Pelican Fest

Pelican Fest Triathlon

8th place

26th overall male

May 23, 2009

http://www.myentryfee.com/results/Results.aspx

Last Saturday was my first triathlon of the season. I signed up for this knowing that I would not be in stellar shape and to give me an idea of my fitness level and things to work on.

A brief overview:

It has been raining non-stop in Colorado for about 2 weeks now and was quite cold the day of the race - 55 degrees. The race is in Windsor Colorado (1.5 hours north of Denver - near Fort Collins) and comprised of a 800m swim, 10.something mile bike, and a 5k run. The water temperature was 63 degrees and the rest of the race was on pavement. My friend Tripp from up in Silverthorn decided to do the race as well since he's getting a new ACL in a month. We woke up at 4:00 am to make the 7:55 start time and here's how it went.

Swim - The swim was terrible. First of all the water was so ridiculously cold that it took my breath away for at least the first 5 minutes. However, once I warmed up the water temperature actually felt perfect for racing. My major problem with the swim this time was that I could not swim towards the next buoy for the life of me!!! Every time I peaked my head out of the water I was swimming towards open water and probably lost several minutes due to this. After about 10 minutes of swimming I decided to just stay next to another swimmer to help guide me to the beach. rank 80th 15:53

Transition 1: The transition area completely sucked. It was extremely narrow and crowded, but I definitely learned from last year's triathlon and prepared much better. Last year it took me 3 minutes to transition from swim to bike. This year it took me 2:06 :) However, I definitely could cut off another 30 seconds by attaching my shoes to the bike and using lots of body glide (wetsuits are impossibly to get off your body).

Bike- This was by far my favorite part of the race. I made sure my tire pressure was correct before the race and ripped through the 10 miles on the road. I was not passed by anyone and averaged about 22.3 mph. The course was hilly but quick. rank 39th 27:04

Transition 2: This transition was solid. 1:30 seconds because I left my shoes attached to the bike. There were only a couple people around me at this point, so it was really easy to get to my bike rack, get my shoes on and take off down the road.

Run- The run went quite well despite my fitness level. As usual, the first quarter mile off the bike is ridiculously difficult. Once my legs loosened up, I opened up quite a bit and picked off about 10 to 15 runners. However, I didn't have any chance of catching anybody in my age group, so I didn't push myself too hard. rank 11th 19:08

This was definitely a good way to start out the season. I'm ready to rock the Belle Isle Triathlon in 3 weeks!

Keep posted for pictures!