Thursday, June 3, 2010

Memphis in May - Peter Barnard represents outside of the SMW Region

Event: Memphis in May Olympic Triathlon

Location: Memphis 

Class (yours): 45 - 49

Local Knowledge and Conditions: This my 4th time at this race but first Olympic in 2 years, only done 70.3's and Sprints in past 2 years. It's a fast swim, fast bike but a nasty, hot and hilly run.

Pre-Race Strategy & Warm Up: Usual, gas station sweet coffee and a power bar followed by 10 minute jog, light stretch, short swim and visit to the nearest portapotty.

Psychology: This is a time trial event with swimmers going off every 3 seconds, was still trying to get wet suit on as I was getting to the start. lower leg ripped on wetsuit and that left me me feeling being rushed to the start. This was unusual for me as I am generally mentally collected prior to start. I spent early part of swim getting myself relaxed. 

Race recap: Was surprised to see find out I did 21:57 time for 1,500 m swim even with having to work hard at relaxing myself from the beginning of the swim. Got on bike and just worked on getting myself into a good pace. My average was 22 mph for the 25 mph which I was happy about but know I still have another gear somewhere and am working on finding it. The run on this race has almost no flat spots, it's up and down all the way and this year was 92 F with 60% humidity......the 2nd hottest day in 27 years and just brutal. I was working on just under 8 min splits until mile 4 then body temp just soared. Struggled through miles 4 and 5 but managed to get respectable back to mile 6. Ended up with time of 2:24.

Final thoughts: I still have some room to improve swim strength over the longer distances. Have changed bike shoes in the past week and am working on getting my average bike speed up by another 1 mph, this would give me another 3 minutes or so in an Olympic distance race. Am happy with transition speed and use the principle of 'keep it simple stupid' !!  I see room for improvement in my run, my run efficiency has improved and am aiming for a 1:45 hr/min 70.3 run time.  Waco race is in July and I am aiming for a top 3 finish

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