Well here is my report for my second sprint triathlon. I was extremely happy with my results even though on paper I shouldn't be. My total time for the tri was actually about 3 minutes slower. But in the end the areas I wanted to improve I did. So...
I get to the race around 5 AM because I am always early for any race I am in and glad I was. I got into the transition area sooner and that allowed me time to get my gear set out, allowed me a chance to go inside and look over the pool and back to the transition area to get my final gear that I believe I would need for at least the pool event. I get my pool stuff ready, finalize my bike gear and my running gear to help me speed through the transitions when those two times could up. My bib # is 635 which means I really got time for a nap because it will be about an hour before I actually will get my turn in the pool. While waiting we hear the great news. It is raining outside and strong winds. Because after all a triathlon with Stan in it can't be complete without extremely bad weather. Waiting is hard because I get anxious about the swim. I am very glad it is the first event but it is still hard to wait till it is your turn. Finally I get in.
The pool event IMO was a huge success. I am still having troubles with my overall swim form even though I can swim and breath perfectly well while training. Once you put a clock to me I just seem to forget about all my training. Strange but I think I can work though that for sure with just some more lessons. Remember I have only been swimming for a little over 4 months now. And for The Caveman I did not use my snorkel at all. Now before we all say great, way to go Stan and congrats. Let me say that I assumed by walking into the pool area and seeing the depths from the first row that all other rows would follow along. Well just like my assumptions in relationships lets just say I was wrong. It only got deeper as the lanes got further along the first row. Damn assumption. You only lose by assuming it. BUT at the same time I had a very good swim for me and compared to St. Patricks Tri. For the St. Patricks try my time was 20:56 with an avg. speed of 6:59 per 100 meters. Well for The Caveman I cut that time down by a third and ended with a time of 13:25 and an avg. speed of 4:53 per 100 meters. That was goal number 1 and that was achieved so I was like I said extremely happy. And I did not panic or had a panic attack as well. So there is hope for me after all.
After the pool I get ready for my bike ride. I put on my biking and running cloths, get the bike and off we go. For a change unlike last time I am actually competing with other athletes. So that alone makes me very happy because no matter how good or how bad an athlete you may be you always want to compete against others. So I hop on my bike and off I go for the 14 mile ride. I take the first 7 miles strategically with me focusing on keeping up my speed even with the wet roads while trying to past the slow rides but not going after the ones with speed just yet. Once I complete my first 7 miles my strategy chances to getting my bike up to my max speed while now going after all bikers regardless of speed in front of me. This paid off as my bike speed went from 12.2 mph during the St. Patrick to 13.0 mph in The Caveman while still be a ton slower than the better athletes with their speeds probably about 10 miles or more per hour faster than that. And to be fair I do average around 14.7 mph on good road conditions so if that were the case yesterday I think I could have top 15.5 to 16 mph. But the most important number for me was I was only a minute slower but had an additional 2 miles more in distance. Point taken and part two of my goal for this race was also a success. And again there is hope for me after all.
And here is where I ended up losing time compared to my last race. It took about 7 minutes SLOWER than my last race. And to top that off I was only averaging 13 minutes per mile on my run. Heck I know people twice my age that can run a lot faster than that. But to be fair once I got off my body pretty much every part of my body from lower back down were in major pain. To the point that walking it completely crossed my mind a couple of times. I have been having lower back tightness problems recently and that sure as heck did not help me. But what really hurt me was the fact that I gave it my all on the bike and left nothing for the run. Major mistake and very dumb for a runner to commit as well. A runner is the last person that should left nothing in the tank for their run. I was trained better than that with some pretty good coaches. And that is a mistake that cost me major time differences between my two triathlons. I will say that I will not make that mistake again for sure. But on the positive side my upper part of my body about the lower back felt great and I did meet a great guy on the path that we talked back and fourth and sarcastically about how slow we were. But for the most part my run was wet, painful and very disappointing. For this event this was a major fail.
I did at least beat the heaviest of rain. It came down as soon as I was getting my gear put back up and ready to go.
That is it. Overall I was disappointed when I saw the total time initially but when I started to really break down the numbers I realized that I actually achieved all that I wanted to in this race and that while the end time wasn't great the race itself was for me. I just need to start focusing on all three events and not just two of them and leave the running to the side. I cannot allow another race go by where it would appear that running was my weakest link instead of my strongest event.
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