Race Result

Racer:	Mike Tine
Race:	Luray International Triathlon
Date:	Saturday, August 18, 2012
Location:	Luray, VA
Race Type:	Triathlon - International Distance
Age Group:	Male 40 - 44
Time:	2:46:54
Overall Place:	145 / 595
Age Group Place:	23 / 82
Comment:	Wow, I need to train more on hills!

Race Report:

Swim: 24:21 (22/595, 1/82)
T1: 2:06 (109/595, 17/82)
Bike: 1:19:13 (89/595, 22/82)
T2: 1:05 (65/595, 8/82)
Run: 1:00:10 (377/595, 65/82)

As can be seen from the above splits, I had a GREAT swim, a decent bike, and a horrible run. The swim surprised me, the bike was somewhat expected, and the run was a huge disappointment although should have been expected.

We stayed at a new "RATS Lodge" this year, and it looks to be the winner for future years. It was very comfortable, and setting up my gear for the next day was easy. In order to let Karen sleep, I decided to ride my bike to the start in the morning (with a ~mile run over gravel to start). This was my first mistake. The 7 miles, although reasonably flat, just put me in a deficit that hurt later. This may be an okay option if/when I'm in better shape going into the race.

Arriving at the site, it was super easy to get my chip and set up a super easy transition. It was fun to see a US Air Force, Dan "Frosty" Frost-coached athlete on my rack who recognized the RATS suit. Turns out he came in 2nd overall.

Unfortunately, the officials deemed this a wetsuit-legal race. As a swimmer, I gain far more on the field in a non-wetsuit race, but so be it. There is NO WAY THAT WATER WAS UNDER 78 DEGREES. The majority of the swim was likely in the mid-80's. Still, I usually never overheat even in a full wetsuit, and it would give me enough speed to offset the time needed to take it off, so on goes the wetsuit.

I make my way down to the lake - I love the new treads on the stairs! - and hop in the very warm water to "warm up". 2-3 minutes was all I needed, and I was ready to go.

At the start of the race, I took off as usual, breathing every five strokes to start then gradually working down to my 3-2 alternating breath strategy. I swam very straight as usual, so had to look up only infrequently. About 100-200 yards into the race, I notice that I'm in or near the lead. Hmmm, no way can this hold up since I'd only swum 1-2x (and not in a hard, coached practice) in the past month. Apparently it did as I exited the water first in my wave...by 15 seconds! And with 3rd 2 minutes behind that! Crazy. That said, I got out of the water breathing much harder than usual, some attributed to the water temperature and some to being overly zealous in my speed.

Uneventful jog up to T1, stripping of wetsuit, donning of new aero helmet and shoes, and off I go.

Drat, somehow my chain slipped off my front ring! Moving very slowly, it takes me a good 10 seconds to pedal the chain back on, but then off I go. I'm still breathing VERY heavily, more so than usual, and my heartrate is sky high. So I back off a bit on the hill out of transition and settle into a rhythm. I'm moving fairly well, though, and once the breathing gets under control I start making headway. The hotshot cyclists go by me, but not crazily faster than me. That said, the uphills are hurting more than usual since ALL of my bike training was on the dead-flat roads of southern DE. Towards the end of the bike, while I'm still making seemingly decent headway on the field, my quads start acting up. Uh oh, this could bode badly for the run. Oh well, keep pushing and hope all goes well.

Uneventful and very speedy T2, and off I go on the run.

Uh oh, quads are threatening to cramp! Try to jog it off and just go one step at a time. Nope, 1/2 mile in I've got to start walking. Between cramping quads, excessively heavy breathing, and just my mind throwing in the towel, I walked A LOT on the run portion as evidenced by my 1-hour "run".

Oh well, I finished and within the top 1/3 of my AG. Not great, and very disappointing, but should have been expected given my relative lack of training and pushing it too hard in the swim/bike. Next year...