The past two weekends I have raced Olympic Distance races. One was good and one was as Carley would say a race that you need to bike home along the freeway. I guess she’s right, if you were my wife watching it was embarrassing.
The first race was a small pro race in Possum Kingdom, Texas called Trifecta. It was an incredible venue with a small prize purse but it showcased just how big the triathlon community was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I couldn’t believe how much fun everyone was having and how big some of the area tri clubs around here are.
Off the start I took an early lead and never looked back. Don’t let this little race confuse you with easy. The swim was nice and easy but the ride felt like it was up hill the entire way out. It didn’t help that i lost my aero bottle within the YMCA so I rode the course without much liquid. I had to really watch the effort to make sure I didn’t get too dehydrated.
Getting off the bike it was a very first challenging 3miles of off road trails. It looked more like hiking trails and the volunteers were not ready for me. Apparently I went off course in the first mile but I did follow the directions of the volunteers, and even ran back to T2 to ask the volunteer which way to go next. Next year i will make sure to put out a much stronger effort as I know the fast guys from San Antonio will be hunting for me.
After returning to DFW after Trifecta it took two nights of not sleeping and suddenly I was sick. Great, with Gavleston 5150 the following Sunday I knew I had to recover quickly. Carley ended up sick and I feel like we just spread it back and forth and i was actually taking cold medicine leading up till the race. Not ideal but when you haven’t raced in 2 years you take any race you can get.
After driving through a near tsunami to get to Galveston on Friday it continued to rain all Saturday. I ended up doing some training on the course in pouring rain and probably not the brightest.
The race turned into a bike/run with a TT format. When your feeling sick and almost up to 80% the last thing you want to hear is that the swim is cancelled. The race plays out much differently when you take the swim out. I was very looking forward to trying to swim with a couple of fast swimmers that were there. The water was choppy but it was a professional “Tri”athlon. When it rains and is storming in the PGA tour they don’t say okay guys were going to the putting green to putt for the win.
Regardless I was still fired up to race. I gave it a good strong effort and without my back cramping about 40mins into the ride i probably would have had a great split. I was still pretty angry about the swim being cancelled as i felt the swim conditions were no different then an ocean swim. The last 15mins I lost some time and a guy that started a couple of spots back caught me. I had to stretch out the back a few times and get ready to roll for a run. I claim I was running but i was having a difficult time getting my race suit zipper down and i was cramping. In all honesty i was finishing it up for some points for Hyvee next year. The worst part was you had to run by the water each loop and see that the swim could have easily happened. I think that for all professional races they need to delay every hour till the race can happen. Most of the time it seems like 2hours later it would be easily been able to happen. However i understand all of the crazy logistics that race directors need to go through to make the race happen. The quickest transition of the day was my bike out of T2 and on the way home with a Dairy Queen stop. Carley had already climbed through the bars of the gate in T1 and had my bike out when she saw me running more like jogging around Moody Gardens.
I am feeling much better than i was over last week but i have decided to spend some time and get ready for Austin 70.3 later in August instead of trying to get another race in next weekend at the US OPEN. I have included my power file here and i am hoping we can make some big aero changes before next year to make sure my power is moving me forward.
Thanks for reading,
BP
Galveston Power File
