St. Anthony's and The Gear West Duathlon

I never finished a blog after St. Anthony's. I started one a few times but I didn't have much to say. I had high hopes for the race and then swam so poorly I got beaten by a girl. I've become familiar with the ups and downs of racing, thankfully, and after such a disappointing race I just had to put it behind me and get back to training.

St. Anthony's results

With a little more time and another good race under my belt I can revisit St. A's. I swam awfully which wasn't a surprise with the waves. The last half of the swim went farther out into Tampa Bay and the swells were 4 to 5 feet high. I haven't gotten good enough at swimming to do well in rough conditions. But I also raced terribly on the bike and run. I just felt like I had nothing in my legs. I've only run slower than I did at St. A's (34:41) once and it was at my very first triathlon in 2010 (34:57 on a much harder run course). There's nothing more disappointing than tapering for a race and performing terribly. I think the issue is that I put in some great speed work this winter and kept my overall mileage low. Then during March and April when I was moving back to Minneapolis and getting back into the routine of working I missed a couple days here and some workouts there which isn't a big deal if you have the strength to back up your training. For me, tapering after a good long strength block takes a few weeks to get that feeling of snap back into my legs. Tapering after doing a lot of speed work on the other hand is basically nothing. The entire speed block is a taper to keep my legs fresh and work on top end speed. But that also means that after a month and a half of moving, not getting in fast workouts and keeping my mileage low I was well rested but didn't have it on race day. It was my first pro race and I'm fairly confident in saying that I will never forget it.

After St. A's was the worst Minnesota spring ever. It continued to snow through March, then through April and even once or twice in May. The lakes were frozen until the last week in April and a few still held into May. Lake Nokomis, which I live next to, didn't ice out until April 28^th which is the latest ice out ever on record.

Tough stuff.

One of these toes is not like the others.

Now spring has finally arrived, and with plenty of rain and snowmelt everything is very green and the state is recovering from last year's drought. The Gear West Duathlon was yesterday and the weather was warm and muddy. Plenty of rain left standing water ankle deep on much of the run and the second time through plenty of mud. It's always fun to get off the roads and run through a bunch of muck.

We get very excited every year at Gear West for the duathlon and try to put on a really great race. I think this year was a success despite the threatening storms. We had Caribou coffee, pancakes, hot dogs, Zipp give-aways, lots of mud and sunshine at the end of the race. The women's t-shirts this year were also a home-run.

I raced well, which was a relief after St. A's. During the first run I ended up on my ass in a puddle coming

It's better to be lucky than good.

around a turn and thought that I couldn't get any muddier. Then running through transition with my bike I smashed one of my toes into a rack. I got on my bike a few miles into the ride and made the most dangerous error I have ever made while racing. I was trying to get into a rythym and focusing on relaxing while coming down a long, straight moderate descent. The road ends in a T at the bottom with the course taking a right turn. I wasn't paying attention to the road and looked up when I saw the lead vehicle turning right out of the corner of my eye. I was in the intersection with about 20 feet of road before it ended in a ditch with trees and road signs on the other side. I panicked, locked up my brakes, slid forward through the intersection, tried to turn my bike which came to an abrupt stop and threw me into the air. Very, very luckily for me there were no cars driving through the intersection and after skidding across the road my bike and I both ended up in the grass in the ditch. No permanent harm, just a respectable grass burn on my shoulder and a bit of a stiff neck this morning. I hopped back up and the rest of the race was uneventful. It was a fun day. Claire and I first met at the du two years ago. A lot has happened since then.

GW Du Results

Hopefully my toe heals up in time to start running again before Pigman Sprint in two weeks.

GW Du Start Line