Race Day Recap-Pigman Sprint

Yesterday was a very educational day for me on a number of levels. It was my first triathlon of the season, the Pigman Sprint, and my first time doing this race. First let me say that the weather was great and the event was very well run from start to finish.

My day started out at 4:00am when the alarm clock in the room next to our room at the hotel went off. My wife and kids and I were staying at the Quality Inn in Cedar Rapids (don’t if you want some good advice) and it was a pretty miserable experience. I am not a big complainer so I won’t go into it. Let’s just say that if my kids ever talk to me the way this teenager working the front desk did, they would never leave the house. Anyway, I get to the race site a little later than I would have liked to and was a little rushed. I had not even found a place to park my bike in the transition area before they said they closing it up. Needless to say I had to get special permission to go back to get my goggles after taking a pit stop in the kybo. I wasn’t too worried since my age group, M 35-39, was the 8th wave out of 9 total.

Water was 71 degrees or so at the start of the race. I swam round a bit and the water wasn’t too bad once I got in. I did forget my wetsuit at home which was disappointing since I will be swimming in Minnesota next weekend and that will certainly be colder. The practice would have been nice. I got off pretty good at the start of the race but felt a little tight. I attributed it to the rush of the start. I tried to relax and settle into my swim but struggled a little bit after taking a belly full of lake water. I was a little disappointed in myself in that I defaulted to the breast stroke too many times where I am sure I would have been fine if I would have stuck with the right stroke. I think my nerves got to me a bit. So I came out of the water a few minutes slower than I expected. I got to the transition area and my legs felt a little heavy. I went to put on my race jersey and it wrapped in a way that it took me a long time to get out of it, which subsequently tore my race number off.

By the time I was up and on my bike I had wasted over 5 minutes in T1. I felt pretty good on the bike. I tried to take it easy because the bike finishes with some long inclines and I wanted to feel strong coming off of the bike. I cruised into Palo averaging 21 mph which is where I wanted to be. I think that there may have been the slightest decline from the park to Palo because on the way back I slowed to 19.3 mph and there was a tiny bit of a headwind. I still felt pretty good so I was a little surprised to see my average speed drop below 18 mph. I finished a few minutes slower than I would have liked but I was happy with that time.

Transitioning to the run was pretty difficult. A little more difficult than I expected. I got out of T2 ok but I was pretty wiped. I ended up walking a great deal. My back was a little tight as were my abs so I struggled quite a bit. The run was pleasant considering my condition. I got passed by a few people and passed a few people despite my horrendous time. It is really hard to gauge where you are in relation to everyone during a race like this because there were 10 different waves and the person that is 50 meters ahead of you might actually be 4 minutes behind you and vice versa.

Overall, I enjoyed myself and I gained a good insight into what I will need to work on through the rest of the summer. I have a lot of work to do for sure so I plan on packing on the miles and ratcheting up the intensity a little bit. I feel good about where I am now and I know that I am still in the beginning phase. I have only been following my training plan for 6 weeks so by the time September and October roll around, I expect to be pretty strong, both mentally and physically.