US Open Race

Race morning - up at 4:30, peanut butter and honey sandwich and a cup of coffee.
Drive to Reunion to set up T2 (actually just unpack stuff since I had dropped of the bag the day before) and catch the shuttle to Joe Pool Lake. Learned a new lesson - bring your own toilet paper. The port-o-potty was not stocked, but a nice young lady had brought a spare roll. Hopped on the old yellow school bus and headed to Joe Pool. I was glad that I had on a jacket and sweat pants, it was a little cool.
Set up T2. We had to leave a bag to put the swim stuff in so that it could be transported back to Reunion.
Learned another lesson - bring some throw away flip flops. T1 closes, you have almost an hour before your swim, old feet walking on a gravel parking lot is not a good combination.
There were a lot of first for this tri. Point to point being the biggest, but also the swim start. The pros got to start in waves. Us amateurs went out in groups of four and you could not get in the water at all prior to the race. The going out in fours went better than I expected, but I did not like not being able to do a little warm up swim. It meant that there was no way to check the water tightness of you goggles. As soon as I started I got a little water in the goggles, but fortunately they sealed up and did not become an issue.
Swim: 32:39, 2:01 100 yds. Grade B+
I haven’t done a lot of swimming lately and I always worry some about the swim, just the unknown stuff like will I get kicked in the head and drown, nothing serous. The swim went well, real similar to the last several OWS’s. I thought that I would like the staggered 4 man start because there would be less banging into other swimmers. As it turns, out I actually like
swimming with more people. With more people I don’t have to sight very often. I can see other swimmers when I take my breaths on each side and therefore don’t have to look up. This time I swam a little off course 3 times which cost me some time and had to sight more often which also slowed me down. Overall went well.
T1: 3:23
This was different. Long run on the gravel parking lot, strip wet suit (glad to have a shorty), stuff swim gear into bag, gear up for bike, run bike out.
As you can see it took awhile.
Bike: 1:23:37, 17.9 mph. Grade B
After driving the bike route I was concerned about the hills, but they weren’t as bad as I thought they would be. I was probably too conservative on the bike. I did use more gears on this ride than any other tri. It was a rough course with bumps and cracks in several places. So when I was screaming down a hill at +35 mph (I was afraid to look down at the speedometer) I would get out of the aero positing and hold on tight to the drops. At one point my second water bottle jumped out of the cage and got stuck between the bike and my right calf. I was going down hill trying to grab
the bottle. It took three tries but I finally got it. I was afraid to drop the bottle because I did not want to run over it myself or cause someone behind me to have an accident. This was the first tri that I saw 3 ambulances.
T2: 1:18
Went as well as it could.
Run: 58:25, 9:25 miles, Grade B+
Not fast for some people, but good for me. I did like the 2 loop course. It allowed me to break the course into 4 parts, out and back on each loop. One of the negative mind games on the run for me is not know how much further I have to go. I did use a small part of the running lesson that I had 2 weeks prior to the race. Specifically - the breathing and to some degree the arms and I do believe that it helped.
Overall Race:
I liked the race and will definitely put it on the calendar for next year. The goody bag was not impressive and the overall event was not as big as I expected, I mean someone won more the 400,000 bucks, but it was fun, different and the
weather was great.
Overall Grade B+

Oh yeah, I fogot, I lost 2 more six packs of beer. I am glad that I don't go to Vegas.