May 1st 2011, at 4am I awoke and starting moving around. Transition opened at 4:45 and would close at 6:45 before the pro start at 6:50. Even though my swim wave was not scheduled till 8:45 I had to go and set up transition before 6:45. We left our beach rental for the 15 minute drive to the race site at 5:00am. I wanted enough time to determine whether I would race with the Renn Disc I recently received. When we got there the wind was howling and the event organizers had decided to move and shorten the swim course due to conditions on the water. The swim course was moved half a mile north to a more protected beach and the distance was shortened to 1000 meters. I was glad I got there early as I did not want to try and ride a disc for the first time in winds gusting up to 20 miles per hour. I went to transition with deep dish in hand.
Arriving in transition was a bit surreal. I had never been in a race this large. 4000 triathletes signed up for this event and were all moving in and out of transition pumping tires and readying their sites. At that point I realized I had not brought rubber bands for my new aero bottle to attach to the aero bars. I had to go back to the car and get zip ties to secure the water bottle in place. When I returned and was in transition setting up my water bottle I heard the announcer over the speaker say 3 minutes till you are locked into transition.
6:45 I went to the exit of the swim to watch the pro waves exit the water. Still 2 hours till my wave. Andy Potts was first out of the water followed closely by Cameron Dye and Matty Reed. It was awesome to see these guys come flying through. By the time my wave started they would complete the course in roughly an hour and forty minutes. After watching the pro’s and the first couple of waves exit the water I went over to the swim start area and watched a couple of waves starts. I then went and waited in line for the ceremonial bathroom stop and proceeded into the water to warm up. I swam inside the perimeter of the course for about 500 yards for a warm up and exited the water to see my training partner Brad Miller line up for his start.
10 minutes till my wave, my age group 40-44, had 3 waves of 150 athletes each. I lined up in the coral and took a seat at the front inside and waited, 5 minutes to go we entered the starting coral. I lined up inside and at the front. 1 minute… then the horn went off. Running into the water I was around 3rd and immediately opened a gap on the field. When I rounded the first buoy I was at least 20 yards ahead of my wave. About 1/3 of the way through the swim I encountered traffic from the wave that started 5 minutes in front of me these were guys in my age group and I had already made 5 minutes on them. Feeling good I quickly moved through them. Before I knew it I was approaching the final turn. As I got close to the final buoy the water became significantly rougher and sighting was difficult. I rounded the last buoy and headed to the beach.
Once I hit the beach there was a half mile run to T1. After passing what seemed like 100 people on the run to T1, dodging a volunteer, and running past my bike in transition this took more than 4:00 minutes. Now out on the course I had been worried about traffic on the course and it was challenging to maneuver but it felt like it was helpful with all the wind. Early in the bike I had one guy come around me and I moved into position 3 bike lengths behind him. He was a strong cyclist and was accelerating hard out of every corner. We got into some traffic in the corners and he got away from me. This was probably just as well because I was really pushing to keep in contact with him. I was pretty confident that I was 5:00 minutes ahead of him anyway as no one in my wave was anywhere near me on the swim exit. For 25 miles I passed a steady stream of people on the bike course continually letting them know I was on their left. A couple of corners were tricky especially with the traffic. I actually touched a pedal down in one corner near the golf course about half way through the course. Additionally, I came up on a couple of cyclist fairly quickly and had to maneuver abruptly. I settled down enough at the end of the bike to GU and have a couple of sips of water. Water had been tough during the ride; I had a hard time swallowing more than a sip or two at a time and ended up spitting a lot of water out and on my bike. Completing the bike there continued to be traffic going into T2. I was in and out of T2 fairly quickly and out on the run. I remembered to try and push the first mile to hopefully get my legs going. The heat was a big factor though and I had not been able to eat and drink according to plan on the bike. I think I was able to drink most of one bottle before refilling at the water stop, but had most of the water in my bottle entering T2.
On the run I continued to pass many people and held my own getting passed by only 3 people in my age group. These were the people in the wave ahead of me that I passed on the swim and held off on the bike. Coming into the finish I came up next to a guy just before the 6 mile marker and started to sprint. We took it all the way in the final .2 miles. When I came around the corner I was psyched to see the race clock reading under 4 hours. My goal time was 2:05 which would have been 4:00:00 on the race clock and when I rounded the corner the clock read 3:57:00.
I crossed the finish line and was handed a cold towel and stood under a hose. Thanks to the volunteer who took off my timing chip while I sweated all over her. I had time to find my family and friends and then waited in line for my results. I went to the results tent, told them my race number and they printed out a receipt. I finished 1st in my Age Group by: 46 sec with a 2:03:01. Other AG results 1st fastest swim, 4th fastest bike, 22nd on the run.
I wanted to first Congratulate my wife Leah who won her age group in the Meek and Mighty triathlon on Saturday, and thank her for all of her support this past week. Wyatt Miller (Brad Miller's son) also won his age group at that race. Congrats to my training partners, Brad Miller 35-39,(who took 1st place in his age group by 11 minutes) and Joe Miller 55-59, (who came in 10th in his age group). We now have 2 weeks to claim our qualifying spots in Des Moines for the 5150 World Championships. All in all it was still a great start to the 2011 race season and even better to get a win in the process!
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