The rest of the summer races

I’ve been back at it for about 4 weeks now but here is a recap of what I’ve done after the race in Racine.

East Fork Triathlon, Olympic Distance near Cincinnati Ohio
Part of the HFP race series all the way down near Cincinnati Ohio. I was a bit hillier that I had expected but I was just trying to get series points. The resevoir had flooded a little bit and they had to change the run course. I was tired and didn’t post a good run time. Still 6th place at 2:28:33 was not too bad while training through the race.

The bike and run were much harder than I had expected. This is not a race to train through and I was not well prepared for it.

Vermilion Triathlon, Olympic Distance in Vermilion Ohio
It was a very nice little town that I visited many years ago when I was a kid racing sailboats. A lot of landmarks were still there. Karen and I both did the race prepping for the Breakwater Triathlon. She did the sprint and I did the Olympic (for points). The drive there was nice as it went down Highway 2, a route that Karen had never taken before and we got to see a little bit of Ohio that wasn’t from the highway.

The Olympic distance race got very hilly after 7 or 8 miles out, to the point that at the top of one hill, painted on the road was “Steep downhill…No Joke” and it was no joke. Still I liked the course and had a good time. The run was fairly flat but hot, I did OK for me while training through the race. 2:27:15 got me 3rd place on a hot day.

Afterwards Karen and I walked through town a little bit, had lunch then drove home. I would recommend this race to anyone.

Breakwater Triathlon HIM in Petoskey MI
I couldn’t really call this an “A” race since it was so close to Racine but I trained as if it was one and did a full taper despite it being 6 weeks after the previous HIM. I ranked it as a “BB” and wanted to do the best that I could with what I had left. This was Karen’s first HIM and she executed her plan perfectly and came in right on schedule.

It had been raining for the days leading up to this race and we were pleasantly surprised that it stopped for the race. The weather was still chilly on race morning and presented a unique challenge. The water was rough so they moved the swim course completely into the harbor. That wasn’t bad but I had hoped to swim in the waves outside the break wall and get a better lead on the poor swimmers L

The swim was uneventful and over very quickly, water temp was in the low 60’s so I wore my full Aquaman suit to stay warm.

Karen and I had ridden the bike course beforehand so I knew what was coming and had a plan for it. The course had a lot of rolling hills that came one after another with a lot of false flats too. 220 to 230 watts uphill and 170 to 180 watts on the flats was the plan and it worked quite well. I would ride restrained until mile 45 where I reassessed my abilities and decide what to do from there. At that point I felt very strong and rode by feel afterwards. I caught some people that had passed me earlier, even the girl that had drafted a friend of mine for the previous 30 miles. The only issue I had was that it took me about 10 minutes longer than I had expected but finished very strong.

The run was and out and back heading south on the path along Lake Michigan, it was very flat and easy to run. Since I was near the front of the race I didn’t see many people on the way out. I had figured that I was between 17th and 20th overall. On the way out I got passed by one person very early and passed 2 or 3 people on the first half, one of them passed me back, some young kid that was very nice. I went out a little harder than I did at Racine since I felt good but kept it under control and kept putting down the gels so I wouldn’t bonk. In the last 3 miles I didn’t have enough energy to pick it up and wound up keeping the same pace until the finish. A 1:46 run for me was the second best I had done in a HIM backing up the 1:44 I did at Racine and confirming that the run at Racine was not a fluke. I was very happy with the run since it had come after a very challenging bike ride that took me 31 minutes longer than the bike ride at Racine.

Portage Lake Triathlon Olympic Distance in Akron Ohio
This was the Championship race for the HFP series and I thought I was well prepared for it but still had a disappointing run L

The swim was the regular HFP rectangle and I went out hard cuz I was trying to get as much of a lead as I could on my buddy that was in first place in the point series. I had a good swim and came out of the water in second place J. After a 50 sec transition I was off on the bike, little did I know that I was in first place at that time.

I went as hard as I thought was realistic for me on the bike. The course had some long rollers but nothing too difficult. Karen and I had driven the course the day before so I knew what was coming. When I got back to the transition area the bike racks were empty (a good sign), got my shoes on and was off on the run. Still I had no idea I was in first place.

Well I had cooked off a hard bike ride and didn’t run too well. As it turned out my buddy had a good swim and bike ride too as was only about 30 or 40 seconds behind me coming out of T2. He passed me about 1 mile into the run and I just settled into a “do the best I could run.” There was one section that was kind of uphill and I felt really slow there, on the way back I was quicker. The second lap was about the same as the first but I came back a little harder on the downhill section. I got passed again about 1 mile from the finish, it turned out that it was the second place finisher and I was then in third place. I really figured that I was in 5th or 6th place by then but still finished as strong as I could.

2:15:05 is good for me in an Olympic distance race so I was happy with it despite a slow run. I was much happier when I found out I got third place. I found my buddy and congratulated him on a well-run series, he outran me in every race.