Wilmington YMCA Triathlon 2006 Race Report

This weekend I raced the Wilmington YMCA 2006 triathlon. The last few weeks of my life have been stressful due to a new job, and I missed some key workouts. The peak/taper phase of my training plan sort of became just a long taper. So, my goal for this race was simply to have fun and try to pass people.
Official results:

Swim 1500m: 22:39
T1: 2:59
Bike 20k: 34:03
T2: 1:53
Run 5k: 25:06
Overall: 1:26:38

I came in 5th out of 32 in my age group. Top 15.6% 🙂

The swim was with an incoming tide, so I’m not really that fast! Still, I’m pleased with my swim time. My bike split was 3rd fastest in my age group. My transition times and run time are weak…I need to work on those!

Here’s how the day went:

• The weather was perfect for racing. 50 degrees at race start, and warmed up to high 60s by end of the race. Nice and sunny, too!
• The water temp was 75 degrees, so wet suit legal. The swim was point to point…it started over on the island, and swam across the intra coastal waterway to the mainland. So, after setting up my gear in the transition area, I hopped on a bus over to the swim start. It was a chilly morning, 45 degress, so the race director had announced that you could wear warm clothes over on the bus, and they would have have a gear check. They had white trash bags to put our gear in, and permanent markers to write our bib number on the bag. Then, they transported the bags back to the finish line. That was really great! I brought my rock and roll 1/2 marathon gear check bag and wrote my race number on that. It made it really easy to spot my gear bag among the 1000 other bags!
• At the start of the swim, I screwed up and hit the wrong button on my stop watch, so it didn’t start. I had no sense of time the whole race.
• The swim was really neat how it went across the intra-coastal waterway. Calm water, no current (at least that I could tell) and easy to spot the buoys. A friend had told me to have dark goggles b/c the sun would be in my eyes. She was right, so I was glad I went out and got some dark goggles. I saw a woman in front of me doing backstroke. I don’t know how she could sight doing that, but she was going faster than me, so it worked for her. I had read the race instructions, which said to be patient if you have to wait in line to climb the ladders up to the dock at the end of the swim. As I came into the last stretch, there was a mass of swimmers. I must have caught up to the slower swimmers in prior waves or something. So, I really pushed hard to try and get ahead of as many as I could. Turns out there were plenty of ladders, so I didn’t have to wait.
• The bike course was fast and flat. There were a stretch at the beginning of the course, and over the bridge where there was just a narrow lane marked with orange cones for the bikers. There really was no room to pass here. I really hate being stuck behind a slow biker because biking is my strenght and I feel I have to bike hard to make up for time lost in my slow running. During the bike, I set my computer to show speed and average speed. I was trying to keep my speed at 23 at all times, and my average speed at 21 mph. Almost did it…probably could have if it weren’t for the slowpokes I got stuck behind.
• During the run I was trying to go fast while keeping my breathing moderate. I focused on passing people. Shortly after one turnaround point, I saw a bunch of women who looked about my age coming the other way (they were about a minute behind me). After that point, I checked behind me once in a while to see if any females were on my heels. I didn’t see any. Somewhere in the last mile, I slowed for water, and two women in my age group passed me. They were going pretty fast, so I let them go, as I thought I was only half way thru the run and didn’t think I could maintain there pace for long. I hadn’t seen the 2 mile marker, so I didn’t know how much farther I had to go. Turns out I was less than a mile from the finish, so, in retrospect, I could have pushed harder to catch them. I should have started my stop watch at the beginning of the run so I’d have had a better sense of time. I just now thought of that.

All in all I had a great race. I acheived my goal to have fun and I pass people!

My family stayed at the Shell Island Resort in Wrightsville beach. This was a fabulous hotel and we had a great weekend. I wish it didn’t have to end.

Here’s a link to bike and run photos: http://tinyurl.com/fldth
Swim photo: http://tinyurl.com/zdjtg