Rockford Olympic Race Report

Well, where to begin? Last weekend Wyatt and I loaded our stuff into my truck to head north for the Rockford Triathlon & MECTC/MWCTC Conference Challenge. He was excited because it was his first triathlon, and I was excited to try and improve upon my time for the previous year. Now, let me tell you, road trips with me are fun. Since I don’t have an IPod hook up in my truck, you get to listen to CDs or the radio. I usually download some music and randomly put it on a CD and come up with some weird title for it—this trip wasn’t any different. All we had to do was stop by the gas station and we’d be on our way. Well, we had some minor truck trouble at the gas station to set us back a good 15 minutes…a good start to the trip, right?  Anyway, we were meeting our friends Chad and Matt at the park for packet pickup and a quick workout before dinner. Long story short, we all ended up getting to the park at different times, and doing workouts at different times, but hey, it happens.

The only picture I took the whole weekend.

 As we were getting ready to leave the park at 9:30pm to head to dinner, my truck stated acting up again. Wonderful. But, at that time I didn’t care, I just wanted dinner. I don’t even remember the name of the pizza place Erik took us to, all I know is they had pizza by the slice. Good enough for me. We finally made it to Chad’s house a bit after 10:15—just in time to go to bed and wake up at 4:20. Woohoo.

Now I’ll skip all the other fluff and get to the race.

Swim- 28:18 –I was happy with that. It was an in water start this year, and we had a good 5-10 minutes of wating around out in the water before the gun went off. I found a good set of feet to get on and just rode it out. It was a 2 loop swim, and I am kind of awful at sighting, so I decided to follow….after looking back at the Garmin data, apparently the person I was following couldn’t swim a straight line…but I’m sure I wouldn’t have been any better! Haha.

T1- 1:42 I love this race because it has a long T1. Free seconds!

Bike- 1:09:02 –It had started raining during the swim, and it continued on the bike. I was slightly miserable since I really do not like riding in the rain. With a crash, and being hit by a car in the past year, I seem to play it safe on the bike in less than favorable conditions. The wind and rain made for a cautious, but good effort ride It is a simple out and back. Luckily I rode the course the previous weekend, so I knew the spots to watch out for.

T2- :34 Quick and easy. Shoes were soaked.

Run- 34:58. (I forgot to stop my garmin) We rode the run course yesterday and I quickly remembered why run times are slow here…it’s hilly. They had primes for fastest in each discipline, and I was hoping to win the run prime this year. I had some good miles and some okay miles this year. I don’t think I pushed the uphill sections hard enough. It almost felt like a 10k time trial on a hilly course. I would pass a group of 3-5 and then I might not see anybody again for ¾ mile. I just had to run hard and keep pushing, because I never know what could be going on behind me. This race had a few different waves, and we started in wave 1. I never really know who is ahead or behind me. I believe last year I set the run course record @ 37:09, and this year I ran 34:58, but some dude ran 34:57 for the fastest run split and the $50 check! Dang. He also happens to be a DIII All-American in the 10k, so I didn’t feel so bad when I found that out.

Total- 2:14:42 7^th OA, 5^th Collegiate.

	2012	2013	Difference
Swim	31:34	28:18	-3:16
T1	2:11	1:42	-:29
Bike	1:14:43	1:09:07	-5:36
T2	:58.9	:34	-:25
Run	37:09	34:58	- 2:11
Total	2:26:37	2:14:42	-11:55

So, what can I take away from this?
*My swim still needs a lot of work

*I can bike harder
*I need to stay focused on the run when I’m in a gap

*Transitions are key—13 seconds separated 7-10^th. They all beat me on the swim and bike, but my run saved me, along with quick transitions.

It was nice to race with the NIU team and see a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while. Thanks to Chad for letting us stay at this house Friday night. And I must say, the pulled pork sandwiches and fruit smoothies after the race were a great touch—I only had 4 of each. Then we made a quick stop by McDonalds after the race for some more goodness. Wyatt introduced me to this chocolate chip coffee something or other, and it was pretty good…okay, really good. It can’t possibly be good for me though!

In other news, I took some underwater swim video, and I think I can see why I’m swimming slow. This was taken from my cooldown, but still…