Richmond Tri Club Sprint Triathlon Race Report

Richmond Tri Club Sprint 4/28/13
56:39
5th Overall/1st Men 30-34
Results

At last race season has arrived.  After the endless winter, it is finally time to strap on the aero gear and get to racing.  This winter was challenging for me.  For most of the winter I dealt with a litany of nagging injuries.  I am glad to report that I have finally turned the corner and gotten a few weeks of consistent training under my belt.  My first race of the season was last Sunday at the Richmond Tri Club Sprint which served as our Club Championship.  I love racing our local sprints because it is a great opportunity to hang with the awesome members of our tri community and it gives me a chance to get some threshold work within the framework of my Ironman training.  I was pretty nervous leading up to this race because of my recent winter of discontent.  Frankly, I have done no speed work and I feel like my training has only recently become consistent.  I didn't know what to expect.  At the end of the day I had a great race and this was the perfect way to build confidence and get the season rolling.

Swim- 5:09
The 400 meter swim in this race was an interesting format.  It was an open water pool swim.  We are fortunate to have a brand new state of the art swim facility in Chesterfield County.  The long course pool was set up for an open water format complete with turn buoys. One of the few benefits of being injured all winter is that I was able to swim a lot.  This has paid dividends and I could tell immediately in the swim.  I was relaxed and smooth the whole way.  I felt better in the water than I have in years.  I kept it long and strong and didn't get too aggressive.  I exited the water right behind the race winner Michael Harlow.

Up close and personal with Mr. Harlow's ass....yikes

Transition 1- 1:07
I say this in every race report for every race distance half ironman and below, but I suck at transitions.  They are laughably slow.  Its almost as though I can hear clown music in my head as I fumble around like bozo the clown.  My transitions feel a little bit like this looks....(ignore the weird sound at the beginning of the video...stick with the whole video, you won't regret it).  One of these days I'll get my act together and not give away a free 30 seconds to the competition.

Bike
30:11, Avg Speed-24.7, Avg Power- 326 Watts
The Race plan per Coach Flanigan was to attack the bike all out and leave nothing for the run.  I rode aggressively but chickened out on the back half of the bike course out of fear of exploding on the run.  I rode the first half very aggressively and felt like I had a strong ride overall.  I was stoked to set a new FTP based off of this 30 minute time trial, but feel I probably could have kept it going a bit more consistently on the back half.  I was near the front of the pack and I tried to keep the lead competitors in my sights.  I successfully stayed within sight of Michael Harlow but my buddy Rob Green annihilated the bike course and put a minute into me.  I am so happy that Rob is riding so well.  Overall I feel very good about my power and bike fitness and I feel like I am in a good position as I enter the big build phase leading to Ironman CDA.  I am also pumped to have the opportunity to do a couple more long rides with Rob before fat camp in a few weeks.  Maybe I can leach some of that bike prowess from him.

Transition 2- :51
Transition 2 was much better and much faster.  Nothing really exciting to report except that I started running the wrong way immediately out of transition.  No big deal and it may have cost me a second at the most.

Run
19:26, 6:11/mile
I am very pleased with my run.  This split was an all time PR for me at the 5K distance.  I have never even run an open 5K this fast.  I was also happy to see that my Garmin clocked this as a legitimate 5K and the course was not short.  This was very exciting given the limitations in my run training over the winter.  I initially thought that I was sucking ass in the first mile because Parker Spencer blew past me like I was going backwards.  I was shocked when the first mile clicked over in 6:10.  I realized that I wasn't sucking, but Parker is just a freak of nature on the run.  My run was consistently strong and I focused on maintaining the same time gaps between the top guys.  I actually felt stronger as the run progressed.  Overall a great day and great result.  This was an awesome start to the season and a super fun and well organized race.  Thanks for reading.