Big Creek Tri 28

A quick race report from last weekend...

This being only the second triathlon for me this year (and being only 5 weeks post-Ironman), I had pretty low expectations for this race. My training has been mostly whatever I have felt like doing (or not) on any given day. Plus, I had just come off 4 days of RAGBRAI, which isn't exactly a triathlon-specific training regime.

I wasn't too sure whether the swim would be wet-suit legal or not, so I almost left home without my wetsuit. Thankfully, it dawned on me that I could at least throw it in the truck and use it if, by some miracle, the water temp allowed.

I went off in the fourth wave. It wasn't a particularly physical start, just the usual jostling for position. Still, though, I continued to struggle with getting into a decent rhythm until the halfway point. After that, it was smooth sailing (glad I had a wetsuit, too!) into T1.

Having done a lot of riding over the past few weeks, I wanted to push it a little on the bike to see where I was at. Actually, I decided to treat the ride as a stand-alone bike race, and then hope the run would take care of itself. The new course was great, but early into the race, I realized I had an issue with my left aerobar. At each joint in the road, the impact would cause the bar to loosen and drop to the front. As the race went on, it continued to get worse. After the turnaround, I realized I couldn't get out of aero or the bar would drop dangerously close to my front wheel. The last thing I needed was to endo after having the shifter lever lodge in my spokes! Although coming back into T2 was a little scary given that I could only break with my right and had to stop and dismount with lefty still on the aerobar, I didn't break any bones or sail past the dismount line.

Although there had been a slight chance of rain earlier in the day, by now all the clouds had burned off and we were left with sun, heat, and humidity - kinda like you'd guess Iowa in July might be... I felt strong for about 2 miles, then the wheels came off. It was a suffer-fest to the finish for me, but once I saw the results, I was pleasantly surprised at how the day had turned out.

I finished 5th in my age group and PR'd the swim, the bike, and the overall race! Not great, but overall, I can't complain.

I'm hoping to find at least one more triathlon for the season. Since I haven't done a sprint since the early part of 2006, I'm thinking about the Hickory Grove Triathlon. I'll keep you informed...