5:15 am came early on race day morning.
The night before, Anna and I had gone out with friends until after eleven. I was fairly responsible and only had 3-4 beers over the course of the evening and mixed in some water. After going over my transition bag and getting the kids resettled in bed for the night, it was well after midnight by the time my head hit the pillow. Not necessarily the best pre-race night, but it was only a sprint race, so what was there to worry about.
It was a normal race morning with part of a Cliff Bar, some banana baby food for breakfast, and couple trips to bathroom. Picked up PK on time and was off to the race, which was just a couple towns over. I snuck a peak at the lake before I left for the race and it was like glass. I was still a little tired and my stomach was a little upset.
We got to the race about 7:05 and the parking was packed already, considering registration and transition opened at 7:00. We ended up parking at the back, made our way over to transition, and got decent spots on the racks. I had a fairly easy time getting registered and body-marked for the race.
Looking at my watch, I could tell I was running slightly behind. It was a little bit after 7:30 and I was just setting up transition. While getting set up, I changed routine and decided to eat a gel about fifteen minutes before the start. I think this may have been a mistake.
We got down to the water about 5 minutes before the race (not ideal), but we were able to get in the lake and swim a few strokes before the start of the race.
When this race was originally set up, the 35-39 age group was going out on its own. But on race day, the age groups were combined and everyone 39 and under was in the first wave off the beach. On this small course, this was way too many people.
The plan was to sprint to the first buoy, get ahead of the pack and have a relatively clear swim down the backstretch. Unfortunately, I did not commit as much as I should have and I got pinched in the first turn; then pushed into a break wall. I swam most of the backstretch dodging sunken boulders and wondering, as always, why the hell I was doing this to myself. Much to my surprise, I came out of the water number one for my age group, even though the swim felt less than impressive.
However, as I exited the water I realized I had a problem. The zipper on my wetsuit was stuck and I could not get it unstuck as I ran to transition. Officially, I was now panicking a little – yanking and grabbing at my neck. I was finally able to free the zipper, but I had lost decent amount of time. During this zipper fiasco, I watched a number of guys run out of transition ahead of me.
(I am in the guy in center struggling with his wetsuit)
On the bike, I was feeling some burn in my legs and I strangely had some cotton mouth. Maybe from the gel?...I don’t know. The whole bike/cotton mouth continually returned, except for about the last 3 miles. I had a solid bike – able to maintain a 23.5 mph average through the course and the one climb was strong. There were some good bikers on course ahead of me, but I felt like I was improving my position. Coming into T2 there weren’t many bikes racked yet, which gave me a boost. I came off the bike in 4th place for my age group.
I threw on my racing flats and I was out of T2. The run felt good and so did my Achilles. It took me a while to catch my breath out of T2, and my legs were a little tired as it was my third straight day of running. Overall, I ran a good pace at 6:58/miles and was able to run a solid course.
After it was all said done, I finished in 1:09, which was good enough for 4th in the age group and 15th/200(approx) overall.
It was a little disappointing that I came out of the water in 1st and virtually lost 3 spots in transition. But it was good to get out and race and push my legs a bit.
Editor’s Note: Team MoZo did not represent at this race. Instead (at about the time Scott was finishing the race) we were at the bakery, buying donuts in our pajamas. Morgan’s first question when he got home…“Did you get a medal?”…because we are all about setting high expectations. None of this “participation” crap.
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