Colorado Open Sprint Triathlon

This was the first race of the race season for me this year and also happened to be my best sprint race from last year called the Colorado Open Sprint Triathlon that Without Limits Productions puts on.  After so many months of training over the winter and spring, I was quite excited to get out and see what I had on a race course.  With the cool spring in Colorado this year, many people were quite concerned about the water temperature as it was still quite chilly but some warm weather rolled in just in time to bring up the water to a balmy 64 degrees for race day. 

One of the things I was more confident this year in was my swim.  Having a year under my belt of experience made a huge difference in how I feel about swimming and also I have been able to improve quite a bit through consistent training.  I set up closer to the front for the race and found some feet to follow.  This turned out to be a fairly good strategy as I had a great swim for me coming home in 14:06 for the 750m swim.

It was quickly onto the bike for the short 17 mile loop.  This year I had also put a few upgrades into my bike with a new bike fit at Colorado Multisport, a new front wheel and rear disk wheel (clinchers instead of tubulars), and a new bike computer setup that helps me focused forward rather than looking down.  I had good legs on the bike and was hoping to hold more power than last year.  This all worked out and finished in 43:33 with a NP of 211W.  This was a great picture caught by Kenny Winthrow as I came back into the Res.

This run has always been difficult because of the heat and its got a bit of a hill right off the bat and right at the end.  The plan was to try to start out at 7:30 pace and descend from there in the 5k.  That mostly held true but certainly was tough for the last little bit.  I was able to run 22:32 which was pretty solid with a bit of slowing at the end with some pain in my quads.  If I am honest, I was hoping I could run somewhere in the 21's but I can't complain too much.  Here is another great picture by Kenny of me just past the finishing line on the famous Slip-n-slide. 

My total time for the race was 1:22:42, which was good enough to win my Age Group (M40-44) and also represented almost a four minute improvement from last year!  This picture is from the side of the podium by Kenny again.

This is the front view of the same podium.  It's always great to be on the top step and something that I don't get to experience very much so these are great memories.

This is the standard crew of guys that I train and race with from Boulder Racing.  Big shout out to my coach Eric Kenney in the middle there for helping me to get to where I am today and also having patience with my ailing body.  Almost every single one of these guys ended up on the podium in either the overall or their age groups.  Quite an impressive bunch to try to chase down on course!