One Last Tri

After The Race Debbie, Terri and I

My last race of the year was yesterday in Utah at the Kokepelli Triathlon.  I did the Olympic Triathlon.  I was fresh off of the Worlds 70.3 Half Ironman just one week ago.  I didn’t have any expectations for this race. I just wanted to have fun and race with friends and clients.  I signed up to race OPEN category because I wanted to start in the first wave.  This way I could finish and see everyone else finish.  I have never raced in OPEN.  I have raced ELITE and it was a very competitive group.  OPEN was different because really anyone can sign up to race in this category.  We were getting the swim course instructions from the race director and I was halfway paying attention.  I am a good swimmer but never in the front so I just follow everyone.  The buoys were kind of confusing because they had buoys out there for boats and swimmers.  The swimmers buoys were spread far apart.  We were off and I suddenly realized I was in the lead.  I didn’t want this position at all and thought at first I was swimming the wrong way.  I turned on my back to see where everyone was and they were pretty far back.  Could this group of swimmers really be that slow?  My expected swim time was 25-27 minutes. I vaguely remember the race director saying swim 2 green buoys then turn.  There was one at the start and I was approaching another one.  It seems really close but I turned anyway.  Headed back a canoe came up to me and said you need to go to another buoy.  Shit.....the first buoy didn’t count!  I turn around now thinking I am probably last but I still have no idea.  I keep going to the last green buoy.  When I get out of the swim I really have no idea what position I am in.  Then I get to the bike racks and see all the bikes still there.  Could I have exited first even with my stupid mistake?  As it turns out yes I did exit first.  Wow the OPEN group must have had some really slow swimmers.  My swim time was 30 minutes 3-5 minutes off of what I should have swam that in.  I was in the lead on the bike until the halfway point when a guy passed me at mile 10.   This bike course was only 20 miles so I got off the bike in exactly 1 hour.  I started the run with a great pace for the first mile I ran a 7 minute mile.  I felt great and kept a pretty good pace for the run finishing with a 7:30 pace for my average.  I think this may have been one of my best run times in an Olympic course.  I finished with an overall time of 2:20.  The guy that passed me in the OPEN division beat me by about 4 minutes (which I possibly lost in the swim debacle).  The overall female beat me by 3 minutes.  This is what I get for not paying attention to details of the race.  I had fun and got to see everyone at the finish.  I am not sure if I will ever enter OPEN again.  While I don’t like being in the lead on the swim, I think I pushed myself harder on the run because I knew my position and didn’t want people to catch me.  

My clients Debbie and Terri did awesome.  Terri got 2nd place in her age group and this was her first Olympic distance triathlon.  She was just over 3 hours and with a little work on transition she could have easily been under 3 hours! Debbie improved her time over previous years.  They both had an awesome run.