Season Opener

My first race of the year was a repeat of the first tri I ever did.  The event is May Madness in Effingham Illinois run by Cutting Edge Events.  The folks at Cutting Edge do a nice job so if you are in the area and want an early season tri to get the season started, check it out.  This year the weather was perfect, upper 50's to start, sunny and calm, nothing like it was two years ago at my first tri. This year I also got to meet up with a friend from work, his wife, and a BT friend, so it was much more fun than racing alone.

Race day, I got up at 4 am (for the third time in four days).  It's about an hour and a half drive, but with no traffic at 4 am, I was able to make it a little lot faster :-).  It was pitch black when I left, but drove into a nice sunrise to start the day.

nice start to the day

Once at the race site, I quickly registered, got body marked, and started setting up.  I was set up in no time, and just hung out and visited.  Ran into a super fast guy from my fitness class and chatted with him and his wife for a while.  Chatting with friends does wonders to limit the pre-race anxiety I feel.

The water was a nice 66 degrees (with a wetsuit) and smooth.  I started near the back since I'm a slow swimmer and didn't have much contact.  I felt pretty good on the swim and sighted better than normal.  I'm just not a real strong swimmer.

beautiful morning

distance looks longer in open water to me

The bike route was a flat out and back with a couple little rollers at the beginning.  My goal was to make sure I was breathing hard the whole time. I managed to do that most of the right until my knees started feeling bad so I backed off a tad.

The run is also a flat out and back and I had the same goal as the bike, keep pushing it.  I ran as fast as I could and just tried to hang on.  I passed a woman with a Garmin at about half way and asked her our pace.  7:42, yikes! No wonder it was hard, that's fast for me.

My goal going into the race was to shave three minutes off my time from two years ago.

	2010	2012
swim	10:53	10:03
T1	2:00	1:23
bike	41:10	39:23
T2	1:00	0:51
run	26:53	24:35
total	1:21:54	1:16:14

I'm a little bummed my bike average was below 20mph but it doesn't surprise me given my knee issues.  I was pleasantly surprised I was able to run under 8 minute miles, actually more like ecstatic!  I haven't run a 5k that fast in 20 years.

I did manage to take home some hardware.  3rd in my age group! Don't tell anyone that there were only three in my age group, that would make it an attendance prize :-).

The TYR tri top almost hides the 8 pounds I'm trying to lose :-)

Looks like I need some spray on tan and to work on my guns :-)

Sprint tris are a lot of work for a short race.  I probably spent two hours packing my gear, racking my bike, etc, an hour and a half driving there, an hour and a half driving back, then another hour cleaning up my mess all for a little over an hour of pain. I think I like the Olympic distance the best.

back seat mess

front seat mess

Overall, it was a great start to the season.  My first Oly is next week and I'm dreading the swim.