Race Report: Oktoberfest Sprint Tri 9/25/11

Weather only goes two ways at this time of year, perfect or snow. Today was a perfect Indian summer day. Great for a race a mere two miles from my house. My “home” lake and run route (bike not so much, it loops through a neighborhood).

Water is perfect with very little breeze. Will make for a fast bike, but a hot run. I put in a 14:46 swim. Definitely MOP, but hey, there’s a lot of CU/CSU college kids out there today. Maybe the hill in the run will slow them down? (It doesn’t).

The bike takes three laps through a residential area and one side a straight shot down a arterial. Dead flat and quick with no wind. A little excitement as I turn off the loop back toward the lake to transition. I come in fast to the 90 degree left, unconcerned, but a marshal is waving his arms and yelling “slow down”. Well, after the corner they have the road divided by a few pylons with police tape between them, and you make the left and stay on the left side of the road back to T2. It was a lot narrower than I thought, given my speed, so I overcook it and go between two pylons. The tape goes across my arms (I’m in the drops) and stretches out and out, finally popping and letting me free and pulling down a few of the pylons. It didn’t really slow me down, since I didn’t hit the brakes once I realized I was just going to go through it. I just sort of look behind me and accelerate. Good thing my wave started near last and all the rider traffic in the other lane was complete.

The run heads out a flat dirt road for a bit, hugging the lake for a half mile, before turning away and heading up a decent sized hill. I run out here all the time so I knew what to expect, but I saw some suffering when that uphill kills your speed. On the back side you get a very mild down hill to the turnaround where you can recover.  Then you can focus on just getting back to the peak of the hill, because at the top you have less than a mile and great momentum to take you in to the finish. Not a fast run, but I always like a race with a nice fast finishing stretch. Just miss the podium for my AG, gotta get that swim down to 14.

1:08:38, 45 OV, 4AG
S: 14:46 (107th)
B: 31:03 (42th)
R: 20:09 (31th)

Race Report: Loveland Sprint Tri 7/23/11

I’d done this race last year, and after my performance at the Peak two weeks earlier, what I was really focused on was getting in a solid, comfortable swim. Last year this was my first OWS in a race, and I got through it 17:31. “Got through it” pretty much summed it up. So I just wanted to ease into it for the start and be consistent the whole way. And it worked out well, coming out in 14:28 and pretty fresh.

The bike was pretty straight forward on a rolling rectangle course. Only passed by one rider in the final mile. Perhaps the only excitement was when I bunny hopped the speed bump in the parking lot into transition, and lost my spare tire kit. I’ve gotten rid of that bag since then!

The out and back run was solid as well. Caught by one runner in the last mile, I then relaxed and sat behind him and we came up on another into the finish. I put in whatever surge I had left and nearly caught him.

The prior year I went 1:12:27 for my second tri ever. I was happy to improve to 1:08:57, nearly all of it coming from the swim. My bike and run times were within seconds.

1:08:57, 11th OV, 2nd AG
S:14:28 (36th)
B:32:55 (14th)
R:19:32 (7th)