I was one of the lucky ones. I was online at 11:30pm and was able to get into the MAP race. I cannot believe how popular these races are. This race filled up, 500+ spots, in a few hours. It was my first race after months of training and dieting. I was anxietious to see how I would rank; to see how much I improved over last year when I did a few races for fun.
I drove down to the race the night before with my pal, "Big Mac". I was very organized and brought every piece of triathlon equipment that I owned. I have a triathlon crate that I load my gear into (this is a pretty good idea). When we got to the hotel, I heard a few, ohs and ahs, from the other triathletes when I rolled the brand new Cervelo P3C (My Bike) through the lobby. Although, it made me I little nervous that I might not be bike worthy.
After a big pasta dinner and a decent night sleep, Big mac and I got to the race site set up our transition site and drove the course. "DIESEL TIP" - I highly recommend to all triathletes - "Drive or Bike the course ahead of time". In the transition area, I got a few more comments on the Bike. Particularly snide were the comments "Hey that bike looks new, have your ridden it?". It was OK, I made a mental note of their numbers.
Big Mac went off on the swim 9:30 minutes ahead of me and because he is a better swim he had a at least a 10 minute jump on me on the Bike.... would it last? could I catch him? I love the challenge...
My swim seemed long. I was patient but I must say I was please to get out of the water. I paced myself well on the Bike and slowly brought up the intensity. I think it is important not to ramp up to quickly after a transition, you need to shake of the last segment and build up. If you go anerobic to soon, you will pay all the way home. I had the P3C cranking and was holding to around 23 mph.... not too bad. I passed the guy that commented on the "newest" of my Bike and gave him some encouragement :-) . He acknowledge my effort with a "nice ride"... and I was gone. On mile 11, on the horizon, I spotted "Big Mac" cranking away at 60 rpms in the upright position. As I passed him I tried to offer him motivation by exclaiming "You just got spanked by The Diesel" but by then I think his quads hurts worse then the spanking so he did not step up to the challenge of chasing me home.
I did not preview the run course and it cost me 6th place. It was a weird path along the side of the highway and then a strange short dirt road uphill that was slippery. After that you spiraled into the finish area which was cool because people were cheering for . If I had known the course I would have pushed harder and I would not have lost 6th place by a rounding error. My friend and fellow triathlete, "Margo", was there to greet me. First thing asked was "How did you do?" but before I could answer she asked the real question "Did you beat me?". I love triathletes. It is a place where people with OCD (Over Competitive Disorder) can go and feel at home.Here are the highlights of the results:
I was 70th out of 332 in Overall Men
I was 7th 40-44 Men (a rounding error out of 6th)
I was 27 fastest overall Bike 2:47 out of first.
Here is a link to overall results:
Here is a link to age group results
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