Cane Creek Triathlon

S: 10000 yds
B: 47 mi
R: 30 mi

Time: 9 hrs

Swimming running both went well this week; the same can't be said about biking.  Didn't get in half the miles I wanted to mainly because I stayed out just a wee bit late on Saturday night and couldn't motivate myself to ride on Sunday as I was feeling a bit under the weather.  Oh well, swimming and running are what's important to me right now.

Cane Creek Triathlon (750m swim, 14 mile bike, 5k run)

Swim - 11:51 (2nd)

I knew Michael Gross would probably be one of the faster swimmers at the race so I got behind him before the start as we were standing on the beach.  My goal was to stick on his feet and not let go unless an alligator death-rolled me into his lair.  This seemed to be a real possibility as the water in the "lake" was extremely murky and smelled of death.  You never know what can pop out at you when you're in unknown territories and alligators are pretty much the scariest thing I can think of in terms of freshwater predators.  At the start we all ran into the water and I immediately jumped on Michael's feet.  He was kicking hard in the beginning, which was a double-edged sword as it was like biking behind a car but it was probably attracting some alligators with the amount of water he was moving.  As far as I could tell the two of us were alone to the first buoy (as it turned out a young guy sat on my feet the whole swim before making a move in the last 200 meters) and that was troubling because a lone target is an easy target.  Luckily Mike is way bigger than me so is probably more appealing to your average carnivore.  As the young guy made a move to pass us at the end I stuck on my feet and we all exited the water at pretty much the same time.  I looked at my watch because I'm a slave to my splits and saw 11:05 tick over and was very happy with that.  We had about a 300-400 yard run to T1 so I'm assuming the swim itself was probably a little short and they account for the long run to T1 with the shorter swim.  I passed Mike before crossing the mat so my swim time registered as the second fastest.  Bonus!

T1 - 1:09

Ran to my bike, took off the speedsuit, put on my shoes and put on my helmet only to discover the straps were messed up so subsequently had to take the helmet off to readjust the straps and put it back on before heading out of transition.  Lost a little time but still headed out in 2nd ahead of Michael.

Bike - 36:23 (1st)

Ran 50 yards past the mat out to the road, hopped on the bike and headed out on the course.  I passed the younger guy almost immediately and then never had anyone within sight of me the rest of the bike ride.  Not much to say about it, I pushed hard and actually felt pretty good but my time isn't really what I would have liked.  I was hoping to ride 35 or under but it was not to be on this day. It was really windy out there and it was almost always a side/headwind except for one section.  There were some intersections where I couldn't see any volunteers so I just trusted that the signs were right and hoped for the best.  My garmin somehow has my moving average at over 31 mph, which obviously isn't correct, but I'm assuming that not including the two 50 yard runs from T1 and into T2 my average was well over 24 mph, which I'm happy with.  I wish my bike would have been faster but you can't always have everything.

T2 - :32

Pretty efficient in T2, which is rare for me.

Run - 18:47 (2nd)


Headed out on the run with no one in sight and only a lead biker as I tried to run fast(ish).  The run was a very simple out and back done twice with the out being a slight downhill with a tailwind and the back being a slight uphill with a headwind.  I felt fairly strong the whole way and was a little perplexed when I saw my time but then upon reviewing my file in the watch I saw that the course registered as 3.23 miles and the pace I was holding would be a 18:0x actual 5k so I was a little happier about that.  The guy that had the faster run than me is a 16:40ish open 5k'er so he's definitely about 30+ seconds faster than me on the run.  I ran as hard as I could with no one around and finished feeling pretty good about my race.



This race is more focused on "developmental" triathletes as it's part of the "Trysports Development Series" so I can honestly say I expected to win but the race was still satisfying nonetheless.  It was good to bounce back from Louisville and feel like a decent athlete again.  Contrary to what some may think, I didn't sign up for this race to win.  I don't care if I ever win a triathlon or not (although it would be nice).  I signed up for this race to move on from how I felt about Ironman.  I wanted to feel fast again as soon as possible after Louisville.