last race of the season

I did my last race of the season this morning, the ITPMan sprint triathlon. I did it as part of a relay team, like I did last year. I did the biking part. So this was a good race in that I could basically measure a year's worth of progress.

Well! I progressed! Actually our whole team did!

So we came in 9th overall and 2nd in the relay division. The first place relay team took the overall honors. We beat them in the swim, but I was soon caught within the first 3 miles by the cyclist. No worries though, as I was out there to improve from last year and also do my first race on the new bike.

I was able to get in a 30 min warmup by bringing my road bike and my trainer. As everyone else was getting ready for the swim, I was on the trainer spinning away. It helped I think, but I soon realized that I should have done some harder efforts similar to the race to REALLY get warmed up.

I stripped all non essential stuff of the bike to bring it back to its fighting weight of "this bike is really freaking light!!!"....so that helped a bit on some of the ups.

I did the 15 miles in about 42:3X for an average of 21 mph flat. That is new bike average for me. PERIOD. I have never sustained a pace like that ever. I am curious to see how I did overall.

Good race for us! It was also a good breakthrough year for our swimmer, who raced competitively through college, but had to give it up as life got in the way. He shed 40 pounds since last April, got his butt back in shape and put up probably a top 10 swim split for us. Look out for next year!

Our runner, fresh off of an Ironman and half Ironman also put up an amazing 5 mile run with a 7:33 min/mile pace.

Cold, but crisp and beautiful fall day for a race. I was glad I didnt have to jump into that water this morning!!!