Well, another week, another race report. I know this is a little late, but Kevin and myself traveled to Bloomington, IL this past weekend to race at the Evergreen Lake Triathlon. It was an Olympic Distance triathlon that offered a little prize money that attracted a few professionals and fast elite amateurs. I decided I would give it a go and try and win some money. We drove up Friday afternoon and stayed with his aunt and uncle's house in Farmer City, IL. They have a large farm and it was a great place to stay the night before a race. Thank you to the Ryan family for opening up your house to me. We were served fresh corn on the cob and homemade pizza when we arrived Friday. We had a nice dinner in downtown Champagne, IL and then hit the sack early Friday night.
We had an early wake up call since we were about 40 minutes from the race site and we weren't exactly sure where we were going. We had no problems thanks to our Garmin. We got our packets, set up our transition areas, and were ready to go.
We were in the first wave and this was actually my first wave start this year that had more than 10 people in it. It was a little crazy, but a nice feeling. I have done too many TT starts and need to do more open water wave starts. I had a great start but then settled into my "not that fast" pace that I usually do during a triathlon. I was about 7th out of the water but a good 1.5 minutes down to the leaders. I had a good T1 and was out on the bike. I passed a few guys early and recognized Kevin up the road when I got to about the 5th mile mark. I chased him and another guy down over the next 5 - 7 miles and was in no man's land for the rest of the bike course. The 3 leaders were well up, and I was in fourth position. I came into T2 in fourth and took off after third place on the run. After about a .5 mile of running, I realized it was going to be a long day. I didn't feel good and it was hot. The run course had no shade and the sun beat down on us during the whole run course. I was slowly gaining ground on the third place guy, but not fast enough. Unfortunately, I got passed around the 4th mile by another guy. He came by me like I was standing still and I realized why when I saw his run split. He ran almost 3 minutes faster than me. I held onto 5th position and was about 45 seconds out of 3rd.
All in all, it was a good effort on a hot day. I didn't rest as Steelhead in 2 weeks is the main focus right now. Chattanooga on a Sunday, an extremely long and hard bike ride on Tuesday, and then this race on Saturday made for a hard week. But a nice relaxing Sunday made for a great recovery day, and I went back to work yesterday.
The race was a little eye opening showing me I need to work on all three sports. Especially since this wasn't that big of a race and I got out biked by almost 4 minutes by the fastest cyclist, and out ran by almost 3 minutes by the fastest runner. I believe all of those rest WEEKS that I took in the early season are coming back to haunt me now. I guess this will be the kick in my butt for next off season to get me training when the weather is cold and nasty.
Until next time.
Tony
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