Take On The Heat

Jarrod and I completed the Take On The Heat Sprint Tri today in The Colony, TX. I placed 102nd out of 320 finishers (I was in the top third!) and was 17th out of 34 for the 35-39 year-old men's age group. My total time was 1 hour, 19 minutes and 14 seconds. Jarrod was right there with me at 1 hour and 21 minutes.

Full results at http://www.doitsports.com/results/page.tcl?id=179169

It was a relatively cool day with cloudy skies, which made for excellent running conditions. Unfortunately, it was also somewhat breezy and there was a 0.85-mile stretch of the bike course that had a nasty headwind (and since the bike course was a double-loop of a 10K route, we got to do that twice).

Anyway, the race went very well. The swim was held in a brand new aquatic center with 50 meter lanes so we did a "snake" swim of seven lengths for the 350 meter distance. The bike was hilly but fast (except for that headwind!) on fairly smooth concrete roads. For most of the ride I was averaging 20-21 MPH and I hit a max speed of 38 MPH on a downhill, but on that windy stretch, my speed dropped down to 13-14 MPH. The 5K run was on sidewalks - initially around the Lewisville Aquatic Center area and Hawaiian Falls and finishing up through some residential neighborhoods. To my delight, I was able to do the entire run without walking at all.

Here were my splits:
Swim: 7:35.35 (2:10/100M)
T1: 2:24.30
Bike: 39:28.85 (18.84 mph)
T2: 0:59.55
Run: 28:46.30 (9:13/mi)
Total: 1:19:14.35

Compared with the TWU Pioneer Sprint Tri, I improved in all areas except for the swim (which was the same). I am very pleased with my run improvement - a decrease of more than 1 and a half minutes off the mile pace! The training in that area has definitely helped. I think I need to practice more on the transitions - especially my T1 (the swim to bike) - it should have been faster.

Next up, the "Hotter Than Hell 100" bike rally (and a few other cycling rides) and then my first olympic distance tri - the Texas Man in September.