Biltmore lake Race Report and more

So it's monday again, ugh. This past weekend I raced in the Biltmore Lake Sprint Triathlon. What a great race! Easily the hardest short distance race I've ever done. Last year was the first time I had done it and it came up a few weeks after my first main race and a couple weeks before I began my Ironman training, so I didn't train specifically for it. This year the same could sort of be said, but I'm in the middle of training so I wasn't as off as last year, but even still, I've only been training for 3 weeks so far, so I didn't know what to expect. The swim: The water was a nice 74 degrees, wetsuit legal, and the air was in the low 60's. Very nice combination cause the water actually wound up feeling a bit warm. My swim wave consisted of all the men's groups so we had a pretty large wave. I thought I was lined up pretty straight on to the turn buoy, yet, I was all the way out on the edge of the pack. So I'm not sure what everyone else saw that I didn't, unless the majority of the people thought they had to swim close or to the right of the sight buoy. Either way, it allowed me a more open swim without the battle. I wasn't overly happy with my swim. I wasn't trying to kill myself because I knew I had a brutal bike ride ahead of me, and whatever gains I'd get from the swim would more than be lost on the bike. So I tried to hold back a little bit, but it just wasn't a good swim. I started getting a stomach cramp around the half way point. My only guess for the reason for that was eating the GU's too close to the race start. I usually eat one 45 min before and 15 min before. But I forgot and probably did more like 25 and 5. So it was still sitting there. Lesson learned, eat it earlier. The swim was relatively uneventful which is usually what I go for. I wound up finishing my swim in 14:08(or something like that) which was about 1:30 faster than last year(no wetsuit last year though). So I was pretty happy with that, especially considering I didn't try to push myself too hard. The bike: The bike is where this course gets its reputation. Thirty seconds in the bike you hit your first climb, and it just never stops from there. Nearly the entire route is up or down with virtually no flat stretches. And the stretches that seem flat are usually false flats. I did feel very good getting on the course. I hit the first climb and powered through it. I reached the top not feeling tired at all and started laying into the downhill. The next nasty hill comes in a neighborhood after you've lost all your momemtum from the previous downhill so you hit the hill without much speed. It's short, but it's extremely steep. During races I try to avoid standing as much as possible since that absolutely hammers your quads and makes the run miserable. But this stretch I just had to stand up and push a bit. After the neighborhood you have some slight hills, but I was able to stay aero through these until the first slight downhill where you can really let it loose. It's a pretty fun stretch of windy roads but not too steep. This leads to the most intimidating hill on the course, what I call the roller coaster climb on Pisgah Highway. I'm not going to detail the entire course, but I was very happy with how I did out there. I pushed pretty hard up the climbs, but not too to the point of exhaustion. My only issue was my brakes. There were a few stretches were I had to go slower than I wanted because they were acting and sounding very strange, and was afraid if I went too fast they might fail on me, and that's not a course to have a brake failure. My previous time was about an hour and six minutes and some change. My previous best time just doing the route alone was an hour and four minutes. Yesterday I did it in an hour and 36 seconds. So I blew away last years time so I was thrilled about that. I had hoped to break an hour which I just barely missed, but it gives me a new goal for next year. However, with a good bike you usually have poor run time. The run: I started into the run actually feeling pretty good. Legs weren't hurting me, breathing was under control, and I felt that I was maintaining a pretty good pace. But I also recalled last year feeling the same way right off the bat. I tried to focus on the scenery, the day, anything but the massive hill you encounter right at mile one. I got to the hill still feeling very good. But I knew that was going to change. The hill is absolutely nasty. It's the same on you encounter on the bike ride. Not long, but incredibly steep. I was probably running 12 min/miles up that hill, but so was everyone else around me. One person passed me on the hill and she was barely moving any faster than I was. But when I hit the top I still had plenty of energy which was very encouraging. I knew I was through the most difficult stretch and I could recover coming down the hill and then just push for the final mile and a half. It should also be noted at this point I had yet to have been passed by another person in my division. This meant that I was winning or that I just wasn't the first one out of the water. There really was no way to tell until the awards ceremony. It was also at this point where I got passed by the first person in my division. With a mile and a half to go, and the pace he was going there was no way I could match his pace, so I had to hope that I was at least in second place. I just kept going at the pace I felt I could maintain for the rest of the race. It was a tough finish because the course did roll a little bit, but I definitely felt better than last year when I wood chip got in my shoe and sliced my pinky toe. As I approached the finish line, I realized I definitely could've pushed harder(which has become a common theme), and I came through with a run time of 25:52. Which was almost 5 minutes better than last years time! And a pace of 8:20 min/mile. Crushing my goal of 9 min miles. Wrap up: So, turns out I was second out of the water. The guy who passed me also passed that guy and took first place. I wound up in third. Missing first place by less than 2 minutes. My final time was 1:42:50(ish) which was over 10 minutes faster than last years time. I was more than happy with how I did this weekend. I've never improved that much on a race performance especially considering my lack of training. It's a great race and I hope to better my time again next year. My run is what cost me first place again. Despite my solid run time for myself, it was still one of the slowest in my division. My swim and bike bought me enough time to make up for it. The average time was in the 23's. So by next year I expect to be doing sub 8 min miles and hopefully get my time down to the lower 20's. Yesterday I did a long, recovery ride around the fletcher area. It was an awesome ride back there. It was generally flat with one substantial climb that was a blast to come back down. We went about 28.5 miles and averaged about 16 mph. Definitely took it a lot easier than we had too though after the race we were both a bit worn out. It was a great route, the only negative was the enormous amount of traffic. I plan to do it again, but next time will definitely try to get out early before too many cars take to the road.