Our local triathlon was this last weekend in Los Alamos and as the longest continually running triathlon in the world for a novice such as myself it was an honor to be part of it. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a different format to the majority of triathlons with the bike leg starting, followed by the 400m pool swim and the run leading us to the finish.
The weather for this years race was great, especially compared to last years grey and dismal weather. The bike started in three waves, the elites and the under 19s started at 7.00am followed by two more waves of age groupers spaced 10 minutes apart. The bike has some hills to it and heads up from the aquatic center, through the guard gates and up past the ski hill road to the back gate where it heads left on 4 a little bit before retracing the route to the pool. The ride went pretty well for me, it seemed a pretty smooth ride with me and about three others passing each other thoughout - I seemed to pass them on the downhill’s and they cranked past me on the climbs which was fine by me as it saved me some leg power! I did find out later that my front brake had slipped a little, probably as a result of removing the wheel to get it on the roof rack and had been rubbing on my front rim possibly for the duration of the ride which comes down to inexperience on my part and something I will definitely learn from for my next race. As I said, the bike seemed to go pretty well and the transition was also pretty smooth. I had set up a good spot for my run stuff so managed to drop of my glasses before getting into the pool. It was a longer T1 this year with the transition area being moved from the parking lot opposite the SnD start to the aquatic center parking lot, so to get the pool involved a short run to the back door of the pool.
Then came the swim which, as last year I found really tough and I didn’t feel that I was going quick in the slightest (of course I wasn’t, but at least I did OK and got through it!), my arms felt really tired and I was blowing pretty hard for what seemed like little effort although I think my technique has improved a little over the last year. My swim time wasn’t as bad as I thought it was and I thought my T2 was pretty fast – I was trying out a liquid skin/body glide approach to the blister areas on my feet so I could run sockless and save time but it didn’t look too good at this point so I opted for a one sock approach on the problem foot before heading out on the run.
To be honest, the run felt really slow, I’d been over the course a few times, which was the SnD run along canyon road, and I knew where the inclines were and where the downhill sections were where I could crank a little harder and I suppose that’s the beauty of a home course. In the end my time for the run was better than I thought it was going to be and I suppose that’s where taking advantage of a familiar terrain came into play.
The organization of this years LA tri was great, the course was well marshaled and the results and subsequent awards ceremony were done in a timely manner with pint glassed given out as prized for AG winners.
Overall, for me a tough format but a great race and unsurprisingly a great showing in the awards by Triatomics, I wont name, names but we should be proud of ourselves - well done to everyone who raced!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment