Quick Splash and Dash update
Which really describes my recent blogging efforts on Livejournal. I'm way behind on race reports, mostly put off by an exceptionally poor race weekend at the Lonestar Traithlon festival in Galveston. But I'll get back to that sometime. Not withstanding that, I came 2nd in the Texas State Sprint Triathlon, 3rd in the Rookie triathlon aka the Sprint World Championships, if you can win here, you can win anywhere! I've also entered the complete RunFar Summer Sunstroke 5k series, a race every Wednesday, more on that later too.
So that leaves me with the High5 Splash and Dash, aka Splash, Dash and Puke. It's a mass start swim, about 800m, followed by 3x loops of the trail/track around the lake at Pure Austin North for about 2000m. The events are the 3rd Tuesday every month through the summer. The event itself is about as informal as you could get for a full fledged USAT sanctioned event. That doesn't mean the event itself cuts corners, far from it. Dan warns everyone about the swim, no real exit except the end, so don't do it if you don't know you can swim a loop. There are formal lifegaurds and an informal group of triathletes also in the water and on canoes.
I was disappointed with the May race, I don't recall feeling tired at the start, by finished with a 32:30, 63/133 - 15:35 swim, 5:29, 5:44, 5:41 run laps which averages out to be about 9:15 pace. No so good, especially compared to my S&D best of 29:36 from July 2008. Although in my defense I'd say the swim bouys are further out this year making the swim about 50m longer.
And so it was I raced this week in the June event. My legs had no real pep in them after a hard 66-mile ride Saturday where I got my fluids a bit wrong, I had a short brick after that; on Sunday I rode the shop no-drop ride hard including a flat out sprint for the last 4-miles; and so down on the start line I wasn't expecting much. Finished with a total time of 31:49, 58/156 finishers; 15:11 swim, 5:21, 5:35, 5:41 laps.
Getting there. I've entered the June and July events already. June is just 3-days before I leave for the Sierra to the Sea bike tour, so that will be a good last run before a long time on the bike.
So that leaves me with the High5 Splash and Dash, aka Splash, Dash and Puke. It's a mass start swim, about 800m, followed by 3x loops of the trail/track around the lake at Pure Austin North for about 2000m. The events are the 3rd Tuesday every month through the summer. The event itself is about as informal as you could get for a full fledged USAT sanctioned event. That doesn't mean the event itself cuts corners, far from it. Dan warns everyone about the swim, no real exit except the end, so don't do it if you don't know you can swim a loop. There are formal lifegaurds and an informal group of triathletes also in the water and on canoes.
I was disappointed with the May race, I don't recall feeling tired at the start, by finished with a 32:30, 63/133 - 15:35 swim, 5:29, 5:44, 5:41 run laps which averages out to be about 9:15 pace. No so good, especially compared to my S&D best of 29:36 from July 2008. Although in my defense I'd say the swim bouys are further out this year making the swim about 50m longer.
And so it was I raced this week in the June event. My legs had no real pep in them after a hard 66-mile ride Saturday where I got my fluids a bit wrong, I had a short brick after that; on Sunday I rode the shop no-drop ride hard including a flat out sprint for the last 4-miles; and so down on the start line I wasn't expecting much. Finished with a total time of 31:49, 58/156 finishers; 15:11 swim, 5:21, 5:35, 5:41 laps.
Getting there. I've entered the June and July events already. June is just 3-days before I leave for the Sierra to the Sea bike tour, so that will be a good last run before a long time on the bike.