Race Report #3 - Keystone State Triathlon

   

This morning I headed down to Lewisberry, PA for a sprint triathlon. I traveled down with fellow Team IQC member Chris Bailey. Sometimes I wonder why I do this stuff when I am waking up at 4:00AM to make it to the race. Chris was swung by the Grove about 4:45AM to hit the road. With the forecast calling for some showers, we were both hoping that the showers would hold off till at least after the bike leg. We drove through one brief shower but as we got to the race site the roads were dry and I was still trying to be optimistic about the rain holding off.

The length of the race was .5 mile swim/ 18.2 mile bike/ 3.2 mile run

Swim(1/2 mile) - 15:20 not great but not bad. Water temperature was warm as it was announced that it was 81. Not that I was planning to use a wetsuit for the half-mile swim as I was hoping for faster transitions, but with water temperatures that warm, wetsuits are not allowed. I felt good at the start but about 150 yards into the swim my goggle were filling up with water. It was my fault as my goggles were sitting on top of the swim cap and could not form the proper seal around my eyes. So I had to flip over to clear goggles and hope that it would not fill back up. The swim was crowded as two races combined on our lap of the circuit.

Transition 1 - 1:08 - Finally a good transition other than struggling to get wet shirt on...oh yeah started raining during the swim.

Bike(18.2 miles) - 51:40/21.2 mph - The rain was steady during the bike with several downpours. Still a bit timid on the bike in those conditions after the crash last year, I rode a conservative bike. I felt very strong throughout the bike but with the conservative attitude on the downhills I was not able to shake some guys completely. Some of the crazy guys would hammer the downhills in the rain only to be crushed on every uphill by me. In dry conditions I am certain I would have dropped them on one of the uphills and just kept pulling away if the roads were dry. I struggled a bit to get into my shoes clipped on the pedals as my foot slipped off the wet shoes a couple of times. I felt very strong on second loop and was starting to feel confident for the run.

Transition 2 - 45 seconds. Now this is what I was looking for in a transition.

Run (3.2 miles) - The run was 95% trail running with only one true hill. I felt incredibly strong heading out of transition. The plan was to just go hard as long as I could and try to hold on. It never came down to any holding on as I felt smooth and strong the entire way. I ran down three people pretty early on in the room. By this time the rain had stopped (figures) but with the cloud cover it felt cool on the run. Even with the fast time, I was hoping there would be some mile markers on the trail to get an accurate measure of how steady the run was.

Overall, I am very pleased with the results of 7th overall and winning my age group. I also accomplished my time goal of breaking 1 hour 30 minutes. While the swim goggle incident cost me some time but that was my own fault, it would have been nice to see how hard I could have really hammered that course if not for the rain. I may get over that fear sometime.

If lucky enough, one more race this season....stay tuned!