Lake to Lake Triathlon

Having limped home through an early season Ironman 70.3 St. George race while still recovering from ankle surgery, it was going to be an interesting test to see how the ankle would hold up after a few more months of healing and a bit more running.  I love the Lake to Lake course and was hoping this year it would be more tolerable than the last time I raced there which was a day filled with rain and ~45 degree temps.  I was more confident when I jumped into the water and swam a more respectable 30:24.  However, chasing only 1-2 seconds behind me out of the water was my main age group competitor Nick Cummings.  He actually soon passed me in the long run up to T1 and hit the road about 15-20 seconds before I did.  The bike leg is great and I soon settled in trying to chase Nick down.  About 15 miles into the course I finally caught him and had a decision to make, as I knew he was a really good runner: Do I sit on his wheel and recover a bit or push past and try to clear a good gap starting the run.  After a minute or two thinking it through, I decided to hammer it and see if I could put some time into him.  I did that, but only about 30-40 seconds and had to see if that would be enough.  Total bike time was 1:18:27 for the day.

 

For this race, I also broke out some "super shoes" of my own to see what they could do.  The Adidas Adizero Pros look great and feel pretty good to but they were not enough to hold off a hard charging Nick Cummings who passed me about half a mile into the 10k run.  I tried to keep in touch with him but the pace was a little hot and after a mile or so I had to let him go.  The damage was already done though and I really felt the early pace in the last several miles coming home to the finish line.  I finished up with a 46:15 10k which was encouraging given the recovery with my ankle but a bit slower than I had hoped for on this course.

 
 

Overall, I finished 19th in the race and 2nd in my Age group with a total time of 2:37:45.  It felt good to race and I had this crew above there to cheer for me as I arrived back from the run!

This is the age group podium with me standing on the 2nd step on the right.  Nick did win our age group with a blistering 40:44 run to finish about 4 minutes ahead of me.

 

This is the final capture of the overall standings for record purposes.  So fun to be out there racing today.  Only had one other team mate there this year, but still lots of fun.