My wife wasn't able to make the trip because all of our usual baby sitters were out of town. That was a major bummer because we were looking forward to going up together and I knew I was set for a good race and hoped she would be there to celebrate. But, life happens and in this situation is was unavoidable so she tracked me from home with the kids.
With Kristin not going my buddy Scott and I shared a room and we went up together. I don't think I've ever been on any guys trips with just Scott so it was cool to get to hang out that much. This was his first triathlon so we had plenty to talk about. We headed up Friday and took our time. The expo was fun and after hanging there for a bit we went to the race site and dropped off our bikes. That makes race morning much easier I believe. Then we headed to our hotel, checked in and went to meet some other friends for dinner.
EARLY the next morning our wake up call came and it was time to get moving! Took us a little longer than i expected to get ready but we got to the race site in plenty of time and got a pretty good parking space.
Got the news on the way that the race was wetsuit legal!!! Since I'm not very good at swimming I was happy about that surprise especially since the water was in the 90s last year! Once at the race site I got everything set up as usual and the waiting game began. That's the worst part I may add!
The race started on time and I finished the swim in 43 minutes. Slow, but WAY better than I did last year. The swim was very rough this year. Was constantly getting bumped or hit or something. By far the most physical swim I've ever had. So when you couple that with the fact that I've got a hitch in my stroke that pulls me hard right and way off course I'm happy with a 43 min swim.
Transition was good and fast and I was out on the bike! Wanted to have a fast bike but stay within myself and keep heart rate under 160. I was flying at first, the early 5 miles were slightly downhill and I was we'll over 22 average without pushing it. I did lose my aero bottle early on an that had all my water in it so I was stressing about that. But I just kept on pushing and made it to the rough patch of road I'd heard all about. I still wasn't prepared for how rough it was. 15 miles of about the most rough pavement I've ever ridden on. Zapped my legs and killed my back. Brought my average down to 21.4mph which is were it stayed for the entire race.
Out onto the run my legs felt really good but my stomach was a wreck again. Fought the gas, cramping, needing to pee or whatever that was the entire 13.1 miles. I shocked myself with how good I felt through the halfway mark and was averaging just over 8 minute miles. I started to hit a wall at mile 10 and the hills coming back to the finish about killed me. I walked more than I'd planned, but kept my pace under 9 and finished the run in 1:50!!!
All in all it was a great race for me. Finished in 5:16 which was a PR at that distance by almost an hour!!!! Trying to recover now and still get my volume in for this week (not going well) because IM Louisville is just over 5 weeks away!!!
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