Did not position myself well and got stuck in the middle of the wave for a very rough start. It was very crowded up to the turn buoy as I sighted I saw a 70.3 wave coming down river towards our turn buoy. This was my only complaint of the race. You disadvantage the first olympic wave by having us fight for position and then put another wave in front of us right after things clear at the turn. I spent most of the first 750-1000M trying to navigate other swimmers - not fun. Got out of the water in 24:06 - not a good swim time for me given the 20:47 I swam the previous week. Believe this was due to crowded conditions, who knows. Put me at about a 5min deficit from the front pack.
T1: very long run to transition - 4minutes total.
Bike: From last year I knew the bike course was going to have alot of climbing so I was prepared to suffer a bit. Really tried to push the bike and put in a stronger bike then the previous week. There are a few big climbs on the way out and just tried to stay on the hammer on these climbs and fly on the downhills. First half of my ride was pretty strong but faded a bit after the turn. I could see I was down a good bit of time from the front group and tried to ride as hard as possible coming back in. Got off the bike on right around 1:04, better than last week but still not enough to put alot of time into the lead group.
Run: not a super challenging run but there were some uphill portions and turns. I came into T2 with another guy and he beat me out of transition. He was moving pretty good so I tried to push and keep sight of him. I just really didn't have much in my legs this week like I did last week. Kept trying to push through the wall but just wasn't happening for me today. I passed 2 guys immediately and then another 2 in the last mile. run time was 38:15 and I was spent. I really wanted to go under 35 min but just didn't have enough fuel in the tank after a big effort last week.
Summary: looking back this ended up being a very good training race with a tough feel to push me. I really enjoyed the race and learned a few things. Back to the drawing board and training for another OLY in 2 weeks. Till next time...
Place: 17th
overall / 6th M30-34
Overall Time:
2:12:24
Swim: 24:06
Bike: 1:04:49
Run: 38:14
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