Pic Spocket

Last Sunday, I was taking a crack at the Olympic Distance triathlon for the first time ever. I had done much shorter races last year (sprints)  and one longer race (Ironman 70.3 last month). I raced at the Motor City Triathlon, on Belle Isle in Detroit, MI. They had a short course and a long course race. I went with the latter.

The race went REALLY well. I had my best race swim so far. I stayed focused and I could hold my freestyle stroke for the entire race.  This was my 2nd longest race swim so far.

The bike was crazy fast. It was 4 loops around the island, with almost no wind. The course was pretty empty on my first lap, but got a bit crowded on the last 2 laps with all the people from the sprint race joining us. I averaged some crazy high speed number: 39.1 km/h (24.4 mph). As far as I know, nobody passed me on the bike.

The 10 km run (actually, the course was longer) was great too, where I ran at 4:16 min/km. That’s an improvement over last year, where the best I got was 4:23 on a sprint distance (5km run). So I was able to go faster over twice the distance. All that training paid off. Also, as far as I know, nobody from the Olympic distance race passed me on the run either.  So whoever was in front of me at the finish line, were there since the end of the swim. The last few kms were tough, trying to hold my pace. During this tough section where I was starting to feel really uncomfortable, I actually asked myself why I was putting myself through this… I did finish the run with a big smile on my face. I was happy to see the finish line.

All that being said, I had no idea during the run where I was standing as far as position goes because the 2-loop course was crowded with all the people also doing the shorter races. So I was watching for the result boards at the end of the race.

On the first printout of results I found, I was in 25th place out of 207 participants. Bah.. Not bad for a first Olympic Distance race. Top 12%. My best results last year were top 9%. When I went back to look again, then I realized that this chart was for the SWIM split only!!!! I came out of the water in 25:36 minutes. How freaking amazing is that? I could barely place in the top half of the swimmers last year! And that’s over a 1500m distance too!

So then I look over some other temporary race result page they have, with only about 20 names on it at that point.. And then I find myself in 6th position. Out of 207 athletes. That’s top 2.9% of the field! I actually got a chill when I saw that. I really had no idea. I am stoked and I can’t wait to see where I stand in the shorter sprint races now. 

There is no doubt in my mind that working with a good coach is the biggest reason for this improvement in my performance this year. This is a much better investment than any type of go-fast gear such as race wheels… I knew I was much better than last year in the swim, but I was not sure yet about the bike and run. Now I know I improved in all 3 sports. Thanks LPC!!! Sounds like I’ll have a good racing season if I can manage to stay injury-free!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Sport and Races, Our news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.