MiltonMan Triathlon Race Recap - 7/17/11

I had never done this race before, but I'm sure I will do it again now that I know how nice it is! Plus, it's only about a 35 minute drive from my house.

I raced the Olympic Distance and all the females started the swim 5 minutes after the Olympic men. The swim was great in Lake Milton, minus having to dodge a few men swimming on the wrong side of the buoys. The other other problem was trying to site when the swim markers were the same neon green as our swim caps. :-) I ended up with my fastest 1500m swim ever.

SWIM 29:04

With encouragment from Diana, I hurried out of T1.

T1 1:46

A few weeks earlier some of the Grunt Girls and I did a practice ride of the bike course, so I knew it was pretty fast and flat. My plan was to ride hard and go for a PR on this three loop, 24 mile bike course, which I did. :-) On loop one the roads were pretty empty, but on loops two and three, I did have to watch out for slower riders doing the sprint.

BIKE 1:17:18 (18.4 avg mph)

Transitions were uneventful, except that they were my fastest two ever!

T2 1:15

The run course was two, 3.1 mile loops. Very quickly it got hot and I was happy to be wearing my water belt with gatorade. Throughout the run I was calculating how much time I had in order to finish in under 3 hours and hopefully get a PR in the Olympic distance. The run course wasn't super hilly, but it did go up and down a bit.

Mile Splits
1 - 10:48
2 - 10:10
3 - 9:56
4 - 10:59
5 - 10:35
6 - 9:49
.2 - 1:18

RUN 1:03:35 (10:20 pace)

Sure enough, I finished almost 7 minutes faster than ever before at this distance!

TOTAL RACE TIME 2:53:01

Yippie!!

In my age group (Females 35 - 39) I ended up 5th out of 7. It would have been nice to earn an age group award, but I don't think I could have pushed it any harder.

For ALL females in the Olympic race I was 13th out of 20.

On this same day my husband was racing at the Colavita Time Trial just 10 miles away in Deerfield . It was GREAT having him show up to see us finish.

Grunt Girls:

Flag City Triathlon Race Recap

Just over a month ago I raced in my first triathlon of the year, the Olympic Distance HFP Flag City Triathlon in Finday, OH. Better late than never. :-)

Like last year, my plan has been to do an Olympic Distance tri in June, July and August to help with training for the Rev3 Half iron at Cedar Point. The Flag City tri seemed perfect for the June triathlon

The day before the race two other Grunt Girls and I headed to Findlay, found the race start / transition area, got our race packets, and drove the bike course. Nice and flat.

Saturday, June 11, 2011 we got up early from our hotel, ate and got ready, and made it to the start with plenty time to get set up in BOTH transition areas. First was T2, setting up running gear, then we biked over to the swim start / T1 and set up our bikes.

The swim was in a reservoir. The water was flat and pretty uneventful. We did begin with a jump off the pier though:


In T1 I made the mistake of putting on a long sleeve T because I was a bit cool. That took up way too much time with my wet body.

1500yd Swim Time + T1 - 34:43

I loved the bike course. It was all flat, except for a hill out of T1 - and that was DOWNhill. :-) The only problem was the wind, but the tailwind was nice on the return to transition.


24 mile Bike Time - 1:20:11

T2 - 1:18

The run course took us up a flight of stairs and then around the lake where we swam. It was rocky and windy, but totally flat.

6.2 mile Run Time - 1:05:54

TOTAL RACE TIME - 3:02:08

I missed a race PR by just over 2 minutes.

This coming Sunday I will be racing the MiltonMan Olympic Distance Triathlon by ChampRacing at Lake Milton. Last week a few Grunt Girls and I rode the bike course and it looks to be a fast course. If I can hold it together for the run, I hope to break my PR!