Tri Ridgefield

I put in my best ever performance to date in a race this morning @ the Tri Ridgefield sprint.

Finished with a 1:16:39 for a .5/13/5K distance. My splits are:
Swim: 14:09
T1: 2:13 (included a long ass transition run)
Bike: 36:30
T2: 0:47
Run: 23:00 (PR)

64/348 overall, or within the top 18.4%
4/10 in my age group, M25-29

Swim: 14:09/1:36 pace, 74 overall
Knew I was going to do a 14 min something in the swim and figured I would finish middle of the pack. Somehow upon finishing the swim there was no one around me and upon entering the bike there was still no one around me. I guess I had a good swim and finished towards the front?

I even passed people on the swim. What!?!?! Yes, I actually passed people on the swim!

Going into the swim was a rush and I was a lot more aggresive in getting past people and swimming over or around them. At the first bouy turn I took a nice kick to the jugular. Ouch! It wasn't that bad afterall.

Awesome swim! The water had to be 70 degrees.

Bike: 36:30/21.36mph average, 70 overall
Got going on the bike and my inner quads were screaming at me! I wasn't picking people off left and right like I usually would because my swim always sucked. I was getting passed every now and then and I wasn't passing anybody. This is a first! Perhaps I did have a good swim afterall?

Speed wise, this was the best speed that I have averaged in a race and it was NOT a flat course either. However, this was not the best bike performace I have ever put in. I averaged 200 watts for the course, which should have been in the 220 range. My legs just didn't feel like they were firing on all cylinders. Coming out of the water and getting onto the bike my legs felt like ice blocks and climbing was excruciatingly painful.

Thats it, for the next race, I'm doing a freaking warmup on the bike! Enough of the "Icy Legs" that have been plaguing me in every tri I have ever done.

Run: 23:00/7:25 pace, 107 overall
My legs were laughing at me for the first mile. I felt SO slow. Must not have been or else when my legs FINALLY opened up at around 1.5 miles I was booking it! Or either the run course was short or I was in fact booking it cuz I broke my 5K PR by 41 seconds. Never ran that fast before!

When I hit the top of the last hill, this spectator right there and then turned on his techno music and started blasting it. It was awesome :)

I did the run without any tape on my feet, but the remnant of my nasty blister never cropped up. So that is almost done healing. Still gonna tape it.

Upon entering the finish area there was a good sized crowd with an even bigger cheer coming from it and that totally inspired me to hit the gas for the finish.

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Overall, a good start to the season. I did my first ever triathlon today last year. I'll say I have improved a LOT.

My swim from last year was 20:12. I destroyed that by 6 mins! The bike is different because it was a different course and longer. I still think I was in better bike shape then than now, but oh well. And I did the run last year in 28:09 and the run courses are similar in elevation. So I took off 5:09 from that.

Stamford Olympic in 4 weeks.