Yesterday was my first olympic distance race of the year at the KC Tri. The event was huge! This is only the second year it has been held but it is quickly growing into one of the best events in the midwest. There were easily a thousand participants between the two races (olympic and sprint). As for my performance, it was a day of a couple of positives and one very glaring negative. To begin with the conditions were not ideal. The weather was gorgeous, high seventies and partially overcast but the problem was it was really windy (15-20 mph) and the water was a very chilly 62 degrees. The wind slowed me down a little bit on the bike, even though I managed to PR anyway, but where it was really tough was during the swim. The swim course was your standard rectangular 1500 meter course with two left turns. Swimming along the backside was great because the wind was at your back, but going out and coming back the wind was blowing across my body which also meant the water was getting really choppy, making it hard to stay on course (the numb face, hands and feet didn't help). Also, my swim fitness is just not where it needs to be and I had trouble maintaining my form after about 1000m. In the end I came out of the water in 35 minutes, some 5-6 minutes longer than expected. Like I mentioned earlier the bike went pretty well, even with a head wind for a majority of the two loop course. Once I got on the run it took a little while for me to find my legs and I had to deal with a little bit of stomach cramping but I still managed a 38 minute 10k and ended up winning my age group. All in all, it wasn't too bad of a race considering it was my first of the year and I'm looking forward to getting a few good training weeks in before the
Hy-Vee Triathlon in early June. Oh! and by the way, Pip Taylor (google here, she's a pro from Australia) was the women's overall winner and she beat all but one of the guys. Apparently she lives in Lawrence during the summer, how cool is that?
Here are some race photos with more to come later in the week:
This was right after I managed to rip my wetsuit slightly... great start to the morning
Coming out of the swim, was definitely not in a good mood at this point...
Headed into T2 I finally starting to feel like the race wasn't going to be a total bust
The run might have hurt a little bit more than expected but I'm glad is stuck with it
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