Profile Design Miami International Triathlon was my first “real” race of the season – I didn’t exactly have a goal set but did have certain expectations in mind. I thought I’d treat it as a test race to find out how effective my off season training was. I had lots of things to try out including a new swim technique and a new bike.

This event required bikes to be dropped off the day prior – I’m not a fan of this kind of thing but it’s a rule so there’s no wiggle room. So yesterday I went to drop off my bike, it took quite a bit of time to pick up the packet since the place was crowded! When I walked into the transition area I realized how huge the race was going to be. If transition areas from all the triathlons I’ve done before were merged together they probably wouldn’t fill this transition area. This is the season opener for a pretty large number of pro, elite and serious amateur triathletes so there weren’t many road bikes at all – all you saw were top of the line TT race machines with disk wheels. The space was tight! It was hard to wiggle a bike onto the rack, I decided not to think about how I was going to yank it out of the pile of other bikes in T1.

I also stopped by the Profile Design booth and as I was admiring the new Fuji TT bike I ran into Matty Reed. The dude is insanely tall and skinnier than a toothpick. Seriously his stride is at least double that of mine, seems almost unfair!

The race morning went without a hitch! I arrived 45 minutes before the transition was about to close yet had plenty of time to set everything up, stretch and go for a warm-up swim. A guy whose spot on the rack was next to mine didn’t show up so I gained enough space to get my bike positioned carefully. Whoever you are, thank you for not showing up!

My age group (30-34) got the last wave so we had to chill on the beach for over 20 minutes – a bit too long for being anxious as hell! I had nothing better to do than stretch. Finally they herded us in, the gun went off and the next 30 seconds or so were a blur. I rarely try to go out strong from the get-go and it wasn’t my plan for this race either. I took the advantage of very calm water (and amazing 74 degree water temperature) and quickly got set into a very comfortable Total Immersion pace. By the time I reached the first (out of 3) buoy it was me and a couple guys from my group swimming among caps of all colors. We continued to pass people from previous waves. I am not yet at the point where total immersion is a natural thing so I had to focus pretty hard on all of the movements, as soon as my mind would start wondering I’d fall out of the “zone.” Nevertheless, this is the first race where I felt very comfortable with my pace and I was actually swimming fast!

As I was running out the water I stepped onto something pretty darn sharp. I felt it happen yet I thought it was just a scratch. As I raced to the transition I felt fresh! None of that weak in the knees feeling, just fresh! I got on my bike and off I was. The bike portion of the race takes place on Rickenbacker causeway, which has two nice bridges on it. My P3C was not as nimble going up those bridges as my road bike. It has to be the geometry – I tried getting up on the pedals and didn’t feel as if I was going any faster so I settled back in the aerobars. Rolling down the second bridge I took advantage of the downhill and cranked to 49 mph, talk about a rush! Then came the scary part – as soon as the downhill is over there’s a U-turn. Stopping a bike with Zipp 808’s is almost like stopping a truck, there’s just too much momentum. For a split second I actually prepared myself for a crash but somehow managed to avoid it, I overshot the U-turn but quickly turned around and back up the bridge I went. Once the bridges were over I settled into my comfy pace which ended up being 26 mph, occasionally sprinting to 28-30 mph. So two laps of that, painfully slow bridges and amazingly fast straights. All I have to say is I love my P3C! As ridiculously expensive as it is, it’s worth every penny.

Once I got to T2 I realized I might be in trouble. That slushy stuff that I felt in my bike shoe was my blood. It wasn’t really bleeding all that bad so I decided to do the run. I took the first mile pretty easy at around 9:00/mile. Once I started working up to my usual pace of 7:40/mile the slushy feeling in the left foot appeared again. It didn’t hurt so I kept going. Somewhere between mile 2 and 3 the trail went from nice flat pavement to a wooded path with roots, rocks and dirt. I wasn’t quite expecting it. That’s when my foot started to hurt. It seemed as if with every stride I’d end up stepping on a root or a rock and my super soft Newton trainers weren’t providing much support. I had to pull over and find out what exactly was going on with my foot – it was bleeding allright. I decided to finish anyway but scaled back my pace to somewhere between 9:00-10:00 mile. It was quite painful watching other runners pass me.

I learned quite a bit about myself during this race. First of all, my swimming training is paying off big time. Whatever I am doing is working - I could almost feel that "perfect stroke" most of the way through the swim. I could have pushed myself so much harder on the bike. I am so used to 60-80 mile rides with my cycling team that I completely ignored the fact that this was a 25 mile sprint. Thorough the majority of the ride I maintained my long ride HR and pace. I didn't "burn any matches" on the bike at all, when I was approaching the bike leg finish I hit me pretty hard: "Whoa, this is it?" Run... well that's something I need to work on!

Results:

Swim: 25:08
T1: 2:41
Bike: 1:09:09
T2: 1:34
Run: 54:16
Total: 2:32:46

Placed 22 out of 91 in my age group (30-34).

Here’s a shot of me after the race.