Well, once again Lifetime lives up to it's reputation for being a tough race for me. The water temp was at 82 degrees which made it a non legal wet suit swim. This killed me right off the bat. I am not a very good swimmer and the wet suit helps me more than it does the swimmers. This caused me about a minute gap on the field. To go along with the lack of wet suit I just didn't swim like I was hoping to. Once out of the water I noticed that I had one of the last bikes left in transition. All I could do is hope that I wasn't far behind and pedal like hell. At about mile 5 I started passing guys who were just a bit slower than me. I did open up a gap but they seemed to be forming a pack and in what I could tell was a somewhat legal draft pack they caught up to me. I towed the pack till about mile 18 were it started to become a battle. Guys kept passing me and each other to try to break free, myself included. The course is narrow and is quite technical making it difficult to really be able to make a break for it. In the end I got off the bike with about 8 other guys. Most of whom should by me a beer for pulling the load for most of the way. I don't know if it helped or hurt my time as I felt impeded at points while other times the pack I'm sure helped me. As a consolation I did manage to take the fastest bike split from Patrick Parish by less than three seconds.
Once off the bike I once again never seemed to get a good rhythm. I think the heat played a huge factor and looking back I need to adjust my race nutrition plan as well as my day prior intake plan. I did chase down a few guys while a couple passed me. Overall I was satisfied with the performance more or less only because of the bike split. It did give me a second gut check in as many races. The good take away was I seem to have figured out my lack of power on the bike at Waconia only to have a lack luster run. I guess it's back to the drawing board.Next race is going to be Chisago Half IM. I need to take away the lessons learned from the warm race conditions and implement a better nutrition plan. Chisago will be a great test to see where I am in the IM training plan. My bike and swim volume is right where I want them but I need to work on my run big time. I've started adding some more mileage the last few weeks so we'll see how that works out.
Nice pulling work on the bike although I agree it would be hard to tell if it helped or hurt being in a group of guys like that.
ReplyDeleteWe chatted a bit at the swim start, I also did Alexandria and Waconia. Look forward to racing with you again sometime soon! Just came across your blog yesterday, good luck at Chisago!
Of course. Good to hear from you. How did it go for you? I was definitely not feeling it on the swim and my legs were bricks on the run. At least the bike went well for me. Tough to say how the pack riding worked out. Sometimes I felt like it was a help but other times I was getting antsy to pick up the pace. I felt a little trapped most of the time.
ReplyDeleteI was happy with my results, missed my time goal by a couple of minutes which largely relates to a sub-par bike. I launched a bottle a couple of miles in and stopping to get it threw me out of the groove for a few miles. Ended up 2nd AG and 12 over all. First race to break 7 minute miles was a big mental hurdle for me. There were some quick people in the short race this year.
ReplyDeleteNicely done. The water bottle launch is never a fun experience. All that training to have to stop and turn around for a bottle. Nice job with the run.
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