Starting Week 5, post recovery

So,I really took the whole "recovery" part of recovery week to a whole new level. I missed quite a few workouts, but I suppose that's the life of a husband/father/triathlete/graduate student/part time contractor/etc. But it was also a race week so I did want to rest a bit going into the race, as I knew I had a good chance to win this week. I came into the week on the back of a couple of very good long workouts, which I wrote up in my last entry..I've really got to start doing this more often. My only excuse is pure laziness and forgetfulness, alas I digress. So first off, my workouts weren't anything to write home about so I'll go straight into the race report. First off, I knew going into this based on last years results, and my time when riding the bike course that I had to be a favorite going in(in my mind anyway). This was the MedWest Sprint Triathlon in Clyde, NC. It was a small race with only 63 competitors, but it was a really fun race. It was a short pool swim, a 10 mile bike and a 5k run. Being a pool swim you're required to enter an estimated time. As usual, the time I entered was right on the money based on my pace, sadly, the same could not be said for those in front of me. I passed my first person in the third lap, and the fact that there was another swimmer coming on at the same time, in the same lane made for problems. I got elbowed in the face making the pass, but I was able to accomplish it pretty quickly. I passed the next person around 200 yards. Come on people, submit an accurate time! Although I was the 24th person to start, I finished with the 7th fastest swim time. My submitted time was dead on where I finished, which means that almost everyone in the race ahead of me has no idea how to estimate their time. I really need to start inflating my time in pool swims, because I'm tired of dealing with that. I wound up finishing the swim in 4:39. I was satisifed with that, as that's right where I expected to be. On to the bike, this was the part I knew from having rode the course a few days prior. It started out with a downhill right out of transition, which made mounting difficult since I don't put my shoes on till I'm rolling. But I managed to get them on and got on my way. Immediately after the downhill you have about a mile steady, but not steep climb, followed by a LONG downhill into a flat. I tried to push as hard as I could up the hill knowing I could recover on the downhill. I definitely had a strong bike. Knowing the course I knew which hills I could really push and which to take it a bit easy on. I passed probably about 10 riders out there, and didn't get passed at all. I was really strong on the downhills and flats, and only slowed a bit on the long hills. I didn't want to push them too hard, with the run coming up. I finished the bike in just over 30 minutes and averaged 19.6 mph. I had hoped to be at 20, but I was close enough. I wound up finishing with the 9th best bike time overall, so I was pretty happy about that. Next came the run. Dear god, I wish I had at least driven the course before hand. This run was brutal. I started with a short moderate climb before a long steep downhill. Then came about a mile long steady, somewhat steep climb. It was brutal. I finished the first mile in about 10 minutes. Yikes! But after that it wasn't bad for the next nearly 2 miles. It was mostly steadily downhill with small, short uphill sections that didn't bother much. I picked up my pace considerably in those 2 miles, until the final half mile or so. Then we had to wind our way up a switch backing road. It was long, it was steep, and it was hot and sunny. That final push was brutal. I wound up finishing my run in 29:06. Not a bad finish considering after the first mile i was on pace for a 31 minute run, but still not nearly as good as I was hoping for. I wound up finishing 33rd overall in the run. However, I did live up to my hope and did win both my age group(which I wasn't competing in) and the Clydesdale division. So all in all I was really happy with my race performance. I feel like I could've done the run better had I known what was coming, I may have pushed that first hill a little harder if I had known how long it was. I don't know that I could've done anything differently on the last climb as that was just a push for survival. I didn't do a long bike this week because I had to choose between long bike or long run. Seeing as how my running still sucks and my biking is getting a lot better I went with the run. It was another grueling run. I had done a 1000 meter open water swim earlier in the day, and coupled with the previous race the day before, I was running on fairly worn down legs. And it showed. I actually felt pretty strong for the first 4 miles or so, but around mile 5 I really started to feel the wear. I think my biggest mistake was going too fast for the first half. like the 7 miler I did two weeks ago, I started out sub 10 min/mile only to slow considerably towards the end. Last week I started slow and increased my speed by the end. So, lesson learned. Slow the hell down!