I’m a little late with this report, but what can I say… There’s been a lot of stuff going on lately. I missed this race last year, so I was pretty excited to test my high end speed on this super fast sprint course. In an attempt to come up with specific goals for the race, I looked back at my results from 2008 when I set the course record, and was trying to figure out where I could make up time to break that mark. That year the swim seemed a tad long, my transitions were fast, I had a good bike, my run was marginal. I really couldn’t find much wiggle room to break that 1:02:30 record, but I was going to do my best. I knew that much of the outcome would rest on how the swim was measured. For such a sort race, it can make a huge difference….
And that it did. As it turns out, I’m pretty sure the swim was at least 150m short. Although that does not sound like much, as a percentage, it was probably 35% shorter than last year. To make it even ‘better’ you could pretty much dolphin dive the entire course. How the heck else would I be able to come out of the water with a BIG TEN champion/ All-American swimmer. When I came up from my 50th dolphin dive to exit Lake George, it felt like entire elite field was there with me.
Many guys who typically pass me in the middle of the bike were coming out of the water with me… and then I looked at my watch and saw 5:10. OK, well that will help my quest to break the record, but this triathlon has basically become a Bike-Run Sprint with a little splash at the beginning. Again, I love numbers, so here’s a good stat for you…my combined transition time was 48% of my total swim time… and THAT’s why I practice my transitions!Bike was good- I used a PowerTap wheel, which I’m learning is extremely valuable on flat bike courses. I tend to drift off into ‘comfort zone’ pretty easily when I’m flying down the road at 25mph, but then I look at my wattage, see 150 Watts and realize that the tail wind is doing most of the work. I picked it up and managed to post a faster bike split than I did back in 2008… Progress. Now off to my ‘favorite’ part… the out and back 3mile run that seems to drag on forever. Thankfully after making the turn at the halfway point I didn’t see any women in threatening position, but I was still working as hard as I could. My adjusted goal was to break the hour mark, but as I felt my feet dragging along the ground, I didn’t think it was possible. When I rounded the final corner, I could see the race clock at 59:54…. I tried to pick it up, but ended up crossing at 1:00:02.
It was a beautiful day, and it was so refreshing to have the whole weekend left to play… I love Saturday races!
And the man behind all the awesome photos...
