March 8th? Really? Apparently that’s the last time I pushed “publish” on this blog. Every year I say that I should be better about recording my training and my racing and my life and then I get wrapped up in that very life that I want to capture. So now its August 11th and I have three major four races under my belt for this year. Four down, three to go and then it’s all over for this year. I’m going to try and go back and post an entry for each race.
When we last left off, I was just coming off the spring field test and was 8 weeks out from my first race of the season. I was starting off where I left off last year – at Bassman ½ – a little local tri held in Bass River State Forest, NJ. I like starting off the season with a good test. It’s a mental and physical shakedown for the season ahead. Bassman offers a great little course – a lake swim, a mostly closed bike course, and a run that features trail (yes!), road (eh) and beach (boo!) portions. Race day was May 4th and it was everybit as cold as May 4th should be, but atleast this year it wasn’t wet. I went it with really no goals – just get my feet back under me, remember how to race and have a good time. Went out with the usual suspects and everyone had a good day. I felt more secure in my abilities this go around and was very glad that I had taken the opportunity to race at the end of last year post Tahoe. It would have been really hard to get into 63degree water if I didn’t have the confidence of knowing that I had done well on this course before.
Impressions: I swam OK but not as well as last year, there was some pretty significant contact on the second loop that cost me some time readjusting googles and testing for a fat lip/black eye. The bike was REALLY strong. Three hours was an awesome ride for me. Further, it was the first time I had done that distance without putting my feet down once. Just went around the loop 3 times, focusing on moderate power early so that I would have enough when the wind picked up. It was windy earlier than expected though – so I was riding hard. I had some of the same issues as last year – where I had trouble riding level – when the wind came I went way above power and then when it shifted away I rode way under power. I would like to have had a steadier ride as it would be less work overall. The run – I felt good on this one actually – my notes state that it was “my strongest run EVER off the bike. Total breakthrough”. I carried more this year as last year the hammer drink was limited on course and had calories (from dots) every 2 miles. I was running nice and steady till mile 10 when it got really hard.
At the end of the day, my total time clocked in at 6:09:27 which was good enough for 3rd place in AG (out of 9) and a 15minute PR. Proud of this race and can’t wait to drop those 9 minutes!!
Times: Swim (45:48), T1 (4:56), Bike (3:00:03), T2 (2:35), Run (2:15:16), Total (6:09:27)
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