Johan’s TriFest Race Report
June 16, 2007 Hopkins, MI
1500m swim, 40km bike, 10k run
~85 degrees F, moderately high humidity, mostly sunny, low wind

I signed up for this race as a C race to set an early season benchmark for an Olympic distance race. I am just finished a block of hard training so I went into this race with very low expectations. For a pre-race snack, I drank a cup of my infinit recovery mix and half of a cup of green tea. I sipped on some of my regular infinit mix during the 2.25 hour drive.

The race began with a bit of a shock for me because when I arrived, everybody was already there and gathering by the start. I was the last to pick up my number and chip and set up my transition. It wasn’t until I heard the announcer say, “five minutes until start” that I remembered that Michigan is on Eastern Time. Oops! Glad I still made it there about 15 minutes before the start. No warm up for me though. I didn’t even have time to panic. I just walked down to the start with a minute to spare.

The swim was an out and back in a pretty lake. It was a non wetsuit swim and the lake was full of weeds. It didn’t really bother me much, but they sure didn’t taste good and I think I carried some around my arms for most of the swim. I think I started out a bit too quickly for my current state of fatigue because I was fading near the end. Since it was my first open water swim of the season, my navigation could have been better. I definitely ended up swimming a little extra and some people were commenting that the course was a little bit long.
Swim: 26:57 (39/232 Overall, 7/64 women)

Nice and reasonably efficient as usual. I didn’t have time to snap my shoes into my pedals, so I just slipped my shoes on in transition.
T1: 0:40 (29/323 Overall, 5/64 women)

On the bike, I really just felt tired. I pushed as hard as I could, but my legs did not feel like they had their usual zip. I started the bike in 6th place out of the women (passed one in transition), then I passed 4 and got passed by 6 so I was in 8th at the end of the bike. Most of those 6 women that passed me did it in the last 10 miles. I have biked a 1:10 split, and I hope that my hard training will pay off later this summer. The last 5 miles were really hard and I was fading. I drank 2 full bottles of my infinit mix.
Bike 1:15:01 (100/232 Overall, 15/64 women, 19.9mph)

My T2 was awesome. I love T2. Of all the parts of the race, my transitions always rank the highest.
T2: 0:31 (6/232 Overall, 1/64 women)

I was really surprised about my run. I have been expecting a bit of a breakthrough 10k triathlon split because last year, I was running 21-22 min 5k splits and 50-52 min 10k splits, so there is a bit of a discrepancy there and I’ve worked on my run quite a bit. I got off the bike, grabbed my number and visor and just put my head down and concentrated on forefoot strikes with a high cadence. I could see the woman ahead of me. At first, I just thought about letting her go, because in the past I have pretty much never run anyone down. But then I realized that I was catching her so I concentrated on slowly but surely reeling her in. I wanted to pass her, but not go too hard and blow up. Once I passed her, I could see the next woman and got her too. For the entire run, I could see the woman just ahead of me. I ended up running my way into 4th place passing 4 women. I could see the 3rd place woman and finished 18 seconds behind her. I just ran out of ground. I still felt reasonably ok at the end too. I suppose I might have been able to go a little bit harder, but after fading at the end of the swim and bike legs with lots of women right behind me, I was not going to risk blowing up now. I knew that I had run the best that I had ever run and probably sub 50, but I definitely did not expect to PR by over 6 minutes!! I definitely give some credit to my effort on learning the Evolution Running technique. It really did not feel hard to run that fast and I didn’t feel that fast at all. Woohooo! Major running breakthough!
Run: 44:03 (46/232 Overall, 3/64 women, 7:05 pace)

I snacked on my whole wheat bagels with peanut butter and honey while I waited around for the results and awards.

Total time: 2:27:10
44/232 Overall
4/64 Women
1/5 F20-24

I am ecstatic about PRing in a race where I had low expectations. My previous best was a 2:31, but that race had a really short swim course (short by about 3-4 min) and my next best was a 2:40. I’m so happy about getting under the 2:30 mark. I hope that once I am more fully trained and rested that my swim and bike will be up to their usual standards. They were not that bad at all; I could just feel my previous training week a lot. I really hope that I can continue to run like I did yesterday. I have no idea how I ran so fast after feeling so fatigued on the bike. I had no idea how fast I was running during the race because I didn’t wear a watch. I really hope that the training and taper I have planned for myself will work. After that performance, I am really psyched about the rest of the season.

:-D
Very sore hamstrings today.