The only other international distance race I had was 3:59:16 and today, I just wanted to beat that by 10 minutes. That race was at the end of the season and its the beginning of the season today, so I thought it was a good goal for me. At this race last year, I failed. So finishing was the most important goal.
Jillian and I were 90% ready the night before. My bag was packed with everything I needed before going to bed. Including my wet suit.
There had been some discussion about if a wet suit was really needed for the race today. The temperature was 75 degrees according to the truck on the way to the race. I was positive that the water wasn’t going to be anywhere close to 70 degrees. I swam without a wetsuit last year, but I think it was 70 in the water. Today, the water was 62 degrees. We got to the event with plenty of time to get numbers, get chipped, and get down to the water. I stepped in the water and my feet went numb. Jillian then agreed that wet suits were the right idea for the event.
In the transition area, we realized that we are starting to recognize more and more people at the races. Rod, with whom we met last week at Heritage Park was there. We saw several of the people from TriKC, KCMultisport and Midwest Triathlon Coaching. Ken, from MTC, was all over the place today. I’m pretty sure I saw him at least 5 times today.
The water was cold. The water was cold. The water was cold. The event started without a hitch. The water was cold. By the time I got deep enough to stop walking, I had already made up my mind. I was not going to have a very good swim. I started shivering and breathing fast. I started with a side stroke with my back to the wind. The wind was going just fast enough at that time to make waves enough to screw me up. I thought that I would do that until I stopped the shaking. I was only in a short sleeve wet suit, but there were many athletes without wet suits. This was my first open water swim of the season and I had no expectation, so I just kept doing the side stroke and focusing on my breathing. The only benefit of doing the side stroke was that I was able to make a straight line to the turn buoy. After the pack thinned out, I tried to freestyle a few strokes. I couldn’t get my breath right. I was heat three, the later heats caught up with me really quickly. At about the halfway point, I would alternate between side stroke and freestyle. I was doing 10 strokes of freestyle and 10 of side stroke. I was still unable to catch my breath still. I finished the swim with that strategy. I felt positive I was the last of my heat out of the water.
I felt like I had a great transition. I ran the entire way and just had one pause when I lost my glasses. I also tried to drink half of my gatorade before heading out. I got into my clips easily and was on my way.
The ride felt great from the start. I was passing a bunch of people right away. Then the came the first real hill. I started to get passed by the people that I would ride with for most of the bike. Amy from KCM was probably never more than 30 seconds in front or behind me for the rest of the race. During the first lap I had no idea who was doing the long course or short. At the start of the second lap I saw a large pack of bikers about half mile ahead. I didn’t catch them until the last big hill. I didn’t have any liquids on the bike, and I felt fine until that last big hill. I cruised in and felt really good about the ride.
(According to my Garmin, my average speed on the bike was 18MPH. I felt like this course was harder than last week, but my average at Heritage Park was 16.7MPH. So now I’m feeling really good.)
My second transition was the best transition I have ever had. I was in and out.
My legs were spent when I started the run. They didn’t feel extra heavy like they did every race last year, but they were tired. During the first quarter mile I came up with my strategy for the rest of the race. I decided that 12 minute miles would be my goal. I wasn’t looking at my watch yet, I was just going based on how I felt. I wanted to start slow and make sure I had enough to finish. I was hoping that my pace would be able to increase towards the end.
As usual, I was getting passed quite a bit. Not as usual, I was able to ignore it. I was able to keep my cool and go at my own comfortable pace. At the start of the race a fellow MTC athlete was running pretty close to my pace, that was Brian. I ended up seeing Brian a bunch of times on the run. About mile 2 of the run, a fellow KCM athlete passed me. I introduced myself and he introduced himself as Rick. I ended up running with Rick the rest of the race. We chatted most of the way and I think we were both feeling good. Rick had a little more gas in the tank at the end of the race but it was great.
I finished the race and I was happy. I was able to stand at the end of the race. The tri-community in KC is awesome.
