First Olympic Distance Triathlon (Sorta)
Well it was an awesome weekend in Galveston despite some unfortunate weather on Saturday morning that eliminated the swim portion of my race. When I say unfortunate I mean 30 m.p.h. winds that would have made the swim nearly impossible for weak swimmers such as myself! Nevertheless, the race continued and they sent us off, row by row, for our 25 mile bike followed by the 10K (6.1 M run).
The report was that we would have a strong head-wind on the way out and a nice tail-wind on the way back. So I shot out and decided that I would spend some extra energy pushing hard into the wind so that I could hopefully make up some time on the other guys while they struggled with the wind. About 10 miles in I realized that there wasn’t much of a head-wind. At that point it was time to turn around and start heading back for the second half of the bike and it was then I realized I had been fooled! The wind was whipping all over the place and made it very difficult make any ground. I stayed strong and was able to settle into a rhythm where I started to pass some guys. Before I knew it was in transition, getting ready for the run with my legs feeling like cement blocks after the ride.
I slammed down a Gu-chomp, strapped on my running shoes and took off for the run course. I knew I was just two, short, 3 mile loops away from the finish line and that I would just have to gut it out. My legs were very heavy and tight for the first 2 miles but then began to loosen up as I plodded along. After the first lap I could taste the finish line and began to increase my pace. A guy wearing a bright green jersey passed me and I decided that he was going a good pace and that I would chase him until the end. I rounded the last corner to the sound of cow-bells and screams and made a bolt for the finish line.
I finished the duathlon (only bike and run) in 2:04:15 which was good enough for 24th in my age group out of 60. Though it was a middle of the road performance I was very pleased considering the little time that I was able to invest for training. My splits ended up being 1:15:14 for the bike (approx. 20 m.p.h average) and a sad 47:11 (about 8 minute miles) on the run. I say sad because I really wish I had more time to bring myself into peak shape for these events.
My friend, Casey Meyers, did the 70.3 race the following day and did very well. Racing on Saturday and watching Casey race on Sunday really stirred my competitive juices and made me want to make the extra effort to train for an race in a 70.3 race. For those of you who don’t know, the 70.3 is a half-ironman which includes a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run. You can do the math to figure out the distance for a full ironman, I won’t even go there!
Thanks for all my friends and family who supported me, you guys really did encourage me and hopefully if I continue to race I can get some of you out there with me!
