This is an amazing race in its 34th year, it draws folks from all over due to its impressiveness. 3rd weekend in a row of racing. I had no business even being there, but I had paid for it, so I figured I would give whatever I had left in my legs. This event used to be an olympic and a sprint distance but due to not having enough volunteers they only offered the sprint this year. Something that made the race more special this year was that I had 3 of the folks I coach in the race; Terry, Dan and Steve.
Before the race we had a "team meeting" and I reminded my folks of some key aspects for this race and then we got some pictures etc. before heading into the water to swim a bit. After a nice warm up swim we were called to transition area for the race directions. After instructions we lined up to swim, which was by age group this year and we entered the water 1 at a time in a single file line.
My time to enter the water had come and off I went. in no time I was swimming into folks I just tried to keep a decent line and head to the 1st turn, surprisingly the turn was clean and easy, seemed I was swimming with myself at this point. As I exited the 2nd turn I swam into another pack and had to keep bouncing out around people. Before long I had the swim finish in sight and just tried to stay consistent with my stroke. I came out of the water feeling pretty good, found out later that my swim was pretty slow.
Transition from swim to bike went very well however when I got going my legs felt real heavy and my HR was super high. I figured it was from the build of the past 2 weekends. It took about 3 miles for me to get my HR under control. I got in a nice cadence and started passing some folks. at this point I passed one of people I coach, Steve. as we hit mile 6, maybe 7 I pulled away from him on a hill where I saw another person I coach, Dan. Dan had dropped his chain on the hill ( bad shift ). At this point I am riding pretty hard and before I knew it I was pulling into transition for the run.
As I put my running shoes on and took helmet off I remember thinking wow that 11 miles on the bike flew by. I headed out on the run and pushed pretty hard, my HR was pegged around 185 for most of the run. This was a pretty easy out and back 3.1 mile course. The run is likely my strongest event so I was confident I could grab some places on the run. As I figured I was able to catch and pass several people. after the turn around I did see Steve again, he was about a mile behind me and then not far behind him was Dan. I continued to hammer the run then with about a half mile left I got to see Terry. When I hit the finish line I felt very confident I had completed a really good race.
As my watch loaded up to Strava I found that I set a PR in all 3 events. However unlike 2019 ( last I did this race) I did not win my age group, matter of fact I placed 4th. Just missed 3rd by 10 seconds.
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| Steve and I |
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| Terry, Dan and I pre-race |
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| Terry, Dan and I post-race |
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