Since the Music City Triathlon, I have had a little fire in my belly. I don't like to get beat, and I especially don't like to get destroyed like I was that day in Nashville by local pro Craig Evans. It was mostly due to his strength and my lack there-of on the bike. My training has been a little more race specific for the past 3 weeks and I have actually felt like I made some big gains in training over the past few weeks. It's amazing what a little speed work will do.
At the beginning of the summer, I made the decision I would do a few low key races and nothing that I would take too serious. I decided to do a few Nashville races and would do the Bowling Green race as its only 1 hour North and I could stay with my grand parents. Well, the 3rd tri of the year for me was the BG sprint tri where Craig Evans normally cleans up pretty easily. With it being a sprint race, I figured I could just bury myself and try to hang on for dear life to keep up.
It was a simple 400m pool swim, 14 mile bike, and a 5k run.
Race day came around, Casey and I both checked it (since she decided it was more exciting to race than spectate) and we were seeded 2 & 3 in the time trial swim format (normal for a pool swim tri). I just assumed Craig would be #1 seed and my plan was to keep him in sight coming into t2 and then run him down. If I crossed the finish line with him, then I would be the victor by 10 seconds. Well, when we lined up to start, it was a 13 year old age group swimmer who was seeded 1st. Craig was seeded 10th?? Not sure how that happened considering he is the reigning champ of that race for the previous 37 years (ok, not quite that long) and he always has the fastest swim split. I had to change my race plan. I would just go hard and race scared hoping to hold him off for as long as possible.
The swim was uneventful. It was 400 meters of long course swimming where we had to go under a lane line every 50 meters. I got out, had a good t1, and was off on the bike.
The first mile was uphill and I was cranking away. I looked down and had averaged 361 watts for that first mile. I backed off a little but was at the top of the hill and starting to go down so it was not going to stay that high anyways. I felt great on the bike, continued to push, and came into t2 with a nice little lead. I never saw Craig even when I was heading out of t2. We had driven the bike course and most of run course the following day so I knew exactly where to go. I was glad that I did too as the run course wasn't marked very well back in the little neighborhood for the first 1 - 1.5 miles. I got the the aid station at around the 1 mile mark, but it was set up on the far right side of the road and the volunteers were sitting in their cars as I ran by on the left side of the road. I didn't even see the aid station, because of where the cars were parked, until I was already by it. I made the left hand turn for home and was feeling pretty good. I ran through the 2.5 km mark of the run in about 8:20 and turned into the park about 1 minute or so later.
Here is where I got lost. The run course map for the race had you making a right hand turn once you were in the park and then getting on the running path that circles the park. I started to do that, but had a volunteer tell me to go straight through that intersection, so I did. And if I had turned right, that was the bike in/out so I'm not sure how they would have handled the crossing paths of runners and cyclists. So I ran straight, and kept running straight. I got to a stop sign and didn't see a single marking on the road or sign or anything. I knew that I was supposed to turn right at some point so that is what I did, then I made a right about 1/4 mile later at another stop sign. I found my way back to the running path in the park and made a right hand turn right as Craig came running by in the opposite direction. I knew that I had made a wrong turn and that my race was over. I turned around, followed Craig to the finish line and immediately walked to my car to change clothes and jog around for a cooldown. Apparently I was supposed to cut through the grass at some point to get over to the running path and follow that to the finish.
I was really upset at the time, but I figured that much worse things could have happened. There was no prize money on the line so I didn't really lose out on anything special. I cheered Casey on as she finished and we did a cooldown together. We ate some bbq that was catered, then went to my grandparents for a nap and some soft serve ice cream.
All in all, it was a great day. Casey finished her 2nd tri, and finished really well considering the trouble that she had with the crappy chip strap they gave her. It's hard to swim fast when the velcro doesn't work on your chip strap. I had a much better bike split than I anticipated and was running really well until I went off course. And I got homemade peach cobbler with soft serve ice cream for an afternoon snack.
I ended up 2nd on the day after adding on a few minutes of running. I can't say that I 100% would have won or if I would have ended up 2nd even if I had stayed on course until the results are posted online.
My focus for the next few months will be on running. I have a few running racing on the calendar and am looking to runs some personal bests at various distances. Then the base building for 2014 will begin.
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