This past Sunday was the Music City Tri and with Nashville being my new hometown, I figured what better race to compete in than this one. I toyed with the idea of the Chattanooga Tri a few weeks ago, but given my current fitness level on the bike, I knew Chattanooga would have been a rude awakening.
I love sleeping in my own bed and having an almost normal morning the day of a race. I woke up right around my normal time, had some breakfast and coffee, packed the car, then hit the road for downtown.
I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I picked up my packet race morning, but the volunteers didn't steer me through the line so I left prematurely. I realized later on I didn't have any race numbers, stickers, or a swim cap. I jogged back over got that stuff and went back to the car to get everything ready. Went for a little spin on the bike to make sure everything was good, then racked it in transition. I should have listened to the pre race announcements as they discussed the flow of transitions and that would have benefitted me greatly. Someone did mention the water was 72 degrees so I was extremely happy I happened to throw my wetsuit in the car "just in case."
After jogging to and from the car about 5 times, and making Casey extremely nervous, I was finally all set and went down to the river for the start. It is a time trial start like most Team Magic races and all of the sprint distance athletes were starting first. so about 450 athletes were starting ahead of me so I knew I had a while to wait. I did find out that my buddy Bruce was starting right behind me and I know he's a fantastic swimmer so I would have some feet to chase once he flew by me. At about 8:30, the Olympic distance athletes were finally started. The race favorite, and local pro, Craig Evans was first in the water. I timed the space between us, and it almost was exactly 2 minutes exactly. I had a pretty solid start and swam consistently for the whole swim. I did get on Bruce's feet for 100-200 yards but couldn't manage to hang on for much longer. The rest of the swim was uneventful and I came out of the water in 3rd behind Craig and Bruce (I started 24th, not sure how they seeded the swim and how Bruce and I was 24th and 25th). I ran to transition, ran down the wrong aisle, and spent 5 seconds or so looking around for my bike. Once I found it, I took off and got a pretty solid start to the bike.
The bike is 2 laps and I held about the same wattage for both laps. I was afraid to push too much as I haven't done many brick workouts and really haven't biked much at all this year. I kept a solid pace and was able to catch Bruce about 20 miles into the bike. The only thing I would have changed is taking a 2nd bottle. I figured that 1 bottle would have been plenty of fluid for me, but it definitely wasn't. I came off the bike in 2nd, behind Craig, with Bruce right behind me, and again, ran down to the wrong rack. After another 5 seconds or so, found my spot, racked my bike, slipped on my shoes, and was off. Well, I ran to the bike out which was the opposite corner of T2 from the run exit. I had a volunteer yell at me as I was heading out that I was going in the wrong direction. I turned around, ran to the other side of T2, and started my run. Looking at the results, Craig put 45 seconds on me just in T2 if that tells you anything about how lost I was in T2, haha. well, I had already given him a nice lead from the bike and that mishap just added to it. I felt really good on the run for the first 3 miles or so. No idea what pace I was running as I didn't see a mile split until I hit 3 miles. I know my 4th mile was about a 5:42, and then the 5th mile was brutal. It had 2 pretty challenging hills in it and was where the wheels started to fall off. I managed to salvage my run on the last 1.2 miles but the damage was already done and I was 4 minutes out of 1st anyways. I do know is that I ran the last 3.2 in 18:40 and looking at the results I was around 35:40 so I ran around 5:40 pace for the first 3 miles. not terrible considering the lack of speed work, tempo, anything faster than easy pace really.
Overall I was happy with my effort given the swim and bike prep. I felt I swam really well, biked well given my current fitness level, and ran pretty well. if it were a flatter course, I may have broken 35 min. for the 10k run off the bike so I would have been really happy with that.
It was really nice having Casey, my mom, sister and her fiance all there cheering me on. And I even ended up with some great pics thanks to the local tri guys. Onto the next one.
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