Setup Events is an awesome company and as a result of the professional turn around guys screw up they took $25 bucks off my entry into Greenwood and comped my registration for next year's "Try Charleston Sprint Triathlon" wicked cool. Setup is all over the east coast and their different series allow you the opportunity to see where you stack up in your age group. Long story short, I was stoked for Greewood and ready to rock as I thoroughly enjoyed the course from last year. This year however it was a point to point race therefore the bike course and run were completely different. I like finishing in a different spot than the starting point, but man it's a wicked hassel with the set up in the morning. The great part about triathlon is that you can typically pick up your packet on race day early in the morning verses being there the night before. For this event next year, I'll certainly make sure to set the bike and everything up in advance. Whole number pick up and drop offs had to take upwards to an hour and half on race morning.
Not too much to write about regarding race, but that it was pretty straight forward and executed to my expectations. This brings up a few good points...
- UNDERSTAND your expectations on race morning (or life events for that matter) When I say understand I mean make sure they're appropriate and lead to you gaining more confidence. Often we're never happy with what we put in front of us, but a lot of time its our own damn fault.
- THINK about the worst scenarios first and then right before the race think about the best experiences. I do this because it helps me with point number one. If I think about the worst thing that can happen first then I am able to stay humble and it helps me understand that everything will be okay no matter what happens. Dial in on the best experience possible though. This is the only time I would tell you to get "cocky confident." Keep it in your head of course.
- ACKNOWLEDGE how awesome it is to just be out there. I swear I was crushing the run course this past weekend and that's all I could think about. It was like "I get to compete in triathlon just about every other weekend, how incredible is that?" We're given so many opportunities in life that sometimes we forget about being grateful or just thinking on it some. Probably the biggest acknowledgment of all was that girlfriend was there to root me on and for the first time in my young triathlon career I had a girl there for no other reason, but to support me.
Take this from my blog today, "When you understand your expectations and think about the worst and best case experiences then you'll acknowledge how really frigging lucky you're to be on this planet setting goals with the opportunity to potentially achieve them."
Race: Greenwood Triathlon (Greenwood, SC) Date: Sunday June 9th 2013
Place: 2nd Age Group 25 - 29 15th Overall
Distance: 1500m/24mile/10K
Time: 2:17:38
Swim: 28:35
Bike: 1:09:01
Run: 38:37
4th best run split
Best Highlight - dropping the hammer with 200m to go to finish 15th overall ... Check it out!
Worst Highlight - losing another pair of goggles. This always happens to me in point to point races. At Try Charleston it was a wetsuit and shoes. Learning from that experience this race I truly took the time to make sure the goggles were in the transition bag - lame that they were still lost. Thankfully enough, my amazing girlfriend bought me a new pair :))
Okay let's break it down, Swim was smooth finding my rythmn early on and got plenty of space after the first 100m. For about the first 400m, I was able to draft pretty well with another dude until he scooted away. What's important about the swim is that you find a groove. The more relaxed you can stay out of the gates and throughout the less inefficiencies you'll have. It's also important to swim all the way until you get to the exit. Literally until your scrapping sand from the bottom of the water. The Swim was the only section of the course that was the same as last year. I shaved about 90seconds off my split from 2012 so no complaints!
Now onto the Bike course I felt pretty good. I didn't taper for this race due to the fact that I race quite often more to use them as "workouts" for the A Race event meaning Muncie and Cozumel this year. It's important that you pick these race in advance. Not only for the fact that it's motivating, but then you can plan out the tune up races to get some baselines and real time experience. Anyways, I kept a solid cadence on the bike averaging around 22mph. There were a lot more hills than last year and one road in particular that was mad bumpy. I always seem to worry about getting a flat. Pretty much a game changer for any race if it is to happen. This race I was testing Ensure and that was all I fueled with along with water and nuun on the run. Everything sat pretty well nutritional with the temps the way they were the only thing I would have done differently was have some salt tabs on hand to help with the cramping.
The run course was shaded and super fast. No hills, but a gradual incline on the way back. As usual, I got excited getting off the bike and hit a 6:10 split on the 1st mile. Obviously had to be smarter on the pacing so I dialed it back into the 6:20 range and I was able to hold sub 6:35 pace for the entire 10K. Couldn't of asked for a better split as it improved from last year. The kick at the end was the best.
If I want to do ONE thing every race it's to simply to finish strong.
In my next post, I'll announce my race schedule for 2013. We've got some awesome plans for the team and are looking to make our mark in the Southeast!!
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