Jason Ross at the Classic Rock Rotary Sprint. 6th overall.

Green Member:  Jason Ross 

Event: Classic Rock Rotary Sprint 

Location:  The Motherland

Class (yours):  M 35-39

Results: 1:00:02.  6^th overall; 2^nd in Age Group (gosh, that Mason Randall can run fast!) 

Local Knowledge and Conditions:  Barry and I rode the bike and run course the day before, which was helpful for the run in particular.  We didn't get on the course until 2 pm or so, which was much later (and warmer) in the day than we wanted to do this.   

Pre-Race Strategy & Warm Up:  Swim strong, but controlled.  Drill the bike and see what I have left on the run, though try to negative split the run.  No Warm-Up, other than successful D1 (home) & D2 (race site). 

Psychology:  Use this as a good barometer for where I am at the start of 2010.  Wasn't trying to PR anything, but just go out and race solid and see how I feel on each discipline.  And hope that Dawdy would win the overall title, so I'd have a fighting chance in AG.   

Lessons Learned (Or Re-Learned):  Sleep is really important.  I need to get better sleep leading up to a race.  I was exhausted heading into this race, particularly no sleep Friday night (the most important night before a Sunday race) thanks to my bright idea of scheduling our Kids Triathlon the day before the Classic Rock.  Thanks to several other ProSoapers who raced Sunday (Barry, in particular) who also sacrificed precious Friday night sleep to help with the Kids race.  

Future Goals (include skills executed well and skills needing improvement):  9 out of 10 Dentists agree that I executed the fine art of passing 2 teammates at once on the bike particularly well (you know who you are!).  I am equally certain both of those teammates executed very well the art of passing me on the run…a humble reminder that I my run pace will be my biggest opportunity for improvement this year. 

Fitness (endurance, nutrition, hydration):  I have tons of endurance due to a gazillion miles on the bike so far this year.  I took a Gu just before lining up for the swim, and that was it. This was the first tri of the year, and I only very recently started run and swim workouts aimed at endurance and speed.  Jan – April was entirely form/technique workouts for run and swim.  We will see how things go at CapTex.   

Something funny that happened:  I got a Barbara Streisand record.  (I hope I spelled her name wrong.)