Kinetic Race Report

I'm a little behind on race reports....

 

I was using this race as a great way for training. We (M and I) drove down to my cousin's house who lives in the area the night before. It was nice to sleep in till 5 instead of driving down the 90 miles the day of. We left her house at 5:30 and were at Lake Anna by 6am. I guess we should have given ourselves a little more time because we were in transition setting up until it about closed. We also found out that Setup Events had a little snag with there timing chips and "lost" everyone's timing chips who's bib was higher than 400. So yeah raced without a timing chip. Not really a big deal, but not really sure how they got accurate swim times.

 

Swim: 1.2 miles - 43:39 (swim + T1 time)

We were in the last wave that went off at 7:20. The water was about 68 I think so I wore a sleeveless wet suit. As soon as our wave went off I panicked. I seriously am getting sick of panicking in the water. I have done this enough. This should not be happening, but it was. After about 100 I stopped and treated water for a little to bring my heart rate back down and relax. I don't know why this is happening? I really flustered with my open water swimming and these stupid panic attacks at the start of the swim. At any rate I continued to swim and felt fine. I even was sighting ok since it was over cast. I thought I felt fast (for me) in the water but as I ran out on the beach and looked down at my watch I saw 40 minutes. WTF. 40 minutes. This is 4 minutes slower than my 70.3 swim on the same course last year. How could I have swam 4 minutes slower? I only treated water for maybe 10 seconds. I was very flustered and mad as I made my way into T1

 

T1: Nothing special here. I decided to put on cycling gloves because it was raining when I got out of the water and didn't know if it would continue to rain during the bike. I just feel more comfy with gloves on if it's raining. Once I got to the bike mount line I realized my shoes were completely lose and had to re-tighten my dails. I guess I was out of it.

 

Bike: 56 miles - 2:55:24

Like I said it was lightly raining as I started the bike leg but it wasn't too bad. My heart rate was pretty high and took it took awhile to calm down. My big issue for the first 20 miles was my hip flexor. It was killing me. I wanted to cry it hurt that bad. But I didn't want to slow down and I wanted to try my best so I kept pedaling. Eventually it felt a little better around mile 25. I told myself over and over drink my drink, eat my snacks, I hope M made it out of the water. This is actually the only thing that went through my mind on the ride. No songs, no talking to myself. Just this same phrase over and over again. The course this year was a single loop instead of two loops. I liked to course. It's a fast course with some rolling hills for the first half then it picked up the old course around mile 30ish or so. My goal was around a 2:50 - 2:55ish. I was on target but we really hit some nasty head winds around mile 30 - 45 or so. Ugh. Wind. Why is it always windy? Oh well, kept pedaling. I was pretty happy when we turned back into the park and I knew I was done for the day. No running 13 miles for the win. Although I felt like I could have ran. My legs and stomach felt great.

 

Overall Time: 3:39:03

 

Brick: 2 miles

M and I finished within a couple minutes of each other and did a short brick along some of the run course.

It was a good day and lots of fun. Also so proud of M for finishing his first 1.2 mile swim! I think we are both ready for Raleigh. 2 more weeks! woot!

 

Happy Monday All :)