Weekend Tri.

After work on Friday Jen and I headed up to Nevis to ready ourselves for the Northwoods Tri on Saturday. Man, Tri's start early. The bike coral opened at 6 am. We didn't get there till a bit after 7. All the "good" spots were filled and we were forced down at the end, ensuring my already slow transition times would be slower. Both the in and out for the bike and run were located at the opposite end.

After the instructions were given and the first wave was off I headed to the water to wait my 3 minutes till it was my turn to swim. Since I had not swam once since the last Nevis tri I wasn't too nervous, besides I was sporting a friends wet suit...this would be easy! Actually it felt better than last year and I felt I controlled my breathing and really fell into a groove the last half. I did better my time from last year, but not by much...about 15 seconds.

My first transition was 2 minutes 11 seconds! I had the wetsuit off pretty fast but the run with the bike to the end of the coral seemed to take forever. Like last year I was able to gain a lot of time on other athletes during the bike. Also like last year I had the 2nd fastest bike time. Avg 23.9. I was riding my road bike (Felt F3) with aerobars and Zipp 404's. Fun to pass people with full on TT bikes, aero helmets, and disc wheels. The guy that won the race, for the past 7 years, is crazy fast. I have some work if I want to be the fastest on the bike.

The run started out painful. I started to get a side ache and felt I wasn't moving very fast. A few of the people I passed on the bike came flying by me. I told myself I would wait till the turn around then pick up the pace. Slowly I started to feel better and was able to speed up a tad. Here too I bettered my pace. I was 2 seconds faster (pace) than last year, 6 min 53 sec/mile. While I know that is not fast, that is fast for this guy.

Overall I ended up 13th and 3rd in my age group. To get into the top 10 I had just seconds to lose. Maybe next year. I can't help but think that with some practice and a better transition location I would be able to take 1.5 minutes off my time. Maybe I could swim a bit too! It was fun and I'm glad I did it. Not sure about next year. I'm sure I'll do it.

Later.