Wow what a day. Pre race goals were to break 5 hours and be the first Southern Utahn done. Both were a little unknow because I've never done a triathlon before and didn't really know how I'd stack up against the course or the local competition.
I achieved both goals!
The day went about as smooth as you can write it up. Weather was great out at the swim and bike with zero wind. I did get hot out on the run as there was a high in town of 92 f today. But everyone had to deal with it.
The Swim
The swim went great. I thought if I can do the swim in 40 min's I'll take it and feel good. Well I came out of the water in 36:52- pumped! I was zig zagging a lot too. Took the last turn way way too wide and looked over to see I was swimming all alone way off the path of the big group. Oh well I'm not a swimmer.
Got on the bike and the transition was super as well. Transitioning from swim to bike in 3:41.
The Bike
I rocked the bike in 2:34:53. But there was a big mechanical issue. Less than 2 miles into the ride I tried shifting from my small ring to the big ring up front and it would not do it. Tried over and over for about 10 miles and it just wouldn't push the chain up. Would it ruin my day? No... was it a factor in my bike? For sure. On all the good long downhill where you really want to hammer and make up ground and time I was just spinning in place. Without all those harder gears I was super limited to top end speed. So people would come flying by me on the downhill and I'd come flying by them on any uphill or flat. In the end it cost me somewhere between 6-10 min's on the ride. A big difference on placing and time overall but for some reason I'm at peace for it and realize that maybe it happened for a reason. Because that's never happened before on this bike. I've ridden this bike course 3-4 times and I only use the small ring for the 4 miles up Snow Canyon... today I had to use it for all 56 miles.
Other than the shifting issue everything on the bike was a dream. I pushed my body as hard as I wanted to and it answered on every call. I really passed hundreds of people and only got passed by 3 guys while out there- and that was on some long downhill sections. On any uphill it was like I was the only one moving and people were just lined up sitting for me to pass or something.
The run
Well the run turned out just as I thought it would. I ran it in 1:33:35 or 7:08 avg. This run and bike course are both very challenging. The last 6 months I've basically only been able to run around 7 min pace with this injury and that's basically what I ran today. Was I hoping for a race day miracle where I'd start dropping 6 min miles and sub 6 on the downhill... yes. But the reality is my hip is injured and this was all that I could do. And I'm happy I could do it after hitting the bike so hard. I did have a goal to not get passed at all on the run. It lasted until the last mile and 3 guys came blazing by me one of whom was Josh McAdams. The runner in me wanted to go with them but I just couldn't get any faster of turnover on Diagnal st. It's slop is killer on my hip and in the end it just rocked my world. I thought I'd never get to the end of the street and make the turn south to the finish.
Anyways I'm really happy about how everything boiled down. I learned a lot in my first event and had a really fun day actually. Although I'm not chopping at the bit to sign up for another one... just yet.
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