Pre race: normal stuff, this is a Decker lake course so nothing too scary about getting there or getting set up. It was nice to get to rack next to Leah since we were in the “married, under 70 combined” division. The only thing that went wrong was I had put a gel in my tri top back pocket to eat about 20 30 minutes before race start, and I forgot about it when I got into the water for a warm up swim. So somewhere in Decker lake is one of my favorite mint gels. Could have been much worse. We did get to see Brian and Elle before the race so it was nice to see people we knew.
SWIM: 23:13:00
We started together, but after about the second marker on the swim course I didn’t see Leah again until the first turn around of the run. She way flying in the water but I just kept swimming my pace.
I think I did good at this race by staying right in the thick of the washing machine until I was out on my own. I certainly didn’t feel like I was in the back of the pack for the swim portion of this race. I had issues with my sighting and probably added an extra 50 – 100m on the swim. I went far out on the last turn marker and the volunteers had to yell for me to come back in a bit. This is probably why my swim was 1 minute and 13 seconds longer than last year. Although, last year I remember getting out of the water and feeling just dead. This year I had it in me to run up the hill!
T1: 3:21:00
I am not sure really what took so long here, It was 37 seconds faster than last year, but I really should not have taken the time to talk to the guy that was on the ground putting his socks on. It is still a good T1 for the Decker Lake location for me.
BIKE: 40:28:00
Great ride, especially compared to the same ride at Rookie just a few months before. Almost 4 minutes faster than May, and it was about 2 minutes faster than the same ride at Couples last year! I have surely gotten stronger on the bike this year. 16.6 mph is respectable for this course. I expected to pass Leah at some point on the ride here. I was holding such a great pace and didn’t think that she was that far ahead of me. I beat her on the bike by a little less than 2 minutes, but she had at least 2 minutes on me from the swim.
T2: 1:46:00
This went OK, I did have an issue where I had too many things in my hand. My visor, hand held water bottle, race belt and number, and I ended up dropping my water bottle and having to run back and get it. Not a biggie, I just need to practice with the handheld for my T2 more.
RUN: 34:00:00
Again, not as fast as last years run, slower by 34 seconds. I am not sure where it was that I lost it here. I felt strong the entire run, I even saved a little bit of extra oomph to get up the hill at the end and as much as I could to sprint it in once I saw the finish.
The best part of the run was getting to see Leah at the first turn around of the run. She was only about 2 minutes ahead of me when I saw her. Our run times were only 2 seconds apart, and I went faster on the bike, but with the super fast swim time she posted vs. my slower swim time the hound never did catch the rabbit. Maybe next year.
POST RACE:
We waited a few minutes for Brian to finish and he smoked us both overall, but yet again, I was faster on the bike, Leah was faster on the swim and he was faster on the run. Maybe there is a relay in our future at some point.
Went home, had some bubbly and fell asleep on the couch watching IronMan videos. So, overall, a great race day for a “C” race.
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