Lake to Lake Triathlon

I heard a lot about this race last year when I was first starting to compete in triathlons, but it didn't quite work in my schedule.  It was rumored to have a great course and without a doubt the best post-race food of the year, so this year I worked it into the schedule. 

What didn't go to plan, was that this will have to win the prize for the coldest triathlon I have ever done.  The whole spring and early summer has been a bit weird in Colorado anyways but it had started to warm up and then suddenly we got another cold spell.  Race day turned out to be 47 degrees with on and off rain and a water temp being a balmy 60-61 degrees!  It really had be questioning if I wanted to start this thing off, but I figured at least everyone else has to race in it too!  Here I am exiting the swim.  What you can't tell is that I can barely feel my hands and lost feeling in my feet about half way around the mile swim course.  It was actually so cold that my calfs started to cramp a bit as well even though I was barely kicking my legs.

 After running about a quarter mile through some wet beach sand and grass, I entered into T1 and struggled to get some socks, arm sleeves, and gloves on.  Typically I spend about 90 seconds in transition, but this one ended up being closer to almost three minutes as I fumbled through things and layered up a bit extra for the bike leg.  The bike actually felt pretty good once I get settled in.  I was trying to push a bit more power than I typically have, as my coach recommended.  The plan was to try to hit somewhere close to 215-225 W for the 30 miles and ramp it up a bit on the climbs.  Overall, The roads were certainly wet, but at least there wasn't tons of pooling water to ride through.  I did enjoy the beautiful course that weaves its way through the back country of Loveland up toward Horsetooth Reservoir and then you have a few very fast descents and then come back into town.  The descents were a bit sketchy in the rain, but I was able to draw back on my years of cycling to know how to ride in these conditions.  Above, I am just returning from the bike leg.

Though the bike went well, I still hadn't been able to feel my feet since the middle of the swim.  At least my core had stayed mostly warm with a nice space blanket tucked inside my kit.  Shout out to my Coach Eric Kenney for that secret trick!  My hands were actually so cold that I had trouble getting my helmet off and unbuckling my shoes, but eventually I got off on the run leg.  The plan was to start at close to 7:30-7:45 pace and see how it felt.  If I could push from there, then it would be great but often I end up going the other direction on the pace rather than being able to go faster.  Shockingly, the legs felt great.  I kept looking down at my watch was seeing 7:10s mostly tick by.  I was thinking this is going to lead to an epic blow up sooner or later but just took it mile by mile.  In the end I was able to hold it all the way through and probably had my best 10k run time since almost high school!

Here is the results page listing everyone by Age Group.  I ended up winning my AG with a total overall time of 2:40.  I think the swim was ~29 mins, bike of 1:21, and a run of 45:09.  Pretty happy with the overall performance.  The swim was not very pretty but the other phases, aside from the transitions, couldn't have gone much better.  Always great when that happens!

Here is the podium picture.  The second place guy wasn't able to stay around for the awards ceremonial.  I can't really blame him, as it took all afternoon to warm up almost.  In a lot of the races I compete in they have finishing medals, but for this race only the top three in each age group get a medal.

Here are some of the people I regularly train with (Mia and Jet).  Both of them also won there age groups.  So, quite a solid outing for our crew.  This was a great race that I hope to do again, but let's try for some better weather next time!