Marble Falls Triathlon - acrobatics!
Well, it didn't quite go as expected, I'm kinda hoping a video will show up on YouTube, this was a a spectacular dismount coming in to T2 and deserves to be seen in full!
We got there a bit late, I walked into transition ready to race, found a clear slot on the second rack, put my stuff down and walked back out, less than 2-minutes setting up. I milled around on the grass waiting for Tammy, talked to Lisa and met her Mum. Pretty relaxed. Decided against a warm-up swim.
Watched the first three waves go out, it was obvious that the swim upstream was both hard work and a lot longer than it appeared in the race pack, and when my wave went off got a pretty good start. It was indeed hard work getting out to the first turn around bouy, but I was pretty well positioned in the top-10 of my wave and clear of much bumping. Half way down the main stretch, as we were with current we quickly started to catch the tail enders from the wave before. It was long before we did the lasty turn into the shore, at that point I was feeling pretty good and thinking I'd had a good swim, only to be overtaken by a white cap that I'm pretty sure started in the wave after me :-(
The swim exit went pretty well, run up the hill, into T1, Garmin on, helmet on and out, running mount went perfectly. Once out on 281 it was an immediate uphill, which was a struggle still out of breath from the swim. Out on 71 though I soon settled into my rythym and was pretty much flying.
I had a battle with #1150, who was in the clydesdale wave behind me and probably the white hat that passed me on the swim, it turns out he one the Clydesdales. We battled back and forth for the whole bike course, and it was only on the way back in I put 100yds between us, you can just see him in the background of the picture.
Sadly, although my dismount was going completely to plan, I was going way too fast as I approached the line. I was out of my shoes, standing on one pedal, glanced at my bike computer and knew that 20-miles an hour was simply too fast to drop my back leg.... I should have just over shot the line at this point, stupidly I pulled on the front brake, the bike went under me and flipped up in the air, I did a complete tumble. I quickly gathered myself and got back up, ran to my transition spot and still made it out in 1:06 - but I was hurting, mostly pride, but also right elbow, hip and knee which have decent road rash.
The run was 4.4-miles, I was ok for the first 2-miles but soon started to slow. I did a couple of brief walks, got passed by I figure 4-guys from my age group and figured that was it for prizes, but kept up jogging to the finish. As I rounded the last corner to find the finish line was at the top of a short steep hill, so I sucked it up and went up as fast I could.
Lisa Buckley and I had a bet before the race. I think the bet was fastest out of T2, Lisa is convinced it was fastest over the course. Lisa went off in the wave before me, I didn't see her for the whole course. I'm delighted to say she won the ultra-competitive Female 30-34 age group. It didn't really matter, she was 45-seconds faster out of T2, and 8-minutes faster on the run.
Kevin Saunders has posted some great pictures from the race, Tammy, Lisa and I can be see before the race in album-1, my dismount pictures are in album-2. Kevin also took the "dismount" picture above.
Some results from the race. This was my fastest ever triathlon bike, on what was considered a hard, hilly course. I finished in 22.87 average MPH. Thats much faster than I managed the 8-mile run far Time Trial earlier in the same week. The Wongstar shoes worked great, although my run time was slow, given what had happened with the dismount, I'm pretty pleased. I'm not sure though that I'll have the energy to do Tuesdays Splash and Dash.
STATS FROM THE RACE:
SWIM 1000M: 18:15, 6/22 in Age group,
T1: 56-seconds, 12-seconds faster than anyone in age group, easily top-20 overall
Bike 23-miles: 1:07:21, 7/22 in Age Group, fastest 57:51(which was faster than Paul Terranova, George Smitz and Jim Ryan from Austin that are all ultra-fast Austin triathletes, who says old guys can't bike?)
T2: 1:06 6/22 in Age group (even with the crash)
Run 4.4-miles: 44:49 15/22 in age group
Total: 2:12:27, 12/22 in age group, 153/373 overall