Good News... Bad News (Tri Latta Sprint)

The Good News: After two subpar bike performances. I promised I would take it easy on the swim and hammer the bike. I did. I rode the 17 miles in 43:18, thats 23.55 mph. I have never ridden so fast. I was 2:18 off the leader. I was the 21 fastest bike but I was only 18 seconds out of 14th. I passed hundreds of people. I had the Diesel humming and I handed out a lot "spankings".

The Bad News: My relaxed swim was so slow that I am still trying to figure how I could have swum so slow. I would have gone faster if I breaststroked... seriously. I felt like I was swimming great but at the turn around I saw some purple caps from the clydesdale class that started 3 minutes behind me. I even so some people pass my doing the breast stroke... I can not figure it out. I was taking easy but not that easy. I finshed swim with a 17:23. So much for taking it easy.

The race was fun and in the end I finshed 6th in my age group. I caught Mark Kauffman from the YMCA TRI club during the Bike but he ran me down and finished 5th. It is great to race head to head.

I am headed to the pool. I am going to swim everyday until I figure it out. It is all about pace. If I can figure out how to swim more competitively it will take my game to the next level.

Maybe its my nickname... Diesels are not known for their swimming. Maybe I just need a new handle....

An Emotional Challenge (Woodlake Sprint)

I added woodlake sprint into my schedule because it fit nicely between the siz weeks that seperated white lake and tri latta races. Also, it was not a points race so I figured I could go and just enjoy racing.... but it was a tough race.

The swim was a wetsuit legal 600Y swim. I stayed relax and swam well, freestyle the whole way (no breast stroke). This was the first time I freestyled the whole open water swim. My time was not super (10:50) but it was an improvement. I got out of the water with a few people that usally beat me. Diesel Tip - When you swim in the open water RELAX. If you push to hard, even a little to hard, you will ruin the rest of your swim. There can be a lot of anxiety in the water. RELAX during the swim.

Unfortunately, after the swim things got tough. Maybe I was tired from "really" swimming. But I could not get the bike up to speed. People that I usally beat by minutes on the bike were passing me, the women that I passed in the water were passing me back. It was a tough first 6 miles. Finally the lights came on and I was able to crank it up. I passed most of the people that had passed me but I had lost a lot of ground. I really depend on the bike to put me of front and with the rough start it was not going to be my day. I had an OK run but I did not clock segment splits. I hope the next race goes a little better.

Results: 31/217 overall and 7th in age Group.