Fri Sat Sun

Friday
Swim 2500 yards at Livonia Rec center
Run 5.1 miles on Hines Drive. Just out and back on normal loop.

Sat
Swim 1500 meters open water in about 30 min at Island Lake Rec area.
Bike 13.7 miles in ~45 min. Easy around the park to get legs spinning and rest up for the race on Sunday
Club party afterwards

Sun
Ann Arbor Triathlon
Swim 800 meters 14:30
Bike 14.3 in about 38 min
Run 5.2 miles in 39:20

Swim went good, I started on the inside and had clear water to swim in. I stayed out of trouble, swam brisk for the first few hundred meters then settled into a comfortable pace. I went around both turns on the inside with no incident and then picked up the pace on the way back. I felt strong and swam 50 strokes hard/30 strokes moderate. I probably passed 3 or 4 people on the way back.

Came out of the water comfortable but the run up to transition had me a little winded. T1 was quicker than I expected at 2:00.

The bike went well too. I was cold to start but then warmed up nicely. Started smooth then picked it up to a comfortable fast pace. By the time I got to Doyle Rd I was riding pretty strong and had to pick my way through many people and even had to pass a van on the road cuz he was blocking me. I probably lost 20 or 30 seconds because of that incident. I came off the bike into a large crowd of people and had to maneuver between them. It slowed me down a little but I was fine with it.

T2 went pretty good, I had a little issue getting the twigs off of my feet but I got my socks and shoes on in a hurry and ran hard out of transition.

I planned on running hard in the beginning instead of pacing myself out from start to finish. I don’t have the run speed others have so I decided to take every bit of speed I had from the beginning and hold on the best I could. Crooked Hill was tough, I wish I could have gone quicker up it but that was all I had. I wore my foot pod for my RS400 so I knew how fast I was going all of the time. I was surprised to see that on much of the course I was running in the high 6’s and low 7’s. The real steep hills had me in the 10’s. On the little dirt road section I felt good and went with the speed, settled down on the hills but still was going as hard as I could. By the time I got to Hankard Rd I still felt good. Going up that hill was a little tough and slowed me down to 8:30’s for a min or so. At the top I got back down into the low 7’s high 6’s all the way to the finish. 39:20 is over a minute faster than last year while overall I was about 2 min faster than last year.
I felt pretty good about my effort and managed 6th place out of 50 in my Age Group. The top 5 guys ran over a min/mile faster than I did so I’ve still got some work to do with run speed. It was a good race and once again pointed out where my weaknesses are.