Rookie moves conducted:
-Swam 5 yards past the turn around buoy
-Fell over and onto my bike while conducting a flying mount
The Rookie is always a fun one. It is short, fast and usually populated with plenty of local talent. I have been concentrating on aerobic fitness this year in preparation for IMCDA in June so there was a bit of apprehension going into this race regarding my ability to redline. ESPECIALLY on the run. My running has been super solid with most of the weeks being 45+ miles BUT not a single one of these miles has been faster than 7:15 pace. Eek!
Prep: Saturday I logged my trademark 4hour trainer ride in the garage and set a new best mark averaging 213watts and expending 3050kj of work. The legs were pretty sauced all afternoon but I know from previous experience my Sunday workouts won't be much affected. Sunday morning was a bit cool and there were some serious patches of rain encountered on the drive down to the Texas Ski Ranch. Turned out that the rain was a non-factor and the chill was manageable.
300m Swim: 6:28
I slotted myself in the back so I wouldn't get swum over during my flail session around the buoys. This worked out well and overall the swim was decent considering my complete lack of swim fitness. The only mistake was taking too long between sightings and swimming clean past the turn around buoy. Things are bad enough with my swim without me tacking on extra yards.
T1: Running from the swim exit to the bike was fast and I ended up stepping on a rock with my left foot (more on this later). This transition took a tad longer than normal as I had to check my foot cause it was hurting a bit AND I nearly took my ear off pulling my tightass aero helmet down. Unracking my bike I run it out of transition, onto the roadway and past the mount line. Usually this is not problem as I am pretty awesome at doing a flying mount onto the bike. This time I tried it from the left side with my right foot onto the left pedal... quite literally exactly opposite from any way I have ever done it before. The outcome was my falling onto my bike and then my bike and me falling onto the pavement. Utterly embarrassing. I hopped up quickly, taking some time to readjust my aerobars with a mightily tug, and slowly mounted my bike with we were both at velocity = 0mph. This outcome resulted in a properly mounted bike and I was on my way. Here is the fun thing... I can tell you exactly how much time it took me to fall and get back on my bike. 14 seconds. The power meter recorded all this in glorious detail.
11.2mi Bike: 28:43
I took the first several minutes of the bike "EZ" as I was a bit shaken up from falling. My hand also got cut a bit which resulted in lots of blood. Getting passed by three doods really got me fired up and I laid into the pedals. I passed each one of them back and never saw them again. The bike went great and in fact by the time we were a mile from the finish I felt warmed up and really ready to go. The watts flowed well and I made up a lot of time.
Power: Taken from the business part of the file 27:45
277watts average: 279watts normalized @ 0.96IF
87RPM average
24.4mph
2mile Run: 12:01
I was feeling pretty solid coming on the bike and I slipped my new most favorite shoes (Nike Lunaracer 2) on and set out. Coming out of transition I was by myself. Once I got onto the out/back portion of the run I was able to spot a couple people ahead which gave me a little incentive to crank the pace. I could tell I was closing the gap steadily between these two runners to the turn around. The turnaround during a run is both a blessing and a curse. This time it was a blessing, I was able to see that there was no danger of anyone sniping me from the back and I was also less than 10 seconds back from the two runners. It ended up taking me the entire "back" section of the run to close gap and get into striking distance to launch an attack on the finish line. Once we turned back into the Ski Ranch ground from the roadway there was about 1/3mile left to the finish line and I was maybe 4 seconds back. I put in a hard surge close that final gap and relaxed to wait for the right time to throw a finishing sprint. Natasha forced the issues with a push past Billy and I had no choice to go with her. I came past Billy and threw down my sprint. I caught and passed Natasha with about 200 yards to go and ended up putting about 4 seconds into her at the finish. Overall I was very happy with my "speed" and I posted a faster time than last year.
**As it turned out, I got a bad stone bruise on my foot along with a moderately deep cut. Might be Wednesday before I can ride/run again.
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