11th Annual City of Lenoir Triathlon Race Report

Well this past Saturday was the last multi-sport event of the season for me and what better way to end the season than grabbing my first age-group win of the year!!??  This was a sprint distance, pool-swim tri that was held in a beautiful area of the Western Piedmont area of NC.  It was great to see that my training seemed to pay off and I don't think I was completely off track with my training approach of hard, heavy and often verses going crazy over number of miles.......

So the morning started at 3:30 am, as this race was about 2 hours from the house and I knew I had to pick up my packet, and more importantly, find the venue, the morning of the race.  I grabbed a Power Bar and Powerade Zero, loaded my stuff in the car and headed out by 4:00 am.  I got to Lenoir about 15 til 6:00 am and found that my directions were completely off.  (No I don't have GPS....remember I am all about Old Skool) so the thought crossed my mind to find the police station and ask a cop.  Luckily I found downtown Lenoir, found the cop station, and got directions from a really nice officer that got me there in no time! (Later in the bike portion of the race, the same cop was stopping traffic for us....so thanks again goes out to ya!!!!)  So I made it to the aquatic center where the swim and transition area were, to find that no one was there and the entrance was blocked off.  So I went up the next drive, which was a church parking lot and saw that there were a few other racers there doing the same thing.  I met a really nice dude, Robbie, from the town I grew up in (holla' fellow Gastonians!!!!) and we decided that the Punk Rock thing to do would be to stay parked there and hope the nice church folks would not have our cars towed (they didn't by the way).  So after making the decision to stay parked here, I walked up to the aquatic center with Robbie to pick up our packets, made my way back down, grabbed my things and bike, then headed back up the 1/4 mile or so to set up.  Needless to say after all this, I didn't need to warm up!!!!! 

Ahhhhhhh....now to the race.  The swim was a 250 meter swim in a 50 meter pool, so it was 5 lengths, all zig-zagging through 5 lanes that were roped off for the event.  I did a 400 meter warm-up about 30 minutes before the start of the race.  Swimmers started in 15 second intervals based on our estimated 100 meter times.  I put down 2:20 as an estimate so I started 67th.  Looking at the swimmers before me, I saw that I had underestimated my swim abilities!  At least I was able to practice my draft passes, as I caught up to swimmer starting 2 minutes before me by the end of the swim!  So out of the pool and a 50 yard or so run up the side of the building into the transition area and then........... the longest transition in the history of sprint triathlons!  Seriously a 2 minute transition!  I couldn't get my damn shirt on to save my life.  It was like fighting a rabid raccoon in a potato sack!  Everything, including my bike shoes went on with ease, yet the shirt was a nightmare.  I learned a valuable lesson on this day....and that is from here on out in sprints, I will get a bib belt for the run, and just go shirtless on the bike and runs.  I could have totally taken at least a minute off my overall time if I would have went this route, verses worrying with a shirt.  I hadn't had this problem before, but man I won't risk it again after this experience.

Anyway, the bike course was beautiful!  A few more hills that I expected, but all my heavy hill training over the passed couple a months really paid off.  I passed quite a few folks and didn't get passed until the very end by one of those dudes on a 3,000 dollar tri/tt steed (including one of those sci-fi aero helmets) so I didn't feel too bad about that.  In fact I would have really felt bad for the guy if he didn't pass me given his whole multi-thousand dollar get up! LOL!!!!!  My bike did great, my legs felt fine and I really felt like I pushed about as hard as I could have to still have a semi-decent 5k run time at the end.  I could have probably shaved 20 to 30 seconds off my time by having a faster mount and dismount, as well as pushing a little harder on the initial downhill start that was 1/4 mile or so long.  I held back quite a bit on the decent, as it was a little congested with riders.  So we're up to a minute and a half I could have improved upon thus far.  Well, I know I could have pushed harder on the swim, so lets say there was 2 minutes up to this point in the race I could have improved upon.

And finally the run......  T2 was much smoother and much more like it.  Less than 1 minute this time, and that was with sitting down to change shoes and racking my bike.  The run was down the same 1/4 mile hill I have been speaking of, then to a really beautiful, scenic greenway with one turn-around before heading back.  A pretty uneventful run, that took me just over 26 mins. to finish.  So based on my 5k times I really think that I could easily shave 3 to 4 mins. off this time with some more speedwork and hill only sessions in the off season. 

All-in-all I was happy with my 1:06 time, which was good for 18th overall and 1st in the Male 30-34 AG.  I think that I can drop under an hour on this course next season if I do this race.  I'd really like to put this one on the schedule just to see if I can make that time goal.  So seriously if you are ever in Lenoir, NC in September, you should do this race!  A very charming little town and a very scenic little sprint! I met some really nice racers and the folks that put on the race were great!  The mayor even came out to wish us all good luck at the start!  The Lenoir Aquatic Center was actually the training site for the 1996 Netherlands Olympic Team!  They had a big photo and team flag in the display case and I just thought that was really cool!

So today is Labor Day and my wife and I are off with the little one.  I am going to try to sneek a run in, although its raining pretty steadily outside due to Tropical Storm Lee that hit MS and is heading North through our area of Western NC.  Training will be a little more run intensive, as I am doing the 13.1 next month!!!!! I haven't laid out my training calendar for September yet, but I want my weekly running miles to be around 30 to 40 by month's end.  I really feel like I want to keep cycling 3-4 times a week as well because this will more-than-likely be the last month of really warm weather here and it will be hit-or-miss with suitable riding temps from here on out til spring.  So I wish anyone reading this well and remember to keep training hard, heavy and often!  Eat well and get plenty of rest!  And most importantly, enjoy family, friends and life because these are the 3 things that are most important to our existance! Don't forget your yoga!

Namaste!!!!!


***Training update: I got in a mile swim and a 3 mile run with fartleks today