Triple T race report
Another good race at the American Triple T this year. Some bad stuff happened but mostly good stuff resulted :)
Race 1

The warm water was nice as I could wear my sleeveless wetsuit but not be too warm. The water temp was ~73° F so it was a change from the past few years of high 50’s and low 60’s.
The swim went well, I was fairly fast and comfortable, no problems. The swim exit was closer to transition this year which was nice, but I didn’t have much time to take my wetsuit top off before the entrance to T1. I still had it off in time but had to hurry.
On the bike I felt pretty good, mounting went well and rode up the hill pretty strong. Descending the hill was fast and had a quick transition to the run.

On the run I was a bit winded as normal, I’m not a fast runner but I’ll take a 7:02 for a 1.05 mile run.

The only bad thing about this race was that I hurt my heel on the long run into transition and it slowed my down just a little near the end of the run. I was also a little worried that it was be a problem on Saturday and Sunday.

Race 2

This is where it starts getting interesting. The swim went very well, I was happy with the effort and it was uneventful. I came out of the water in good shape, had a fast transition and was off on the bike. I had one little hiccup on the bike where I dropped my chain to the outside and then wrapped it around my crank. I had to stop and fix it so I did not tear it up. Because of that I lost about 45 seconds which was reflected in my final results. With that behind me I ran fairly quickly and on schedule for my run. I was about 49 minutes for the run which was just a little faster than last year. Overall I was 2:27:55 which was almost 2 minutes slower than last year. I can attribute that to a longer swim and the bike issue.

Race 3

This race was nearly a carbon copy of last year. 2:32:55 this year and 2:32:30 last year. The bike I felt strong on but rode conservative, the swim was strong despite the longer course and the run was just a little faster than last year. All I really wanted to do was set myself up for the Half on the next day so I didn’t push it that hard. Statistically I normally do better in this race than all of the others but that wasn’t the case this year. The only issue on this race was that I got kicked on the swim and had a little bit of a black eye because of it.

Race 4

This is where the race starts. I had to hold back just enough on Saturday to put down a decent race and place well on the overall. My primary goal was to do at least as well as last year and the secondary goal was to beat 5:35 so I could use it as a qualifying race for the USAT Long course nationals. Going under 5:35 is normally not a problem but this is one of the hardest half’s in the country and I did 3 races in the 2 day prior. It didn’t start off too good…

First of all I was sick to my stomach on Saturday night and had to force myself to eat, it was not pleasant. I figured that I would feel better in the morning, which I did, a little bit.

In the morning I got up as planned, had everything ready to go but still felt a little sick. My normal breakfast includes Pop tarts because they are easy to eat and have a lot of calories, I had to force myself to eat two of them. How bad do you have to feel when eating Pop tarts is difficult?

Anywho, after eating them I rolled down to transition and put down a bottle of Infinit hot weather mix and felt a little better. That normally does the trick but still I only had about 650 calories by then which was about 400 short of where I wanted to be.

I had to get the job done so I put down my two gels before the start (30 min and 15 min beforehand) and was off. Like normal I felt better after about 200 yards of swimming and had a fairly uneventful swim except that I almost threw up near the swim exit. I came out of the water near 27:45 so I knew the swim was short. That was good cuz it gave me a little breathing room for the qualifying time.

After another fast transition (they were good all weekend) I was off on the bike with the goal of riding a 3:06 or better. I really wanted to ride something like a 1:34 then a 1:32 like I did two years ago so I started off conservative. I know these courses pretty well so I know where to go hard and where to coast downhill, that worked out pretty well as I came in from the first loop at 1:32 still fairly fresh. On the second loop I road just a little bit more aggressive on the hills and came in ~1:30:30 so together I rode about 3.5 minutes faster than last year. Doing math in my head I figured I needed to run something like a 2:02 to be under the 5:35 goal which shouldn’t have been any problem.

The nutrition on the bike went well. I started with a gel 15 minutes in and then one every 30 minutes until 2 hours where I ate one early and stayed on the 30 minute cycle. To drink I had one bottle of Infinit on the first loop followed by a second bottle on the second loop. Unlike previous years I only carried one bottle at a time, I just felt I didn’t need more and I was right.

After riding well I was into T2, which was probably my slowest transition at 1:39, and off to a good run. The first half I ran in 55:40 but had some rocks stuck in my shoe so I dug them out at the turn around. That took me about 30 seconds and I was off on my second loop. I felt pretty good but wanted to run conservative so I short stepped the first mile and a half and felt surprisingly well. I got up the hills pretty good, down the backside and then back up in good shape. When I got to the top and knew it was all downhill from there, I picked up the pace, a little too fast at first then settled in at a good clip. I ran strong for the last mile which took me into a 1:52:07 finish, a good run there for me.

So with the combination of a slightly short swim, good bike ride and a strong run I was 5:24:40 for the half which is my best there by about 6 minutes and got me my qualifying time. Now I just need to make my final decision about going to Nationals.