Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

River Ranch Triathlon July 25, 2009

This wasn't really a A or B race for the season and actually only signed up for it three weeks ago. It turned out to be a very well run small race right on the San Marcos river in a loted out subdivision (lots and infrastructure but no houses yet). I knew going into this race that if I had a decent performance I could be in the running for an overall win. With the smaller races (~175 people) the fast people don't normally come out which leaves some room to us fast age groupers to shine. The training has been pretty solid lately and the biking has been great after I made some small tweaks to my bike (1.5mm more seat height, 3mm front end drop and a switch from 172.5mm to 170mm cranks.).

I got about 6 hours of sleep and race morning went normally with a almond butter english muffin and a big bowl of organic raisin bran with a banana, strawberries and honey. Packed up and headed to the race site. Picked my packet and chip up and got a big surprise. For whatever reason they assigned me BIB #1. Dang, it is officially on. In reality it was a bit embarrassing and they many comments from races and spectators about having big shoes to fill and living up to #1 didn't help to let me relax.

I warmed up with a 5minute swim in the ski pond and got out just in time for the instructions for the time trial start. Time trial start going by bib #. Which means that I should have gone off first but they placed some guy in front of me who was a "really fast swimmer, you'll be glad he goes first". I didn't care about the fast swimming, but not having to jump in the water first was a relief.

Swim: 400m - 8m28s
The ski pond we were swimming in was around 3-7 feet deep and surprisingly cool/clean for what it appeared to be. It hit the water and went full on gas for 2-3 minutes but the guy in front of me still pulled away and the guy behind me caught up around that time. I pulled in behind him and finished the course with a hard yet reasonable effort. Overall I was top 5 in the swim which is not too shabby [for me :-) ]. I came out of the water behind the #1 and #3 guy.

Bike: 15.7m - 38m52s
267w avg / 271w normalized (37:38 before the incident)
24.7mph

I had a slower transition as I took time to clean my feet off. Since the transition was in the not yet finished community park the ground was mostly packed fill dirt with some green sprigs. I raced out of the transition ahead of the #1 guy which left only #3 to chase down. Man on a mission. I was determined to give it full on gas till I caught (and passed) #3 dude. I caught him about a mile out as he had flatted and looked to be walking back to transition. Bad luck for him. I'm now in first place WITH A LEAD OUT CAR clearing opening the course for me. I settled in and put the hammer down which turned out to be a good strategy as the course was mostly headwind/hilly out with a great tailwind back. I let off the gas a tad on the return tip so I didn't completely trash my legs.

Everything was going great until I get within site of the transition area and open my shoes to get my feet out. About the time I got my left shoe undone my rear tire blows out with a firecracker caliber POP. If you are wondering... Yes I said the F-word and I'm not really sorry. After a lightening assessment of the situation I decided to take my shoes off and run the last 200 yards barefoot while holding the rear wheel of my bike off the ground. I hope these race pictures come out well as I am sure it looked ridiculous.

Fastest overall bike split of the day by ~45 seconds including the impromptu warm up run before the real run.

Run: 3.1miles - 19m55s (6:38 pace)

I knew this was going to be a tough run when I got up at 4:30 that morning. On Thursday I had a fantastic but exhausting 7mile track workout and I still had some DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) race morning.

Anyways, I took a SIU pull and got over it. I'm gonna keep this part short. I ran hard and keep the pace up even though a couple times I knew I could have gotten away with a walk break. The finish line came rather quickly despite the high amount of pain I was feeling.

First finisher, bib #1, fastest time. It was a great feeling to be the big fish in the small pond for a couple hours.

Final Thoughts:
I had four glasses of beer in an hour after the race and didn't get a buzz. Wtf?

I was a little disappointed that when they announced the results and had me come up they didn't have ANY sort of award to give me. They told me to come by the shop and get fitted for the pair or newton running shoes I had won. Nothing to pose for the cameras with, i felt silly just standing there by myself for the photo.

The finish line was great!!! It was in a shaded grove right next to the San Marcos river with a constant breeze the entire time. No hiding under tents in a crowd of sweaty people like most of the other local races.