Spring Fever Tri 2011 Race Report

When I was a kid the old timers at the pool hall used to say, "better late than never". That may be a good saying for getting to church or maybe a funeral, but I am not sure how it really applies in life. As the minutes go by so are the days of our lives. Or was it like sands through an hourglass? This is bringing back a flashback to my youth of being tortured as a child by this giant hourglass and having to endure an hour of television torture. With three channels to choose from and not much else going on, I went outside. What does this have to do with anything? I am not for sure. All I know is that this is my overdue race report. Better to have finally penned my experience than to have forgotten the times that have passed. That saying would not have went over in the pool hall.
I have done this Sprint once before, but I skipped it the last several years due to doing the OKC Marathon. The races are only a few weeks apart and falls about the same time I need to get my last long run in. This year, the Owasso Tri club had several members participating and had built a lot of excitement around it, so I thought what the heck, I will sign up and do it and maybe just do the half at OKC this year.

The race takes place at the Claremore Rec. Center and starts with a 400 meter swim, followed by a 12 mile bike, and a 2 mile run. This is really too short for me as my swim is my weakest link and it would not leave me enough time to make up on the bike and run. I figured I would give it my best shot and see if I could at least land an age group award. I knew my run would be strong, but I really had no expectations for the swim other than get on dry ground.

Here we are discussing some pre-race strategy before the swim. Really we were just watching the other swims ahead of us and thinking, my swim is not that bad after seeing some of the others.
The race starts a swimmer every 10 seconds based upon what you estimate your swim time to be. I put down 8:40 and thought that was being aggressive. I had not really swam that much over the winter and thought I would be somewhere close to that. A lot of people either don't time themselves or they just lie when they put down their swim time as we saw people ahead of us doing side strokes and back strokes to complete their swim. The swim is a snake swim and you have to duck under the ropes after every lane is completed until you finish. It usually ends up as a cluster somewhere as people bunch up sooner or later.
If you look behind me as I am going up the ropes, their is a guy walking. My understanding was that he walked the entire thing, except where he could not touch and then he did the breast stroke. All I know was that I kept kicking him and told him to go around. I would have thought he would have got tired of me kicking him, but maybe he thought it was part of some weird triathlon ritual. Either way, I think he needs to learn to swim.
Finally made it out and time to head to tranistion area in 9:01. A little over the 8:40 mark. Must have been the King Fu kicks I had to use on my opponent in the pool.

Transition this year was in the shed on the tennis courts. The area itself was quite long and it made our times a little slower. I am not the best at getting in and out fast, so I will need to work on this if I am going to get better.
Made it out on the bike and it was time to head for the hills. Immediately after you leave the expo area, you have a huge hill that goes up by the University. Nothing like making you cry for your Momma before you have a chance to dry off.

On the way out to the turnaround, I was flying past people who had faster swims and I made it to the 6 mile turnaround in 14 minutes. I turned around and all I can say it was like being in a wind tunnel. No wonder I was flying on the way out. The bike times started to drop. I was still able to pass others and did not get passed by anyone. My return to the transition took me 22 minutes. It went from 14 to 22. Brutal winds.
Transition number two heads out the other door for a short 2 mile run. I was feeling good going out and knew I had a pretty good clip going. I didn't have my Garmin, but had a stopwatch on and I did not know how fast I was going. When I made the turnaround, it looked like I hit the first mile in 5:40.
This is the fast and furious Eddie James heading out on his run. Eddie rocked the course and represented the Owasso Tri club well.
Here I am heading back into the finish. I knew I was going to be close to have a 12 minute even split and I came across the line in 12:01 for the 2 mile run. Not bad for an old guy.
Here is Eddie's better half, Sharon heading out on the run. She also rocked the course and got an age group award. I need to get an Owasso Tri suit instead of my Tulsa Triathletes one. Nothing against them, just need to update.
After it was all said and done, I managed a 2nd in my age group and finished 23rd overall in 1:00:54. 22nd best bike and 8th best run. I won't mention the swim.

I had a great time and it is always nice to get an award. The weather overall was nice, but a little too breezy for the bike. That is part of the fun of things of racing no matter what the elements throw at you. I am glad I did the race and hopefully represented the club well.

I now I need to figure out what to do next? I am torn between concentrating on running or maybe do some more Tris? I might even do some cycling? Prayerfully I will figure it out soon as race season is definitely upon us. Results can be found here.