Sunday, July 15, 2007

Morton Plant Meese Sprint Tri Race Report

Whew, out of breath just typing that title. Fortunately the race was not as long. Di's got a great post and pics of the race - worth checking out! We had Luke and his family there cheering us on (Luke has a hernia left over from Madiera Beach Tri in May), and GEL volunteered out as kayak support.

For the Bigun, nothing special to report. I thought I had placed, but in the last minute they posted a guy who lost his timing chip, bumping me from 5th to 6th for the old Clydesdales. I was pretty psyched there to get some bling, too. Oh well.

This is one of the biggest sprints around - there's a pro prize purse, so that tends to bring out all the athletes. On the Clydesdale side, there were 55 starters total, split pretty evenly between the under and over 40 age groupings. Here's a look at the old guy's top group:

I added what the bike speeds amounted to and the run paces for some of the guys. I keep telling Excel Man that even though the swim is a short part of the race, when you come out of the water 3 or 4 minutes behind, it's difficult to make that up. Again this was the case for me for this race. Now if I had a bike and run like Larry... well, Larry barely weighs 200lbs as well. I've got to lose some more weight! Speaking of the swim, interestingly, I crushed Excel Man by 11 seconds. He had the luxury of starting 15 minutes before me, and a whole lot less people to swim though. This race had a bunch of newbies in it - and as the waves wore on, the water got pretty crowded with back, side and breast swimmers. We swam into the current, making for a bit slower pace than my last sprint, just over 2 minutes per 100 yds.

The bike, however, found me lacking today. My run out of transition with my bike was so long, I thought I'd try something different today - I ran with my shoes in my hand, and put them on over the bike mount line. Not recommended. Didn't save any time and it ruins your bike split numbers with a falsely quick T1 and added seconds to your bike. Plus, I had to get out of the way, and it was just a silly move. I picked up a shell on the ball of my right foot during that run, and it stayed there for the whole bike - pretty annoying.

The bike was over a quiet a few bridges and 2 really tall ones. The Bigun loses his bike prowess in the hilly stuff. Even beyond the bridges, the course had a roller feel to it, plus some sharp turns. On the first bridge, a woman came wizzing by me on the down hill, that we could plainly see had a sharp left at the base of it. I was riding my brakes, and made the turn easily. She went over the curb to my right and straight into the hedges - she didn't get hurt as she had slowed down enough, but it had to be embarrassing. I still managed a 21mph bike spit which was faster than I expected with my 8mph speeds at the top of the bridges. Excel Man was in the high 21's, the son-of-a-gun.

T2 went much better, and I got out on the run. UG - the first mile or so was soft sand on the beach. Not where the waves hit the sand - "inland" sand. So that hurt the run split. All I could do was push hard and keep working to keep my pace under 9. Unfortunately I didn't seem to reel too many in on the bike, and even fewer on the run. I guess, I just picked up 5 places total over the course of the race, from leaving the water to crossing the finish line.

This was race #3 in 4 days, suffice it to say, this was not an "A" race. Not too bad for racing tired, though, and I think I've finally figured out that I need to practice T1 with my shoes already in the pedals. I need to keep on swimming; that seems to be a trend to my race reports. And since I've not broken 10 training run miles in a week in a few weeks, I really need to start running again. It's just so dang hot!

18 comments:

Jazzzzergal aka "Mrs blink" said...

Hey - Blink entertains the Cul-De-Sac with his practice mounts and dismounts on his bike w/ the bike shoes clipped in. Give your neighbors a little lesson in Tri 101! I bet they will love it!:)

Di said...

LOL, Jazzzzzzergal might be onto something!! What a great idea!!

The Stretch Doc said...

ouch.. shell in da foot.. eeekkk.

nice wheels!

rockon`

bigmike600 said...

Wow. Nice bike time and super run time. Anything sub 9 is pretty sweet in my book. Sounds like you had fun too and I guess that is what it is all about.

Cindy Jo said...

Nothing will kick your butt more than so many races that close together. You'll feel a huge boost in a few weeks. Nice work!

Supalinds said...

Nice work! 3 races in 4 days...ouch, take a nap mmkay.

Unknown said...

My you area glutton for punishment arent you?
Sounds like you had fun and Di got great pictures.

Fe-lady said...

Congrats on a strong finish...3 races in 4 days! Are you crazy??? (Aren't we all?) :-)

Dan Seifring aka "OBRATS" said...

Great Job Bigun. 3 races in 4 days you can have the day off from training today.

Comm's said...

i go on vacation and you do 3 races in a week.

THATS AWESOME.

Green Eyed Lady (aka GEL) said...

I love your way with adjectives! If you crushed EMan in the swim, does that mean he pulverized you on the bike and decimated you on the run? ;)

S. Baboo said...

Whoo Hoo! Great Race! What's up with the inland sand running? How much does that slow you down?

Spokane Al said...

The third race in four days! - you are an endurance animal! And a very large one at that.

tri-mama said...

You and Di were unanomously (I know that's spelled wrong) voted the bloggers we most wanted to meet as the Colorado crew convened- we've got to work that out somehow. Well, unless you're really just a jerk, in that case.....:-) Don't mind me, just cranked out 16 hours with The Tribe in the car on the return trip-that probably won't be so funny in the morning. So, let's review for next year, shall we...?

Oly said...

I do a workout called things that make other people go HHhhhmmmm???

It's all about the bike shoe (on d bike) transitions, I'll fill you in.

BTW, why did you take a day off between races? :)

Iron Eric said...

You have some great pics! Thanks for such a great race report. Go get em tiger.

Tri-Dummy said...

Blink teases me for this...bring a bucket of water to your transition. THEN you can rinse all the yucky stuff...like shells...off of your dawgs. It works.

You should have posted a pic of your woman in my tri t-shirt. The only way to make this post better...A LOT BETTER!! :)

Jetpack said...

Big,

You gotta share with me how you get the screen shots of the Garmin Training Center screen. Please share!

Good stuff by the way. I loved the Africa Hot post.!

-Jet