It was a week ago today I took part in the Mesa Sprint
Triathlon at Skyline High school. The morning started off pretty cold,
with the temperature at 58 degrees. I got to the site early to set up
my bike and warm up. I ran a few laps around the school's track to get
warm and stretched a little. When I returned to the transition area I
found everyone racked their bike on the same side of the rack instead of
alternating on both sides of the rack. It made for a very crowded
area. Off to the start, they had athletes line up by cones according to
when they projected they would finish the 400 yard swim. I had been
swimming the distance over the summer in about 10 minutes, yet I lined
up in the 13 minute projected finish line. Swimmers were started every 7
seconds swimming a serpentine course in the pool. I started by watch
when I jumped in. The swim was great. I quickly got into a groove
using good breathing and technique. After the first 200 yards, I was
passing a lot of swimmers. When I got out of the water I looked at my
watch and finished in under 9 minutes.
Onto the bike
where I knew I would be cold for the first few miles until I dried off
in the air. The bike course was a four mile loop in which I would do
three times. The first loop was fast, I drank some fluids and focused
on maintaining a fast average speed. With a corner every mile, I needed
to slow down just a little. At one point I looked down at my bike
computer and found out I hit a max speed of 26 MPH and averaging a
little over 20 MPH. On the start of my last of three laps my race
almost came to an abrupt end. The roads were being controlled by police
officers and volunteers. It was there a volunteer waived a van across
the course, not seeing I was headed their way. The driver nor the
volunteer seen me as I had to grab the brakes and slide coming very very
close to hitting the side of the van. Needless to say I did not crash
into the van. I did however lose a lot of speed and time having to get
back up to my race pace. A little shook up, I focused on relaxing and
started preparing my mind for the run ahead. The run was a course
around the school and in and around the surrounding neighborhood. After
getting off the bike, I got my legs moving fast and got into a steady
pace. I was feeling strong besides have a side stitch off and on.
Everything I did in training was falling into place. I had projected a
finish time of under an hour and 20 minutes. I finished 9th in my age
group of 40 to 44. My swim time 8:42 in my age group had me placed in
9th coming out of the water. My bike time of 37:57 had me at the 5th
fasted in my age group. My run time of 31:18 gave me a total time on the
course of 1:17:57. I was very happy with my performance and training
put into this race.
