I know this is a little past due, but on Labor Day weekend I competed in the Susan Bradley-Cox Tri for Sight here in Lexington, KY. This was the first triathlon that I was ever involved with as I volunteered for this race back in 2004 before I got into the sport. The following year was my first year competing as a triathlete. Anyways, I have done this race every year (except 2007) since I got started in the sport and it's always a fun race. I have had some close races with ex-pro David Kuendig (also lives in Lexington, and is a good friend) and there have also been years when I wasn't pushed as much to bring home the big W. Last year my brother came up and we took home the top 2 spots.
This year I was competing against my roommate who had recently finished 8th overall at AG Nationals and also against a fellow Pro and good friend Nick Waninger. Nick drove down from Indiana Saturday night and stayed with me but unfortunately didn't get into town until around 12:30AM and the race started at 7am that morning. So I didn't get much sleep the night before and the pizza that I had for dinner Saturday night wasn't settling well in my stomach. I felt terrible Sunday morning, but didn't want to let anyone know. I made my way over to the transition area, got everything set up, went for a little warmup jog and realized how terrible my stomach felt. I made my way over to the swim start and just sat down hoping my stomach would settle. It did a little but at 7:15, we were off. Kevin was 1st in the water (as it was a time trial start for the 800 meter pool swim) and I was 10 seconds back. I felt ok, but had no speed. The guy who started behind me caught me around 250 meters and this couldn't have worked better for me. I sat on his feet for the rest of the swim and came out in a pretty decent time and had kept my HR pretty low the whole time. I had a good T1 and was off on the bike, chasing after Kevin. I caught him around mile 7 or so but couldn't get away from him so we basically came into T2 together. I took off on the run with a purpose. Because Nick W. had signed up late, the best starting position he could get was #16. So I knew I had roughly a 2 - 2.5 minute lead on him at the start so I would need to finish about that same amount of time in front of him if I wanted to beat him. The only time I had seen him on the course was after the bike turnaround.
My stomach had felt ok up until about mile 1 or so on the run. Then it really started to bug me. I dug deep and tried to maintain my pace. I got to the turnaround on the run (2 miles out, 2 miles back) and couldn't see anyone. I knew I had opened up a good gap on Kevin and an even bigger gap on Nick as I didn't see him for roughly 2 or 2.5 minutes (and he still had at least 2 minutes of running to get to the turn around so I knew I was about 4 minutes up). I didn't back off much, but was able to hold a decent pace all the way to the finish with out throwing up. I crossed the finish line in 1st for the 3rd year in a row and the 4th time in my career here at this race.
I was happy with the effort level considering how terrible I felt and I actually went about 2 minutes faster than last year and the bike and run courses were slightly longer this year (by a few tenths of a mile). Thanks to Beth Atnip who always puts on a fantastic race, and to all of the volunteers who help out with the race. The Delta Gammas were out all over the bike/run course screaming at us and that is always helpful so thank you girls.
I am putting in a little block of training before my last 2 multisport events and a marathon. I have the RJ Corman Duathlon on the 1st of October, Rev 3 South Carolina Half Ironman on the 9th of October, and the Columbus Marathon on the 16th of October.
Tony
