Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Peter Barnard - Race Re-Cap Metroplex Sprint

Here's my race re-cap for last weekends races.

Name: Peter Barnard

Event: Metroplex Sprint Triathlon (June 12th and 13th)

Location: Grand Prairie

Class (yours): 45 - 49 1st place age group Sat, 2nd place age group Sun

Local Knowledge and Conditions: It's a 400 metre swim in Joe Pool Lake, flat and fast bike with most of it on the dam. 2 mile out and back run. Windy conditions on both days.

Pre-Race Strategy & Warm Up:  Before a Sprint race the most I'll eat is a Power Bar with a cup of gas station coffee. There is no time in a sprint race to settle in so it's important to warm up well before the race (especially for us who are a little older and take a little more time to get the joints moving!) I try to get in a 15 minute run, 10 minute bike and 5 minutes or so in the water. After that some light stretching.

Psychology: Get in the water and swim as fast as you can, get out of the water and on your bike than cycle as fast as you can. Get of your bike then run like heck until you finish.

Race recap: Lake was a little rough but the hours spent at the Rockwall Aquatic Center have paid off as I felt strong throughout the swim on both days. Transition felt good and I had good bike times both Sat and Sun averaging 24 mph on Sat and 23.9 mph on Sun (thank you to Sensei Dawdy and PowerTap). Have mastered the dismount now which has knocked a few seconds off my T2, would have liked to have run faster but did manage to average 6.55 min/mile on Sat and 6:59 min/mile on Sun. Need to work on faster leg turnover. In total there was only 5 seconds between my times on Sat and Sun.

Final thoughts: Thoroughly enjoyed both days as had the rare chance of racing someone head to head on both days. Some of you may already know Cary Wilmington, he's from Rockwall and won the Sprint overall in 2004, 2nd overall in 2005.  Cary and I went pretty close on our times on Sat but Sun was the real race. I came out of the water only slightly ahead as he'd been on my heels for most of the swim, we swapped leads in the bike a couple of times and then again on the run. We actually ran the last mile side by side, he was able to get ahead at the finish line and the timer has us with only 8/10th of a second difference. That was a really fun experience although I don't recall thinking it was fun at the time, I kept wishing he'd bloody slow down!!


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