It's not how you start....

My season was supposed to be over after Hy-Vee once I found out that the RJ Corman Duathlon was no longer being held, but a phone call from Chris Hutchens on the way to Hy-Vee changed it all.  He let me know about the Apex Physical Therapy Mini Triathlon in Oldham County that had a little bit of prize purse.  This was enticing, but I had a couple factors working against me (1) I didn't know how I would be feeling after Hy-Vee (2) we were hosting a baby shower for my wife the next day and I was responsible for cleaning the house and making cupcakes.  At this point, I guess you have discovered that I signed up for the race.

The main issue with deciding late to sign up for a pool swim sprint triathlon is that you get slotted at the back of the swim line.  In fact, I learned that I was actually starting third from last.  Not ideal, but the race organizer was smart and allowed :20 between starters and even left a 3:00 buffer between the final early entrant and the first of us who missed the "deadline".  For these reasons, I can't complain about any part of this race.  It was my fault (actually I didn't even find out about the race until the deadline had passed) that I didn't get signed up in time.

The silver lining was that I had a chance to hang out with Coach Nancy and some of the Maverick Multisport Youth team parents and watch these great youth athletes that I have gotten to know.  Before they started, I received as much advice from them as I was able to give to them.  They really seem to have this triathlon thing down and that is encouraging to see.  This team has no where to go but up and that is a testament to the great work that Coach Nancy and Coach Chris are doing.

As for my race, I didn't really recognize anyone on the start list, so I wasn't sure what the competition was.  That worried me a little because of my start position, but there was nothing that I could do about it.  I apologized to the swimmers around me and promised that I would try to swim around them the best that I could.  I was mostly successful in that promise, but there was one incident coming into a wall with two other swimmers.  We survived but it wasn't pretty.  I didn't have a great swim, but it would have to work.

Luckily there was much more room on the bike and run courses so I didn't have any concerns.  The bike was described as hilly and it was as advertised.  However, I was able to move up several places and put myself into a good position for the run.  The run was on a gravel path that I had previewed before the race.  I caught a couple of the Maverick kids and they were moving well.  I felt good on the run, but I was ready for it to be over.  Sprint races seem to hurt more than you would think, but they are really fun.

Sadly, I didn't win any of the door prizes, but I guess I didn't deserve one since I took home this giant trophy for the win.  I think this is a great way to end the season.  Now I need to get the rest of my chores done in prep for miss Emma Rae's arrival.  Thanks for reading and thanks again to my sponsors.

Hy-Vee 5150 Elite Championship

10 hours is a long way to travel to race, but when you have family in the area and the race is as well attended and as well conducted as Hy-Vee 5150, it is almost worth it.  I chose to travel on Thursday since I would be traveling with my wife's parents and we would be staying with her aunt and uncle.  Sadly, Neeley hasn't been able to attend any of my races this year, but she is saving her vacation days to stay home with our daughter after she is born so I can't blame her.  Anyway, with traffic and construction, we arrived in Des Moines later than I had planned, but I still put on my running clothes and went for a quick jog to get some of the junk out of my legs from the car ride.  I ate dinner and went to bed early, as always.

Friday and Saturday were about the same, I did a couple light workouts, got the bike ready and visited with family.  Having a kitchen and a nice place to stretch out and relax prior to a race is a huge advantage; now if I can just get family to move to the locations of some of the other races I would like to do.  On Saturday afternoon, I had an elite race meeting to attend and I ran into my friend Will, whom I raced side-by-side with the entire day at Columbus and assumed that it would be much the same at Hy-Vee.

Race morning, was the usual early rise and rather than sit around at the house and possibly wake someone up, I drove to the race site to just hang out.  It was raining with the occasional burst of lightning but I figured that we would be clear by race time.  When I arrived at the race site, it was still raining and since it was still early, I figured I would just wait the rain out in my car, so I waited and I waited and I waited.  Finally, I went to transition to see what was happening.  I heard the announcement that the race was delayed 45 minutes, so I waited.  Fast forward to race time....

Swim: 22:27 (19th)
I lined up between a couple of known fast swimmers and for some reason when the gun went off, I wasn't really aggressive and they squeezed me out.  Before I really got going Colin Riley kicked me in the face.  I got into a rhythm but I had missed the front pack (which I don't believe I could have hung with, but I can dream).  I led my group to the first buoy when I smartly found a set of feet to get behind, and I was actually able to draft for most of the swim which is a first for me.  I saw my swim time and was pleasantly surprised that, although it was a different course, I swam very closely to my wetsuit aided time from last year.  I guess that TYR Torpedo swimskin is worth the hype (thank you TYR).  Upon further analysis, I noticed that although I gave up 3+ minutes in the swim, I actually lost less time to the front back this year than I did last year.  That time in the pool is starting to pay off.

Bike: 59:22 (13th)
There was a huge gap in front of me and a huge gap behind me, so I knew that I had to work hard to close some gaps to those in front and I would quickly have a chance to check in on my competition with the two turnarounds within the first 6 miles of the bike.  As it turned out, they weren't that far in front and I was gaining on them and caught a couple before the second turnaround.  I was moving up through the field well, but I found out about mile 10 that those behind me were also moving up through the field.  Now that they caught me, I had some faster cyclists to work with and pace off and one of them happened to by Will.  Lucky for him that I was around because he lost his water bottle and I had an extra one.  Toward the end of the bike, I was able to follow a couple of guys to a slight break in our group and that is where I made another tactical mistake; I assumed that I could run down anyone that I could see coming off the bike, so I didn't work as hard to stay right with these two.  Anyway, we got to the end of the bike and I made a quick mental note of the number of bikes on the rack (a huge plus to the elite amateur wave) to realize that I was just outside the top 10 and had some work to do.

Run: 35:57 (10th)
As I said, I assumed that I could catch the 5 guys that were still in transition.  I came out running strong and actually feeling pretty good.  I passed the first guy 1/2 mile in thought that I was working my way up to the two guys from the bike, but I should have made that move more quickly.  They linked up and started running pretty strong.  I passed another guy shortly after the 2 mile mark and another guy after the turnaround and I thought that I was moving up to them until I really started to feel the effects of the headwind on the run.  That was when I started to wish that I had made that move more quickly so that I could tuck into behind them, but I didn't do it.  From the 3-mile mark on nothing changed except they got further away from me, but no one was making a move on me.

Finish: 2:00:44 (10th)
I finished 10th.  I feel pretty good about that, but I know that there were some places that I left out there because I wasn't aggressive enough at the swim start and the end of the bike/beginning of the run.  I enjoy this race for the competition and the atmosphere, but more importantly for the free ice cream cookies after the race.

I owe a lot of gratitude to my aunt and uncle, my travel partner in-laws, my supportive wife and as always the sponsors for the Maverick Multisport team.  Thanks again to TYR Sports, SmithOptics, Swiftwick, Infinit Nutrition, Scott, Tri-Bike Transport, Louisville Slugger, CycleSmiths, Occupational Kinetics and Brooks Airbrush Studio.