The Hills are Alive: July 2008

On June 14, 2008 I participated in the Flag City Triathlon held in Findley, Ohio. It was my second attempt at an Olympic distance race. The swim was 1.5K, the bike was a little shorter than most races at that distance at 35K (most are 40K), and the run was 10K.

My friend, Ron Thomas, participated with me. He and his wife, Heather, and I drove up to Findley the night before. As we did so, we encountered storms that were close to severe in intensity with major lightning and thunder. All during the night I could hear the storms roll through the area. The rain continued to fall as I got up early to eat breakfast and begin getting things ready for the race. By the time we left the hotel at 6 am the rain had subsided, but the roads were very wet and the sky was cloudy. Things were still overcast when the race started at 8 am.

The swim was organized differently than last year. Last year, this race was a sprint distance only and they had all the participants enter the water all at once (over 100 people). This year, they had both sprint and Olympic distances and they started by age group. I only had to enter the water with 20 or so people. It wasn't nearly as chaotic and I didn't fear for my life like last time!

The swim course was two big loops. As I was coming back on the first loop, I noticed a swimmer to my right that had been right next to me for quite some time. I was able to let him pass me slightly and then I slipped in behind him. Ron and I had been practicing drafting behind each other while swimming in a local lake, so I felt comfortable drafting behind this person for the rest of the race. When we were about 100 meters from the end I noticed that the person I was following was drifting off to the left away from the finish, so I left him and ended up beating him out of the water by about 15 seconds. He later passed me on the bike and ended up finishing in the top three overall for the race. He was a very strong cyclist and runner. I felt fortunate to be able to hang with him during the swim portion of the race.

The race organizers didn't capture transition times, unfortunately, so I don't know exactly how good my transition times were, but I felt very good about them. Everything went according to plan. When I got on my bike, I was able to begin my hydration plan and I felt the best I ever have during both the bike and run portions of the race. In the previous race I did at this distance I hit a wall during the run and had to walk a lot during the last half of the run. I was able to maintain a run pace throughout the run, albeit slower than I normally would run during a training run.

The courses for both the ride and run were very flat. My friend Ron passed me at around the 15 mile point on the bike. I felt good that I was able to maintain a lead for that long. He is a very strong cyclist and runner and ended up finishing in the top 10 overall. I had a respectable finish at 21st overall and 5th in my age group. I felt good about how I had trained and that I was able to perform on race day. I haven't decided what race I'm going to do next. I'm considering one in August in Indiana, but will definitely do the one in Virginia again in September. I need to redeem myself from last year. :P

Here's my times from Flag City:

Swim - 1.5K - 25.31 min
Bike - 35K - 1 hour 6 min (I don't believe this "official" time...I think they included the transition times in the bike time. The time from my bike computer was a couple of minutes faster)
Run - 10K - 52 .01 min

Total time: 2 hours 24 min

And some pictures from the race...