Triple T - Race #1

Friday May 22, 2009

Arrival and Race #1 – Prologue Sprint

250m swim – 5 mile bike – 1 mile run

Aimee and I left the house by 8AM Friday morning. We had my mom and dad’s trailer for camping at the state park where the races would be staged from, in and around. I knew this would be a great weekend because we were having fun driving down hauling this big trailer behind us.

The drive would normally take 4 hours but it took us 5 with the trailer. By the end of the weekend I knew that Aimee would be number one. Each time I tried to make a serious comment she was cracking herself up and responded with some sarcastic remark. Yes, I would be showing her that she is number one all weekend.

My mantra for this race was “Feel It”. Only after I chose this mantra did I realize it was the same at the Factory Riders saying on his blog. I wanted Aimee to remind me to “feel it”. Feel the race. Feel how my body was doing. Find and feel the zone for having a good race.

We arrived at the camp ground and got settled into our spot. I had reserved the spot in January and it was everything I had expected. It was easy to back the trailer in. Plenty of shade. Close to the bathrooms and a short walk to the shower house.

At packet pickup we saw Mark “Big Country” Misencik and his wife Linda. Aimee and Linda would be spending lots of time together watching us through transition. I walked around and made sure I said hi to the other Cleveland triathletes; Tony, Ben, Kaylyn, Mirena and Jodi.

We went back to the campsite and settled in a little more. I cleaned my bike and lubed the chain. I prepared my race gear and we headed to the race site around 4PM for the 5PM start.

At this race they provide a jersey that everyone MUST wear. The Red, White and Blue jersey is actually pretty nice. Seeing them all together was pretty neat, both in transition and on the beach.

The start of the swim is a 2 person send off. Every 5 seconds two people cross the timing mat to start their race. You just can’t do a mass start with over 400 people, it’s not an Ironman and the traffic jam would be crazy.

The swim was a 250m out and back. The lake we were in was shallow and had floating grass and was rather murky. On the way back into the beach the mud being stirred up by the previous swimmers was really gross. Each time I turned my head back into the water I was staring at a dark cloud of dirt. The water was warm enough to skip the wetsuits and the mud was all over the jerseys.

My swim time was 5:11.

T1 was a short run from the beach and onto the 5 mile bike course. In and out of transition in 1:08.

The five mile loop is just a warm-up for the weekend. Part of the course climbs up to the park lodge and cabins. Everyone just geared down and spun up the road. The leaders were starting to zoom down the other side of the road. It was definitely a fast downhill. I took a clue from the previous riders and started undoing my shoe straps on the downhill.

5 mile bike time 11:38

T2….Into transition, rack my bike, on with the shoes and out to the run course. Another uneventful transition. 45 seconds.

The run is a 1 mile out and back. This prologue is just a warm-up for the rest of the weekend. I tried to take it easy. There was no point in wasting too much energy on day one. Despite what I thought was an easy pace I did the one mile in 6:53. I will have to make sure I am much slower than that on the other runs.

Total time for the Prologue Race: 25:35.