Texas Triathlon Race Report

Well, since I've found out that actually more than myself reads my training blog, so I might as well keep it updated more often. So, I'm going to shoot for updating it once a week, but we'll see how that goes.

Well, the Texas Tri in Canyon Lake, TX was last Saturday. This was the first race of the season and was a C race. Hell, I didn't even know what time the race started until the night before. I did some carb loading for this race, but I've decided that carb loading for races Oly and below isn't worth it to me. It upsets my stomach which causes interesting problems. My coaches had me do some tapering this week, but not much. I've been doing base riding for IM training so I haven't been training for speed at all.

I didn't get all my gear together for the race until around 10pm the night before. I went to bed at around 11:30ish and got up the next day at 5. I left the house at 6 and showed up at the race site at around 7. I didn't eat that much that morning. Well, I had a decent amount. Like I said, I'm can't take carb loading well, so I didn't eat what Monique Ryan's book recommends. I got to the race site and it was freaking cold. I think the low that morning was around 35 or so. I also had a new record low for RP's. I only had 3 of them. I wasn't that nervous that morning because I wasn't stressed about the race at all, so that's why I didn't have many RP's.

Everyone was worried about the water at the race. Since it was the first race of the year, the water hadn't warmed up much. The water temp was about 62 degrees. Once I got everything set up, it was announced that the race would start about 30 minutes late to let the weather warm up a bit. That wouldn't matter much because the water was still freaking cold.

I was in the first wave with the under 30 men. I got in the water a few minutes before the start to warm up for the swim. I got in and the water wasn't too bad. Of course, I never put my arms in, either. I was wearing a sleeveless wetsuit and I thought I would be fine. After the race started, the water was cold. I couldn't feel my pinky on my left hand after about 2 minutes. I thought I was a great swimmer, but I quickly got left behind by the lead group. Water was cold, I was trying to push myself but it wasn't working, and I wasn't that use to open water swimming. I mean, I have done some swimming in Barton Springs, and I can usually swim about 1:30/100yds in the pool as my forever pace. I didn't feel like I was swimming that fast. I kept pushing, but I just wasn't going that fast. I turned the first buoy and Andrea Fisher passed me at that point. She's fast. I kept swimming and nothing else interesting happened. I turned the second buoy and picked up the pace a bit as I headed to the end of the swim.

I came out of the water and I had the normal dizziness. The transition area was in an asphalt parking lot and I had nothing on my feet. That hurt going through T1. I got to my spot in the T area and I had a plan. I was going to put on my sleeveless bike jersey and a cycling jacket, but putting on a jersey while wet wasn't exactly quick. I got my jacket on, but I didn't zip it up. I planned on doing that on the bike. I got everything else together, grabbed my bike, and headed out of T1. My coaches taught me how to come out of T1 with my shoes clipped into my pedals. I tried doing that, but as I came out of T1, some lady crashed right in front of me. I had to swerve to avoid her and I managed to somehow lose my shoe. Damnit. I had to stop and put my shoe back on.

Ok, I'm on the bike. I'm still not in my shoes though. I'm just trying to get to somewhere that is downhill and get into my shoes. I see Dave who is taking pictures and he snaps a ton of pictures of me. The part of the course in the park is fairly smooth and downhill so I got my feet into my shoes. I tried zipping up jacket because it was still pretty cold. After almost wrecking 6 times trying to zip up my jacket while riding without my hands, I gave that up. I got out of the park and onto the main roads. That sucked. The roads were chip seal and I hate riding on chip seal. Also, the course was pretty damn hilly, too. At one point, I was riding up a hill and my wheel sounded funny. I stopped because by back brake was rubbing on my rim. I got going again and kept going up the hills. I stopped again to zip up my jacket because it was bothering me. At that point, I saw someone that passed me that caught my eye. Some redheaded girl that was really cute passed me. I started riding again after I zipped up my jacket. I enjoyed the view riding behind her because she was hot and had a nice body, but I was here to race and I could attempt to hit on her after the race. The bike course was miserable for me. I only had 1 bottle of water and I don't think I managed my nutrition properly. The chip seal wore we down and there was some massive wind as well that took it's toll on me. By the end of the bike ride, I was doing everything that I could to do to get the pedals to turn over. I really wanted to be off the bike.

I came into the park again and it was a mile before the T2. I got out of my shoes and cruised into T2. I had practiced dismounting with my shoes on the pedals before and never had a problem. I did it again this time. However, somehow I dropped another shoe. I think I need new pedals or something because they've been very problematic for me lately. I put my bike up and I had to go back and get my shoes because of the equipment abandonment rule. I felt like crap, but I still had to run. I did my T2 and got out on the run course. My legs felt like they were made out of lead. The weather had warmed up quite a bit by now, though and I was feeling good. The cute chick on the bike (damn, she was hot), actually passed me in T2 and was just ahead of me on the run. I tried to run her down and maybe get her digits while on the course, but that was one race that I lost. She is one hell of an athlete and I lost site of her quickly. Mile 1 felt bad. Mile 2 was even worse because of The Hill. I had a Gu right after The Hill and get going. Mile 3 was a little easier because it was mostly downhill. By the end of Mile 3, I was getting by running legs back and picked up the pace. By this time, there were a lot more people on the course and I run much faster because I run people down one by one. This pushed me on Mile 4 and Mile 5. I saw Kelly on The Hill on Mile 5 and left her. Mile 6 was great because I opened it up a bit and picked up a decent amount of time. The one thing that I noticed on this run was that my heart rate wasn't above 160. I could have pushed myself more, but my legs just weren't there. After the race, I found out that I was running about the same pace that I was at St. Anthony's almost a year ago, but at St. A's my heart rate was in the 180+ range. Also, this course was a lot of up and down and St. A's was flat. By this, it would seem that I'm a much faster runner than I was a year ago.

I crossed the finish line and I was done. I had finished in around 2:38something. I was faster in the water than St. A's, about the same on the run, but the bike was much slower. It was a very different course, though. After the race, my official time was 2:38:45. I finished 4th in my age group, but there were only 6 people in it, too. I had a swim split of 26:23 with a pace of 1:46. I'm somewhat disappointed at that. My bike split was 1:23:38 with an average pace of 18.7mph. Once again, a very hilly course compared to St. A's where I averaged 23mph. I had a T1 of 1:39 which I thought was pretty bad because I had problems, but it wasn't so bad compared to everyone else. I had no T2 time because my chip did register on that mat. My run time was 47:04, but that included T2. Oh, the really cute girl finished with a time of around 2:28 and was the 3rd woman overall. Damn, that's sexy.

Not bad considering the course, but it was very humbling. I thought that I was advancing up in the triathlon ranks fairly well, but I wished I had done better at this race. My training is completely different now than it was a year ago for St. A's so that is part of it. Also, I believe the medication that I'm on is holding me back a bit. I need to work on my nutrition on the bike and I also need to hold back on the bike a bit so my legs are better on the run. I also need to do more bike-run bricks and to do them quickly. When I do them now, I have about 5 minutes between the bike and the run, but I need to practice them to get them down to 2 minutes or less, preferably 1 minute. Open water swim work is also something that needs practice.

It was the first race of the year, and it hurt pretty badly. I finished though and I wasn't nervous for this. It put me into a mindset that I have a lot to work on if I want to do better this season. Everything leads up to IMFL this year and I have a lot to learn and to work on before then.