Mideast Regional Triathlon Championships

A much more difficult course than Sylvania but with about the same results.



Indianapolis is not too far away but still about 4.5 hours and I'm not a big fan of driving so I drove with a couple of friends.



The swim start was delayed for about 1 hour because of fog, this is the first race that I've been to that was delayed and I was a bit nervous. It did give me a little bit more time to get ready since I was not as early as I wanted to be. I was in the first wave like normal and the race started without a hitch. I started smooth and looked for some feet to follow but I couldn't find anyone worth following. Maybe I should have started in a faster group. I felt someone following me for a while but not for long. The course had a long first leg which is nice for starting wide and I feel it was less congested because of that. When I went around the first turn I was pretty much alone, there were a few people by me but I stayed clear of everyone. The water was slightly choppy on the first two legs and I found it difficult to get into a rhythm but I still felt strong. After the second turn the water smoothed out and I got quite a bit quicker and finished very strong. I started my kick with about 200yds to go and warmed my legs up for the run to the bike.



Looking at my watch running over the timing mat it said about 28 minutes which I really wasn't happy with but that part was over. Comparing my times to people that I know who raced Sylvania, I was consistantly picked up a minute on all of them. So either 6 people had a bad swim or I had a good one.



The bike course was the most technical that I have ever ridden in a triathlon, coupled with moderate rolling hills it suited me very well. I was using gels (my normal amount 3) with caffine in them for this race and they kept me very alert. 1:07:39 is a solid 22mph and I was happy with it, slightly faster than Sylvania. If you haven't guessed yet, I use Sylvania as a benchmark for most of my racing.



There were a few problem areas on the bike course that in my opinion could have been very dangerous. They were all road condition problems and not the fault of the race management. The course was well marshalled and the police and volunteers did a great job directing us through traffic. I rode loosely with a group (while still keeping my 3 bike lengths) for most of the ride and I knew that I was going a bit hard but since I felt good I stuck with it. I finished the bike with a HR of 165, a bit high but not abnormal for the difficulty of the course.



The run was very nice through some small hills with a lot of shaded areas. The first hill got me breathing hard but very managable. I just drank a mouthfull of water from each aid station with no nutrition. I felt much stronger at the 4th mile and made up some lost time from the hills. My legs felt very strong but my breathing was limiting my speed, I'm going to have to work on that this winter again. 47:56 was 1 second faster than Sylvania with a HR of 169 on a much tougher course



I feel that the speed work that I did in the previous 2 weeks helped me out a lot. Since I'm not going to build any more base endurance in the next few weeks I'll keep my training fairly consistant with the last few weeks. I'm going to take it easy for a few days, this weekend I'll ramp up the intensity again and hold for another week. I'm going to do an 8 day taper for Pineman by easing off the weekend before instead of starting on wednesday like I did for Muncie.