Emerald Isle Duathlon (supposed to be tri!)
The Emerald Isle Triathlon has become my season ending sprint triathlon. It's qualities include a fun crowd, good organization, low key (no affiliation with NCTS), and a GREAT open ocean swim. Its an awesome, fun race.
Well, "dangerous surf conditions" resulted in cancellation of this year's swim portion. Personally, I think it was just too dangerous for newbies. But that's my new swim confidence talking. At any rate they decided to turn it into a 5K run first then the 20K bike. Sounded kind of lame but ended up playing right into my strength.
They only had three waves and mine started first. I decided I would try to put in a really solid 5K since I hadn't timed myself at that distance in years. Then I'd just hang on during the bike. If I got frustrated I'd say "well, its not really a true race anyway" and just have fun. So I thought.
As the starting horn went off I began a reasonable pace near the front then watched about 20 runners get out ahead of me. Suddenly the competitive robot in me kicked in. I began to hammer my way through the crowd passing one after another. By the end of the run I'd be in second place going into transition with an 18:02 5K. Pretty solid for me.
But then came the bike. I had an OK transition and was off on the flat course into the wind on the first half. Still in 2nd place and cranking about 21mph I thought I had a chance at a really good race. Then about mile 2 I was passed. And again about mile 5, twice. And again about half way. I kept the pressure on the pedals and by the time we were hammering along with the wind at 24mph about 3/4 into the bike I could see nobody behind me for 200 yards and I was sitting in 5th place heading towards the finish.
Coming across the finish mat I was pretty fired up with my "its not really a race" finish. I definitely tried very hard (maxed out my heart rate and did 100% of the race in the blow up zone). I ended up 1st in my age group and 6th overall since some guy (who was 50!) in a later age group beat my time as well at the 4 who passed me on the bike.
My results were good enough for 1st in my age group as well. I still wish we swam into the surf, however. Then there would have been no single digit placement story for me.
Well, "dangerous surf conditions" resulted in cancellation of this year's swim portion. Personally, I think it was just too dangerous for newbies. But that's my new swim confidence talking. At any rate they decided to turn it into a 5K run first then the 20K bike. Sounded kind of lame but ended up playing right into my strength.
They only had three waves and mine started first. I decided I would try to put in a really solid 5K since I hadn't timed myself at that distance in years. Then I'd just hang on during the bike. If I got frustrated I'd say "well, its not really a true race anyway" and just have fun. So I thought.
As the starting horn went off I began a reasonable pace near the front then watched about 20 runners get out ahead of me. Suddenly the competitive robot in me kicked in. I began to hammer my way through the crowd passing one after another. By the end of the run I'd be in second place going into transition with an 18:02 5K. Pretty solid for me.
But then came the bike. I had an OK transition and was off on the flat course into the wind on the first half. Still in 2nd place and cranking about 21mph I thought I had a chance at a really good race. Then about mile 2 I was passed. And again about mile 5, twice. And again about half way. I kept the pressure on the pedals and by the time we were hammering along with the wind at 24mph about 3/4 into the bike I could see nobody behind me for 200 yards and I was sitting in 5th place heading towards the finish.
Coming across the finish mat I was pretty fired up with my "its not really a race" finish. I definitely tried very hard (maxed out my heart rate and did 100% of the race in the blow up zone). I ended up 1st in my age group and 6th overall since some guy (who was 50!) in a later age group beat my time as well at the 4 who passed me on the bike.
My results were good enough for 1st in my age group as well. I still wish we swam into the surf, however. Then there would have been no single digit placement story for me.
posted by Lucky at 6:12 AM
1 Comments:
Congrats! Podium action! You are a stud with an 18 minute 5k! Wow ... Hope things are well with the fam.
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