This course has owned me in the past, and while my goal was to prevent that from happening this time, I'd give myself a "B" in my efforts today. I've come to understand I have a pacing problem. I can't hold back and I absolutely wilt on the run. This course is not the place you want to be wilting on the run. It is undulating the entire time, and is usually very hot.
The swim went as well as possible from a time perspective. I was in a wave with 39 and under men, and while I was the 4th guy out of the water, I was out first for my age group. I paid for it though. I was gunning it from the start and by the time I realized I was trashing myself, I couldn't settle down.
The swim started off right into the sun, so we couldn't see the buoy until we were right on top of it. Other than that, it was a fairly normal swim. I was on my own for a bit, with a guy for a bit, then got dropped by that guy in the last 400 yards or so.
Swim: 19:23, 1st AG (out of 27), 8th overall (out of 273 men and women)
T1 was brutal. I was so tired running up the beach, along a path, and into transition. I thought I was going to pass out. More evidence that I blew my wad in the swim. I took my time trying to settle down in there, put my bike jersey on inside out (on accident) and was off.
T1: 2:45
The bike was alright. I've decided now that this bike course is deceivingly difficult. It never really is flat with many rollers, lots of chip seal roads, and a few chewed up roads that slow you down a bit. No one ended up putting up a blazing time, and I just managed to hold better than 20 mph out there, a little off from my last few efforts. I tried to keep it calm on the bike, and was favoring my right leg injury from the bike crash the week before just a bit choosing to stay in the saddle when there were a couple of climbs and accelerations I'd have preferred to stand up on.
Only 3 guys in my age group passed me on the ride.
We got lucky with the weather today. There was cloud cover for the first half of the ride, and the highs are a good 10 degrees off the mid 100s we had earlier in the week.
Bike: 1:08.47 10th AG, 83rd overall
T2 was quick and easy 1:01
The run was the part of this race I anticipated the most. As I said, I've run terrible on this course in the past. Early on off the bike I could tell that I'd probably already been anaerobic a bit too much earlier in the day, and that it was going to be lactate buildup in my legs that was going to be the limiter on the day, not HR, and probably not heat.
I tried to settle in to a decent pace. The course is out and back, part on paved paths in tree cover, and part out on an open road with no shade. I was really trying to hold back on the out thinking best case, I could negative split the run, but the more likely scenario was that it would be conserving energy to keep me from walking later (a problem every time I run out there)
I believe I was able to average around 8:50 miles on the way out (the way out is a little longer than the way in). On the way back, it was a struggle. I hung in there pretty tough, walked some aid stations, and literally shuffled up the big hill on the paths, and average around 9:35 back home.
I got passed by 4-5 guys in my age group in the last 10 minutes of the run which was disappointing, but tried to hang in there as best I could.
Run: 56:36 18th AG, 122 overall
Time: 2:28:29, 13th AG, 72nd overall
I believe this is the first time I've been under 2:30 in an Olympic race, but the bike was 1.8mi short of an official Oly distance race, and I actually think my 2:32 in Galveston this year on a 450 yard shorter swim, but 5 mi bike, and 0.3 mile longer run is a better time. It was much cooler then, and a much easier course than Lake Ray Roberts, so I think it is a solid effort today.
The family came up to the State Park to watch the race, and got to enjoy a really cool beach on the lake. My kids and the McClain kids had a blast swimming around, though no one brought suits so we had to improvise a bit.
Here are a few photos our friends the McClain's took. Katie (the photographer) is one of Ingrid's girl friends, our kids play together several times each week, and Patrick did the race with me (and did quite well in his 2nd tri ever, and 1st Oly ever)
Truck'n it into the finish shoot
Family photo, Jake and his dong
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