I had the pleasure of participating in My Way or the Tri Way
this past weekend at the Aurora Reservoir.
As usual, Racing Underground hosted a well organized, well supported,
and fun event. This event was on the
Arvada Triathlon Club calendar so it was nice to see 8 members in attendance (2
with podium finishes) along with a few of my other friends. I will certainly keep this event in mind next
year.
My wife picked up my packet Friday from Campus Cycles. Friday night, I packed my gear using my new
Rudy gear bag which worked out great.
This thing really swallows gear, even as I have a tendency to over
pack. Friday night I visualized the race
several times and that really made everything feel much smoother race morning.
I opted for the “Tri Way” and prepared for a Swim, Bike, Run
order. After setting up in transition,
hitting the port-o-let, and donning my wetsuit, I did a few bobs in the water
to make sure I had no goggle or wetsuit issues.
The water was a brisk 68 degrees, so I was glad to have the
wetsuit. All participants started from
transition. From transition it was 150
yards to the water, most of which I walked.
This took me about 1:30. My swim
leg was officially recorded as 22:38 and that includes the walk back into
transition. That was very much on par
with my 19-20 minute plan. I sighted
reasonably well and was tight on the turns.
I made sure I hit ground with my stroke before running up the
beach. It was great to see Jeff and
Cliff out there capturing images and cheering.
Transition 1 was pretty smooth by my standards. My left foot got hung up on the wetsuit, but
otherwise I was smooth and controlled. I
exited transition after 3:00 minutes.
I felt really good on the bike leg, primarily because it all
starts downhill. The course was well
supported with plenty of course marshals on the simple out and back. I was getting passed constantly on the bike
leg. I kind of neglected biking in my
training as I knew I could roll through a 20K bike without issue. Unfortunately that resulted in a 52:41 bike
split which was my weakest leg relative to my competitors. I did take on a GU about an hour into the
race and hydrated well. I averaged 123W
on the course which is great for me.
Unfortunately that translated into an average speed of only 13.4 mph
with my mashing cadence of 64 rpm. I was
hoping to finish in around 45 minutes (16 mph) so this was a little
disappointing.
Photo Credit - My Race Shots & Racing Underground
Transition 2 was really quick. My feet were nice and dry and slipped right
into my shoes. I grabbed my visor and
race number belt and was off.
The run started with a stop at the port-o-let. After relieving myself of over-hydration, I
took off on the rolling course. The loop
style run was 3.5 miles, but I felt pretty good and was pacing at about 10
minute miles for most of the course. My
official split was 37:38 and considering my training, I was very pleased with
that. I would have liked to have
finished in 32 minutes, but did not have a 9 minute pace in me. I took on Gatorade at the first aid station
and water at the second aid station.
I blasted through transition the final time and it took me
1:18 to dash down to the official finish in 1:59:03. I was 147/257 Overall, 92/126 Men and 26/29
Men 40-44 in the Swim-Bike-Run division.
I was mentally targeting a 1:50-1:55 finish and felt like I left 95% of
it out on the course. I might have been
able to shave a couple of minutes, but really enjoyed myself and was happy to
have a tri on the books for 2015.
Post race it was fun to hang out with the club, grab some
food courtesy of Noodles & Company and watch the awards session. A good friend of mine had his first podium finish
and it was really great to see him pick up his award. I didn’t win anything in the raffle, but it
was a great morning for racing.
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