Heart & Sole Triathlon

I competed in my first triathlon of the year on Saturday in Versailles, KY. This was my third time competing in this race, but my first since 2006. I was excited to wear my new Kiwami suit, try out my CycleOps Powertap in the race since I decided not to put the Zipp's on for this race, and to simply race for the first time this year.

The race was a 400 yard swim, 15 mile bike, and a 5k run on a cross country course which was 95% grass. Luckily, Eric had emailed the race director to inform him I was an "elite" so the race director seeded me first in the water (time trial start in a pool). I swam the 400 in about 4:20 ish and was headed out on the bike. It was a beutiful day. At the beginning of the race, it was probably mid to high 50's and sunny. The bike course was a lot more rolling than I remember it and I haven't been doing many hills on the bike, so that hurt a little. After really working hard out on the bike, I came into T2 ready for the run. I had averaged just over 300 watts for the 15 mile bike course. I was around 310 watts going into the last 3 miles, but I made a turn and had a tail wind for the final 3 miles of the bike so my average wattage went down. Not that I'm complaining, I would rather have a tail wind, ha. I took off on the run feeling great. This run course is known as one of the toughest XC courses in the state of KY. There are all kinds of crazy hills on it, so it isn't really a great predictor for St. Anthony's next weekend, but it was still a race pace effort which is always good before a big race. There were no mile markers so I was running on "feel." I crossed the finish line in 58:58. My run time was 17:08. I was hoping to be under 17 but I forgot how hard that run course was. I won the race with my good friend Jeff Buhr finishing right behind me. Mideast Multisport related athletes really cleaned up at this race. We took 6 of the top 7 spots overall. Myself in first, Jeff in second, Sean McNulty in 4th, one of Beth's athletes in 5th, Eric in 6th, and my brother Ben in 7th. Not to mention, Beth won the women's race, so we did really well overall. The results can be found here:

http://www.headfirstperformance.com/Results/09H&S.htm

I was pleased with my effort and times. My bike pace was around 24.5 mph. That was on a hard course with no racing wheels. Next weekend I'll be on an extremely flat course with racing wheels so hopefully I'll show some of those other "big name" pro's who Tony White is, ha. It'll be my first professional race.

This week I finished my last school assignment which is always a good feeling. I had a 20 page paper due in my "Exercise and Disease" class. I still have to attend class over the next 2 weeks, and possibly take a pop quiz, but other than that, my semester is over. I guess it's time to find a job.

Tony