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Average Jo Sprint...first top 10!!

Bill McKinneyBill McKinney
in Races & Places 🏁⛺

My family spends most weekends in the summer at our lake place (actually belongs to my 2 brother-in-laws) near Perham, MN.  There are a number of races around here (it is the land of 10K lakes after all!), but for some reason I've never done the one closest to our cabin.  This year, though, dates worked out and I signed up.  These are really low key affairs with a handful of fast folks, but mostly local people trying to get fit. 

It was a bit of an odd course, 1/3 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3.8 mile run.  Not exactly suited for me since I'm not typically a good swimmer or runner, but what the heck.  I figured I would be in the hunt for a podium slot if I could put down a good bike time.

Swim:  I have NO idea how it happened, but I somehow put up the 7th fastest swim time.  The course went out essentially parallel to shore, so it was possible to run most of of the swim.  I opted to swim about 2/3 of the course, only running when the weeds were really thick.  Apparently that was the right strategy.  Clearly the measurements were way off, because my alleged avg./100 yd time was 1:09.  Since I've been trying hard to crack 1:30 in my swim workouts, I'm pretty sure I didn't go 1:09 for 600 yards!  Anyway, I'll take it.  I was in wave 2, so there were a bunch of folks with a 3 minute head start that I was now chasing. (6:44, 7th OA, 1st AG..WTF?)

T1:  Nothing to note, but went really quickly...0:40, one other guy (a friend) went 0:39, but I beat everyone else...FREE TIME!

Bike:  This was my first ever race with my aero helmet and my wheel cover, so I was psyched to see how it would go.  I tested at 254 last week, so was targetting 250.  I was hoping to go over 23 mph, but didn't quite make it.  I went by 4-5 people (including 1 woman wearing a Stanford Tri jersey...more on her later) right away, locked it into the aero bars and just went.  The first leg had a pretty good tail wind, so I was cranking along at 28ish.  Passed a bunch more folks and even caught a glimpse of the police car escorting the leaders.  Now keep in mind that I've NEVER been this close to the front of a race, so it was pretty darn cool.  I kept picking folks off as we went along, but couldn't quite keep the watts where I wanted them.  Not sure why, but will have to work harder next time.  Ended up averaging ~240 watts, 22.9 mph, and 31:29 time.  That was good for 4th fastest bike, and (again) 1st in my AG.  I was only 37 seconds off the fastest bike time, and I've got another crack at these guys in 4 weeks, so we'll see if I can't move up.

T2:  Nothing to note again, and again went really quickly (0:32).  A handful of folks went a bit faster, but I think I only counted 6 people faster.

Run:  This was the end of my domination of the 40-49 AG!  I'm about a 48-49 VDOT, so I was hoping to run 7:00s or a little under.  My legs took a mile or so to get going, but I was feeling pretty good.  Mile 1 was right on 8:00, and a couple of folks went by me.  After that I settled in and started to hit my stride.  Mile 2 was 7:25, and mile 3 and 4 were both dead on 7:10.  The run ended up being 4.07, and my total time was 30:20...good for 32nd OA!!!  Back to the Standford Tri woman...as I was heading out on the run, she was coming in.  I probably had about 2:30 on her.  At mile 2 she caught me, and just kept right on going.  I kept her in sight for a mile or so and then she was completely gone.  She ended up running 6:30s, good for 3rd best run and 4th overall...pretty dang impressive!  I think I could have run a little faster, but not much.  Clearly I need to keep working on my run.

Overall:  I finished the day in 1:09:44, good for 9th OA and 3rd in my AG.  The guy right behind me was in my age group, and I beat him by 8 seconds.  He's a perrenial winner of these races, so it was fun to beat him.  All in all a great race that I can't really complain about.  Give me a minute on the bike and a minute and a half on the run and I'm in 3rd overall and 1st in my AG...something to shoot for!  I've GOT to figure out how to run 6:40ish off the bike!

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