Austin RR - Kill'in It

Austin Tri is one of my favorite races by far. Swimming in town lake, hammering Cesar Chavez/Congress and running the looped course on Riverside is such a great atmosphere. The training in the weeks leading up to the race went great although I battled a little fatigue from the harder workouts. My parents finally made their mind up about down for the weekend which always a treat. I have to give my parents credit, they are very easy going and let me do my pre-race workouts, rituals and keep to a comfortable pattern. Thanks Vicki and Mark!

My goals for this race were to push the bike (in a controlled manner) and then let it hang out on the run. Also I was hoping to take back a large portion of time from the 8 people ahead of me in the Texas Tri Series standings.

Swim:
I picked up a swimskin from Rocket Science Sports as the swim was not wetsuit legal and I need every help I can get in the water. The gun goes off and the water polo begins... well it was actually swimming but in the middle of the pack it feels like a battle. Swishing feet and swinging arms from all degrees. I pulled around a couple guys and got into some open water in the front(ISH) of the pack. The swim felt fantastic, I was in breath the entire time and never felt like I was pushing myself. Since i was in the front of the pack with only a few lime green caps ahead of me I thought we were cruising at a good pace. The reality was that we all were going slow. That fantastic feeling swim was actually because I was noodling along.

Swim: 27:16

Bike:
So, I came out of the water feeling great and thinking I was killing it so far. Time to do some damage with my one and only ace. The bike started off at about 280 watts which was a tad to hot to for the entire leg, but wouldn't hurt me for a couple minutes while I got up to "speed'. On the start of my second lap I caught up to some of the pro/open wavers who were on their 3rd loop. I was in cruise mode - legs hurting a bit but my breathing was relax-o-easy. Passing the other fast guys and pros was BANANNAS. Not much else to say, I killed it without killing myself.


Bike 58:57 (3rd fastest split of the day!)
Avg Speed: 25.2mph
Avg watts: 251w
Normalized Watts: 254

Run:
Being an Olympic distance event the run is 6 miles which means you gotta run hard but you still need to run smart. I'm still working on the smart aspect. Coming into T2 I got a little too excited to see that no other bikes were present which means that I would be the lead out on the run course. This rush resulted in me running sub 6 for the first mile AND forgetting my race number in transition. Technically I could be disqualified for not displaying the race number on the run. Ooops. Anyways, i cooled off the pace around the first mile mark and settled into a steady rhythm concentrating on a quick foot turn over race. I finished with the fastest "10k" split I have ever ran. I put 10k in quotations as I think the course was a bit short which resulted in an inflated pace.

Run: 38:31 (6:13 average pace)

Overall
Finish time: 2:08:37
1st 30-34M
2nd Overall Age grouper
20th Overall

Pros:
I'm riding FAST on modest watts
Run was solid and on the fast side of what I thought was possible
Bike nutrition was spot on, one 300cal bottle worked great
Leading the AG race is fun

Cons:
The whole swim, failed to pick the pace up or swim smart
My run split could have been significantly faster had I paced the first mile better.

I ended up moving myself from 8th to 2nd Overall Standing in the Texas Tri Series and lost 45 seconds to the first place guy. 9m30s to make up at the Longhorn Half Iron, that's a lot of time but its a long race and I've got time to prepare. Game on.