As you can see another decent gap in the updates, mostly due to the summertime craziness of kids, training, and mini vacations all rolled together. I have done two triathlons and one 10K since the last update and two of the three went pretty well.
First up is the West Point Olympic Triathlon that was June 13th. I wanted a mid-season race so this filled the bill. Great setting and production from one of the local RD’s in the area, but the day was made tough by the crazy heat and humidity. Lake temp was announced at 89 degrees before the swim, so it was like bath water. I had a good 1.5k swim going until the very end where I started having hamstring cramps in the water. This is the first time I have ever cramped up on a swim, so I had to stop and roll over to stretch out. Came out of the water in 27:45 even with the delay and had a decent 40K bike split of 1:14:26. Then it got tough. The run on this course is an out and back 10K with miles 3 – 5 running across the dam for Lake West Point, turning around and back across it. At this point in time the temp had crawled up into the mid 90’s and this three mile section was totally exposed, with no breeze and very high humidity. I have never seen as many walkers in a run portion of a race in my life. With only 343 finishers, this race brings in mostly decent athletes and everyone struggled with this run. My 10K time came in at 1:03:55, and I was just glad to get finished. Total time was 2:49:09, with an average race time across the field of 2:51:28. So needless to say it was a slow race. This one was a lesson in adapting goals and surviving. I wanted to break 2:30 and had to adjust to 2:35 on the bike, then just worry about finishing once the run started.
The Peachtree Road Race was up next as the annual July 4th 10K race here in Atlanta, and with a good seed we were able to start right up front with the Kenyans. My goal coming in was to break 48, and I would have been happy with a sub 47 min time. I came in at 46:59 to set another 10K PR for me with a 7:33 min/mile pace. Felt good most of the way, had to kick in at the end with the hills but a very solid performance for me. Now if I can only pull one of these off at the end of a triathlon.
This weekend was the third time for me at the Mountain Lakes Triathlon in Guntersville Alabama. This was the first race I did back in 2007 and is a great track. Along with my wife who had her first race in June at IronGirl Atlanta, we had a total of 8 people from our neighborhood over for this race. 4 of them had never done a triathlon, 3 others only had one under their belt so it was a great time for the rookies as well. Had a solid swim, a 22mph bike, and a 7:50 split for the 3 mile run, so it was a good race for me at 1:18:46. This was good for 20th in my AG and somewhere around 112 of 555 men, so I keep moving up a bit in the groups. Last year this would have gotten me to a top 10 in the AG, but it looks like there were some fast racers there this year. Still stayed in the top 20% of the race overall, and beat my goal time of 1:19:00 so I cannot complain.
This week starts the 6 week countdown to Augusta 70.3, so peak period begins. Ill update with some training info later.
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