Desert Triathlon: Shattering a PR

Well I'm finally getting a hang of this Triathlon business.  My goal heading into the Desert International Distance Triathlon this past Sunday was to beat my previous year's time by 20 minutes.  I've been improving my swim and my cycling, and another year of rehab and conditioning from my ACL reconstruction should lead to a faster run.  So my goal was realistic.  Now I just had to go out and grab the "bull by the horns."

Ironteam had a 3.5 hr+ swim, bike, run workout in Long Beach on Saturday.  Then a mad dash to La Quinta for the packet pickup and practice swim.  After a nice team dinner at Yardhouse, it was time for bed.  Hard to sleep, I tossed and turned and woke up several times during the night.  The AC was noisy.  Before I knew it, it was time to get up and go through my race day ritual.

Ironteammate Louis and I arrived at the Lake and we set up our transition.  Then it was time to decompress the mind and the bowels... A quick warmup swim and then it was time to line up with my wave.  Our wave started and I waited a good 15 to 20 seconds to let the ultra competitive swimmers out first.  Then I jumped in and just tried to swim at a pace that I knew I could sustain.  Sighting to the first buoy was tough due to the sun, but eventually I reached it.  The return was much easier, although more crowded since I was catching up with the slower swimmers from the previous wave and the fastest swimmers from the wave behind me were starting to catch up.  I got out of the water and started to jog and get out of my wetsuit.  I felt good heading into transition.
No major hangups at T1.

The Bike went well.  2 loops.  I passed a lot of people, although quite a few in their disk wheels passed me as well.  The only hitch was that at the turnoff between the first and second loop, I got a little confused since it was a new bike course this year.  I saw cones that guided the turn towards the Right, so I started to slow down to make the Right turn.  Then I noticed that some of the cyclist in front of me kept going straight.  After a slight hesitation, I figured I better keep going straight.  Right choice.  One of my Ironteammates was DQ for skipping the 2nd bike loop.  I finished strong heading into T2.

T2 was going smoothly and I took off on my run feeling good.  Then I realized I didn't have my racebelt on.  I had to go back and get my racebelt, because I didn't want to risk DQ.  Probably wasted a minute, but the worse thing was when I started running again, I felt slow.  I couldn't pick up my pace.  I felt like I was jogging.  My stomach also was very gassy.  I had taken 2 bottles of carbs, a PowerBar, and a packet of PowerBar Gel chews on the bike.  Now my stomach was sloshing around during the first loop of the run course.  I realized that I was now a few minutes behind the pace I needed to beat last year's time by 20 minutes.  I saw Coach Brad at the end of the first loop and he asked me how it was going.  I told him not too good and that I was behind schedule.  He told me that was OK and to go out and see what I can do on the second loop.  That somehow motivated me and gave me the encouragement to try my best even if I fall a little short of my goal.  I started to run and pick off runners in front of me one by one.  I noticed that no one was passing me on the run.  Perhaps all the faster runners had already finished.  In hindsight, I was probably throwing down some 7 minute-miles.  I finished strong with no idea if I accomplished my goal.  I knew I had a PR, but did I PR by 20 minutes.  I felt like I just might have, but it was going to be close.  The minute I wasted in T2 bothered me. 

I cooled down at the finish by dumping a couple water bottles down my head.  It was 80 degrees during the run.  Then I hung out with my Ironteammates.  Later when they posted the results, I was surprised to learn that I had PR and beaten last year's time by almost 24 minutes!  It was a great weekend...