Saturday was spent driving to Lubbock and getting checked in and ready to race. Mike and I were joined by our good friend, Robert Gonzales, who offered to be our caddy for the weekend.
No training on Saturday.
Sunday was raceday and it started early at 3:30 AM. We drove down to the race site from the hotel and were able to get there early and without incident. Race start was scheduled for 6:40 AM. The water was warm and probably too warm for a wetsuit but the race organizers seem to find the right time of day (or night) and best place to measure the temp as to avoid the 76 degree cutoff temperature. The entire swim was very uncongested and I felt like I swam a pretty straight line the whole time. I was able to remind myself to still swim hard and not relax too much despite wearing a wetsuit. I was rewarded with a swim time of 27:38, an improvement of exactly 7 minutes over the 1.2 mile course compared to last year. I know I am in better swim shape than I was last year but 7 minutes is a little bit ridiculous so my guess is that the swim was marked a little short. Still, I did improve more significantly compared to other people I know who raced last year and this year. Either way, I am happy with my swim.
On to the bike and my plan was to ride the first half at tempo pace, or in other words, comfortably hard. Then be able to pick it up for the last half of the ride. We were blessed with overcast skies and wind, that for the most part, did not affect much of the ride until the last 10 miles. I did exactly what my plan was for nutrition but for whatever reason I felt a cramp waiting to happen the entire ride on my right calf. I even broke into my salt tablets at mile 12 of the bike. I usually only use those in case of emergency. Regardless, I had a good ride on a course that has remained unchanged for years. My bike time was 2:35 for the 56 mile course, a 10 minute improvement from last year. That time is an average of 21.6 mph. I am very happy with my bike split because 10 minutes is big and there is no saying the course was short or anything else. I rode the entire course pretty comfortably and never felt like I was hammering.
During the ride, I was thinking that I couldn't wait to get off the bike and show off my new running abilities. Also, at this point of the race I was 17 minutes ahead of my PR from last year. Things were going great but for whatever reason my run never materialized. I felt uncomfortable and could never get my feet off the ground and running. People were just going by one after another. I don't think I passed one person the entire run. My planned run of 1:44 turned into an ugly 2:11. It really does all come down to the run. What's the point of making these big improvement on the swim and bike to turn around and give it all back and then some on the run. I truly don't know why it happened and I'm sure there could be several reasons and depending on your point of view you may even have your own. To be honest, I don't want to hear them and I don't want to lower my standards and say that 2 out of 3 improvements is great or whatever. I really wanted a better outcome at this race and it didn't happen and I am disappointed. What I am going to do now is get back to some consistent hard work. I believe in it and I know it works. I am racing again this weekend in a sprint triathlon in Tucson but then it's going to be some long, hard weeks of training for Kona.
Monday was a day off from training to let my body recover a little bit. Tomorrow I'll be back at it again.
Steven, sorry to hear about the run. Here is something that worked for me when I was having shitty runs off the bike. I started running several hill repeats after my rides. It buit up my stamina and was I was able to push myself harder on the run after my rides when it counted. At least now you know that you need to work harder on your run.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I ended up having a good race. It was 100+ degrees when we started. The race was a 60 minute circuit. We started with about 79 riders and finished with only about 35 guys. I ended up sprinting for 14th place. Guy crashed in front of my going into the last turn so it through off my momentum otherwise I could have been in the top 10. I'm just happy I didn't go down. Not to mention there was 5 crashes in the last lap..HOLY COW!!