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...