2007 Tri the Parks - Indian Springs State Park, June 23rd, 2007

Before we begin, I wanted to preview my race report with a little clarification on a definition.

BOMBED: (bombd) 1; v. the past tense of bomb, which is to cause a explosive device to detonate on a specified target. 2; adj. intoxicated by alcohol or drugs. 3; See Murtha's post below...

PRELUDE
Lets begin the night before, where I worked both jobs on Friday, and the manager for the night was nice enough to let me off a bit early. I think I got home somewhere between 10 and 10:30, and by the time I got done packing everything up, I got in bed around midnight. However, I don't think I fell asleep until about 1am. I woke up at 3:30am, took a quick shower, and downed some Gu and Gatorade. Got in the car and over to Jackie's house at around 4:40am. We packed everything up and then stopped back by McDonald's around 5am, and I got a Southern style chicken biscuit and some water.

YOUR DRIVING WHERE???
Flovilla, GA. Yes, about 45-50 minutes south of Atlanta. I have been close to there before cutting down Christmas trees, and I used to go camping at Indian Springs when I was younger with the family. There are some minor annoyances that I have with the race organizers of this "Tri the Parks" series, and I think most of it stems from the fact that they can get cheap venue setups by using the Georgia park system, and it benefits the park because we have to pay to get in the park (not included in race entry fee). I will state, however, that the park officials were "with it" this time (and the fact that we were not late due to freeway construction) and there were three guys moving cars through and taking money as fast as they could

MOUNT TRANSITION (DOOM)
It figures that my tri life is doomed. I don't know if I wrote about it on Thursday's post, but James told me that the best place to have my bike setup in transition is close to the bike exit, so that you run very little with your bike in T1 and T2. Of course my bike was at the very opposite end. I would not put too much emphasis on this, except that it was a parking area on a hill!!! Not a slight incline, but a hill!!! Again please see my aforementioned comment about the agreement between the organizers and the park system for this reasoning. I was at the end of the row, YES!!! extra room for my setup!

"YOU COULD NOT PAY ME TO TOUCH YOUR FEET....... BUT WAIT, THAT'S WHAT YOU GET PAID FOR!"
The only other issue I was worried about pre-race was my feet. For some reason they went to heck the last few days before the race, so I had to tape them up. Funny story, a lady, just before the race began, gave me a concerned look. I said hello, and then she asked me if I was racing with a broken foot. I was not paying attention when she told me that. Jackie then relayed the message to me, and I got a good chuckle out of it.

RACE TIME - SWIM (16:31.31, 24th/27 in AG)
I got in the water and swam about 100yds before the race began, and felt good. Gun went off, and I think I started the first 150M too fast because in the middle of the swim I had to breast stroke for about 50M to catch my breath. Otherwise, my breathing was good (bilateral) and I was breathing every 3 strokes. My sighting was also good, just that I purposely stayed wide of the bouys to avoid any hassles. The funny part was that slowed down once to sight, and I found someone drafting off my feet (i.e. running into me). I thought that funny seeing as how I finished almost last in my AG. I did get through it about 30 seconds faster than last race, but I felt like I did it 2 mins faster. Maybe because I was not swimming as hard as I needed to the last half.

MOUNT T1 (1:06.06 6th/27 in AG)
I had to run up sand and rocky forest area before I got to the top of the parking lot for T1. Forgot to have water up there, so I wiped my feet on the towel for a quick second and then planned what I practiced. Then I had to run my bike down the steep slope with my shoes undone, I was kind of paranoid, but made it out. I forgot to turn my Garmin on before the race began, so the satelittes did not pick up until 1 mile into the race.

BIKE - WHAT I THOUGHT WAS FAST REALLY WAS NOT (39:54.54 19th/ 27 in AG, 19.25mph)
Kind of worn out from the swim, and it took me longer than I needed to get velcro on shoes, since the velcro came out of the loops. Then the first thing I had to do was put up with the largest elevation climb of the ride (which would have normally not been that bad, but it was the first thing after the swim. Big geared it for most of the ride, and thought I did much better than my stats posted, since my Garmin was averaging 22-24mph. I guess I never looked down when I was going up those hills, and that first mile where my Garmin was down I was going pretty slow. I felt confident though, since I only had 4 females pass me this time, where I had probably a dozen catch me last time. Coming into T2, I took off my shoes and pedaled on top of them, and had no problems dismounting.

MOUNT T2 (1:30.30, 23rd/ 27 in AG)
Ok, so you ask, "how in the heck can you go from 6th in your AG to 23rd in your AG on T2?" Well, first off you have to have your rack position at the very top of the hill, such that you have to push your bike to the top. Then you have to have issues with your taped left foot and your running shoe, such that you lose 15 seconds playing with it. That would have put me down to 17th in my AG. I finally got out of there quickly after the tape debacule.

RUN - WHERE I "BOMBED" (30:00.00, 23rd/ 27 in AG, 9:40 min/mi pace)
I definately left the majority of the wad I wantd to blow on the bike portion of the course. Within the first half mile, my right hamstring locked up, and I had to stop for about 15 seconds and stretch it. I walked about 15-20 seconds, and then began jogging small strides. There was a female AG'er that was probably in the top 10 that I tried to stay with for about 100yds, but that was not happening. Hills were worse than John Tanner tri I did earlier this year. I got to about mile 1.5, when I had to walk part way up the hill because of my quads. the around mile 2.25 I had to do the same thing. With about .75 mile to go, my right hammie locked up again, and I walked it off for about 30 seconds, the jogged to the finish.

Total Time: 1:29:02.02, 21st/ 27 in AG

Thoughts... Well I missed my goal by just over 9 minutes. Do I care...? NO! I leared alot from this race, and also how my training has led up to the results of this race. I think the big problem is that I needt to figure how much letting off in one area will have an impact in another area. The problem therein lies that I don't think by letting off (for example) 1-2 min on the bike will significantly impact my run performance in a positive manner. I think I just need to up the volume a bit more OR change my training technique. I also did not taper for the event, as it is more of an event just to do leading up to my big race in the fall.

The biggest thing I have noticed is how I emotionally feel about my performance. I really don't care how I finished, just that I did finish (kinda the reason I got started in this whole tri thing three years ago). Even the fact that this was my slowest finish ever in a Sprint distance event does not seem to bother me.

I did not get to see Renee this weekend, mostly due to me having to cut out of the race as soon as I got finished to go up to Clayton (I did not get home until 1am Sunday morning, after being up for almost 24 hours). She got 7th in her AG! I am so proud of her! Totally kicked my butt by almost 4 minutes!!!

I will try and post pictures Tuesday if I have time, and get some of the other John Tanner pictures up as well.


Murtha...