Tri-The-Illini - 01:10:55.8

2^nd Place AG

16^th Overall

After not racing cedar point, I wanted one last triathlon for the year.  So, I jumped into Tri-The-Illini, which is one of my favorite local sprints. 

I was heavily prepping for the Indianapolis Marathon, and my body was tired, so this was a B race at best.   The last mile of the 5k would be my 52^nd mile run this week, which was a big step up from my normal 35-40.

Race morning was cold.    Lining up on the cold concrete pool deck was brutal.

Swim

300M

6:14.9

2:05/100M

This swim wasn’t my best.   It was a snake pool swim, and whenever I do those I always get screwed up in the lane lines.  My GPS data showed about 1:40/100 moving pace, but all my screwing around really cost me.   Oh well, no big.

T1

52.7 seconds

Not a bad T1 for me…

Bike

14.5 Miles

38:43.4

22.4 Mph

So, my biggest goal for this race was to try to keep the bike in check.   Typically a triathlete will ride a sprint at about 92-98% FTP.   My coach felt that my bike was so strong relative to my running that it was what was keeping me from running closer to my 5k pace in sprints, so he wanted me to hold way back, towards the 90-92% range instead of my normal 95%.   I was a little nervous I’d be giving up to much, but, I was willing to take the chance.

Unfortunately about 2 miles in, my power meter went out and I was flying by RPE.   I don’t now, but I’m guessing based on my pace, that I maybe slowed down just a little bit too much.   It’s hard to say though, as the second half of the bike combined a steady head wind with a false flat and made it really hard to judge effort.

T2

01:23.7

Not bad.   My feet were so cold I had a hard time getting my shoes on fast.  

Run

5K

23:41.1

7:38/mi

For about the first 400m I just couldn’t get my feet under me.   I was running about 8:30, giving up a ton of ground, and getting discouraged.  But then I just sort of relaxed into it  and got my effort up.   I did a good job negative splitting the course, and actually finished the last 400 at about 6:40/mi , or around 20sec/mile faster than my 5k pace.  In the end, I was about 30 seconds per mile slower than my open 5k PR, which is pretty darn good.

 So, lesson learned, until I can get my bike and run more in line, I have to slow down a bit on the bike to run faster.