Sunday, August 19, 2007

Breaking the seal

This whole race thing is starting to get a little more real. Four months of training, watching a couple of tris, I've learned a lot, but it has all been largely academic. Now, not so much.

Yesterday we ran a "practice tri," which turned out to be a race a little shorter than a sprint, but complete with transitions and rules and a marked course and all that. It broke down into a 300 meter swim, 11 mile bike and 2 mile run. I finished in 1:05:06. I screwed up my splits, but I know that I did the swim in 6:35, and the run in 18:32, which is about a minute slower than I should have. The big hole was on my bike ride.

I felt like I was hammering hard and going fast, but several people from the team flew by me like I was stopped. In replaying the race in my head, I think I need to work on shifting and learning how to stay in the optimal gear, to preempt the lag in cadence that says the road has changed and missed it. I also need to get my shoes on faster. I lost some time working on that. Live and learn. Race again and do it better next time, right?

Pac Grove is now just over three weeks away. Who knows what race day will bring, but I think I'm ready for it.

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