Topeka Tinman Race Report

Man, yesterday's race was a really tough day at the office! The weather was finally sunny and clear but that also meant that it was really hot and really humid. Surprisingly the race was wetsuit legal which helped me set a PR for the swim. That's good news especially because I didn't feel all that great for about the last 300-500 meters so I'm pretty confident I can go even faster. Unfortunately, after the swim things just got tougher. I had been feeling a little bit of tightness in my right IT band running along right around my knee and it made itself known right off the bat on the bike. It meant that I couldn't push any big gears because it got to be pretty uncomfortable, and I was forced to ride in lower gears with a higher cadence than I usually like to race with. That caused my average MPH to drop and it really wore out my legs. When I headed out onto the run I could really feel the fatigue in my legs and wasn't really able to find any kind of rhythm or maintain any kind of pace until the last couple of miles... that was really frustrating. The heat and humidity made it doubly tough and I was taking down water and gatorade at ever aid station that I could get my hands on! Luckily, as tough as the conditions felt for me they seemed to be worse for most everybody else because I easily won my age group and just missed out on the top ten overall, finishing in 11th. It's not quite the overall result I was hoping for, but I can't really complain either. Right after the race ended a big nasty thunderstorm rolled in and poured for the whole drive home, so I'm just thankful that it didn't effect the race like weather has all too often for me so far this season. I also got a really unique award for winning my age group: the standard medal, but it was presented hanging around the neck of a bottle of wine from a local vineyard! thats pretty cool... so far this year I have received a large beer jug (empty unfortunately) and a bottle of wine (very much full!), Kansas really knows how to do it! I put up some photos from the race below, thanks again to my personal race photographer who also happens to be my mom, and I'll post the photos done by the professional photographers on the course once they become available...

Topeka Tinman Photos

coming out of the lake after a nice warm-up. too bad I still had 30 min. before my wave start!

was a little disappointed when the dive-in start was changed to an in-water start, but a dive-in start with 75 guys could have been pretty hectic...

this was about the last time I would feel nice a cool the rest of the day!

coming in off a pretty frustrating bike, unfortunately it wouldn't get much better from here...

i've never been so happy to see the finish line in my whole life! nice that my dad was there to cheer me on (guy in the green shorts and white shirt), thanks dad! happy father's day

Topeka Tinman Triathlon Preview

It's now just a couple of days before this weekend's Topeka Tinman so I thought I would talk a little bit about how I'm feeling and my history at this event. This was the first race I ever competed in back a few years ago so it has a special place in my heart even though the race didn't go very well. I struggled through the swim but still came out with the lead group and we all managed to get lost on the bike course and ended up back at transition well before we were suppose to. I later got a little lost on the run course too! Even so, I finished 7th overall and won my age group with a little help of some disqualifications of others who also went off the course. In all truth I probably should have been DQ'd also... shhhh don't tell. The event basically needed more volunteers. Last year I produced probably my best race of the year at this event and finished 6th overall, with the 5th and 4th places only finishing a few seconds ahead of me (the 5th place guy out sprinted me to the line and we ended up with the same time!). Because of how close that finish was I feel like this race holds some unfinished business for me. This year the event is under new management and the course seems to have been pretty much completely changed, so that should make it pretty interesting. The main reason why I'm doing this race is because I was peaking for last weeks Hy-Vee Tri but since that got shortened due to weather I have been working all week to hang on to that fitness with the hope of using it to a solid result on saturday. I'm feeling really strong and solidly recovered so expectations are pretty high for this weekend and barring any bad weather, which i'm getting really sick of dealing with, this weekend should provide a really fun event. I'll post some photos and a recap sometime after the race on sunday or monday...

Hy-Vee Triathlon: Race Report

I just got home from my little road trip up and back to Des Moines for the Hy-Vee Triathlon. This was suppose to be the biggest race of the year for me up to this point and the first race that I peaked for. Unfortunately for me mother nature had other ideas. It rained torrentially all morning on saturday causing the staff to cancel the kids race. Then things cleared up in the afternoon and when I got into Des Moines at about 4 pm to attend the race briefing and pick up my race packet there were only scattered clouds and things appeared to be looking up. It didn't rain over night and in the morning it was overcast but dry (as far as I could tell, it was still quite dark when I got to the race site at 5 am). Then just after I had finished setting up all my stuff and was getting ready to start warming up the race director made an announcement that they were expecting a huge storm to roll in by the mid-morning so they were changing the race to a sprint. That meant cutting the whole thing in half: 400m swim instead of 1500m, 20km bike instead of 40km, and a 5km run instead of the standard 10km. To say I was frustrated and disappointed would be the world's biggest understatement. I had this race highlighted on my training calendar for the past few months and had already driven 3.5 hours to get there, not to mention a very expensive entry fee. And I wasn't the only one, just about everyone that I talked to felt the same way. So I ran the race basically as a training day and did fine. I struggled through the swim a little due to a total lack of warm-up but found my legs on the bike and run and maintained the kind of pace I would want for 40km and 10km. The overall results and age group results weren't great, but that's okay because the race was more valuable as a benchmark for my pacing. I must give the organizers credit, though, because just as they predicted the skies opened up at about 7:30 and it rained like crazy and was still raining when I left town a few hours later.

I have just signed up for the Topeka Tinman Triathlon next weekend. It is a race that I wasn't going to do originally but because I don't want to waste my peak I figure this could be a good opportunity to have a solid overall result at a race where I have been successful in the past: 7th overall in 2008 and 6th overall in 2009. Maybe I'll even sneak onto the podium.... I'll talk more about this race as we get later into the week and closer to the event...

Hy-Vee Triathlon: Race Week

With Hy-Vee only four days away and being in the middle of my taper I must say I am feeling really good and am getting really excited about race day. I will be going up against some fierce competition which will be tons of fun and will give me a really good indication of how competitive I might be able to be at USAT Nationals at the the end of the season in September. I have been putting in some really good, consistent training over the last week and have been hitting all my marks during interval training. The best part is I have been recovering from such high intensity workouts really well... I haven't been training this consistently with this lack of soreness this deep into the racing season in as long as I can remember. I am finally getting to know what it feels like to train consistently effectively and not be right on the edge of being over trained all the time like I have felt in the past. Anyway, this weekend should prove to be a great experience and hopefully a really successful race (the only bummer being there are pretty good chances for thunderstorms in Des Moines all weekend, which could really suck). I'll post a race report and some photos sometime after the race on Sunday or Monday.

Hy-Vee Triathlon: 10 Days and Counting

So it's about 10 days until my first big race of the year: the Hy-Vee Triathlon in Des Moines, Iowa on June 13th. I'm really excited about this race because I have been putting in consistently solid training for the last couple of weeks and am feeling really good heading into the race. It will be an interesting experience also because I'm traveling up the day before and staying over in Des Moines before the race. Although I have travelled for a race before, this will be the first time in a while since I have had to spend the night before the race in a hotel room. There are so many extra considerations that need to be considered like taking breakfast with me and figuring out where to eat the night before. But mostly I'm really excited because this will be by far the strongest competition I have ever raced against. The course also looks pretty flat and fast which suits my racing style really well. All in all, I'm feeling really confident and just hope that I don't do anything stupid over the next week and a half to mess it up.... shouldn't be too hard to avoid, I guess I shouldn't do any extreme sports this week, oh darn! (enter sarcasm here). Anyway, I'll post another update closer to the race and have an Ironman Kansas 70.3 report after I volunteer for the race this weekend.