March 30, 2013-Red Hills Sprint-Tallahassee, Florida
This was the first race for the Gulf Coast Tri Team. I'm proud to be a member of the team which has the top age group athletes from along the Gulf Coast. Specifically, the team has members from Gulfport, Mississippi to Pensacola, Florida. The team had a great day taking 5 of the top 12 spots, first in grandmasters and numerous age group podium spots. So much fun to race with such a great group of fast athletes. www.gulfcoasttriteam.com
My race was kind of a mixed bag. It was a cold morning with air temperatures in the low 40's and water temperature somewhere in the mid 60's.
Swim: 9:46 for 580 yards (1:41/100 yards). 4/22 AG and 41/264 Overall. Nothing special here. Lost a few seconds when I had a moment of panic after swallowing some lake weeds about 200 yards in. Took a few breast strokes to get everything under control and then got back at it.
T1: 2:04 This was bad. My wetsuit got stuck on my ankle and I decided to put on a long sleeve zip up jersey due to the cold temps. I gave up over a minute to the top finisher in my age group here. Nothing went right!
Bike: 43:51 for 16 miles. (21.89mph) 2/22 AG and 24/264 Overall. I had not had the chance to scout the course due to arriving in Tallahassee about 1:00am. Took off and was moving well until I dropped my chain at the bottom of the first hill. Stopped and put it back on but I had lost any momentum heading up the hill. Looking back at my powertap data I lost 40-50 seconds fixing the chain. The rest of the bike was uneventful. Fairly hilly course and I never felt great on the bike. Average power was 233 watts and Normalised power was 242. Speed was slow for that power...probably in part due to down time with chain.
T2: 1:12 Still bad. Gave up another 20 seconds to the age group winner.
Run: 20:47 for 5k (6:42/mile pace) 2/22 AG and 24/264 OA. The only bright spot from the race. My run was the unknown heading into the season since I had missed about two months of running due to a calf strain. Nice course with first and last mile on pavement and the middle mile a mix of dirt, gravel and grass trails.
Finish: 1:17:37 2nd in AG and 27/264 Overall. Came in second in the age group by about 30 seconds. Looking back I feel that I gave up about 2 minutes to the course between bad transitions and the dropped chain.
I knew I would not be in peak form heading into this race since I was racing IM TX 70.3 in Galveston the following weekend. The race did boost my run confidence a bit and given the lack of taper I feel it was a mediocre result. I would rate my race as maybe 4-5/10. It was a great venue and challenging bike and run course. Great to get the first race of the year in and shakeout some of the cobwebs. On to Galveston!
Full race report can be found here: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=482875
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