Yesterday was the Valdese Sprint Triathlon. This tri will always be one of my favorites because it was actually my very first triathlon ever. It's hard to believe that it was just three short years ago that I was racing on my mountain bike with a helmet that I had borrowed from a friend! I've certainly gotten a little bit more serious about my equipment choices since then! But anyway, I'm glad that I got the chance to race it again for my third consecutive year. This date, June 25th, was actually a rescheduled date because the original April 16th event was cancelled due to incliment weather.
Overall, the race went really well. I approached the race as a training session, and therefore didn't taper at all leading up to it. My major goal is Rev3 Cedar Point in September and these sprint races are really just a fun way to get in some brick work. I still completed my hard VO2 max session on the bike on Thursday night and my tempo run on Friday, and also not to mention the HARD time trial up Pilot Mountain on Tuesday, so when I woke up yesterday morning I definitely didn't have the usual race-day "snap" in my legs. But, I ended up with a solid 3rd place finish overall and 1st in the M 25-29 age group. I only missed 1st place overall by 60 seconds, so I can't complain about that. This is how it all broke down:
Swim (250 yd): 4:27, 38th overall.
This is actually a very solid swim split for me. My swim still lags FAR behind my bike and my run because I just haven't found the time to spend really working on my stroke with an instructor, but I'm pleased with swimming significantly under 2:00/100 yd (my planned IM swim pace). I didn't push it too hard on the swim and felt very comfortable coming out of the water.
Bike (9 mi): 25:33, 2nd overall.
In the back of my mind, my major goal for this race had been to post the fastest bike split of the day, so I am a little bummed that I only posted 2nd fastest by 16 seconds. The bike course at Valdese is pretty hilly and technical, with a lot of climbs out of the aerobars, and I realized pretty early on in the bike leg, that my legs were paying for the hard week of training leading up to this race, so I had to dial down the intensity a bit from my planned 320 W. I ended up averaging 290 W, which is a significant under-performance for me at that distance, but I am still happy that it managed to snag me the 2nd fastest bike split.
Run (3.1 mi): 18:57, 4th overall.
I really had NO idea what to expect for this 5 km run because I have been doing a lot of longer run sessions lately for Rev3 and have put less emphasis on the speedwork. I started off the first mile pretty conservatively and was suprised with how good I felt. As I rounded the 1.5 mile turn around cone, I really picked up the pace and finished very strong over the second half of the race. Honestly, this is probably the best I have felt finishing a 5 km run in a LONG time and I feel good about the run training that I'm doing for Rev3.
Thanks to SetUp Events and the town of Valdese for putting on a great race yesterday. I'll definitely have this one on the calendar for next year!
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