The stats: 2:27:10. Swim - 28:22 (1500 meters). Bike - 1:10 (26 miles). Run - 44:29 (10 K). Rank: 6th in Age Group.
2013 was a strange year for training & racing. Although I hit ideal form in mid-June, I didn't have a race to run, and when the new baby came in early July, my fitness dropped off significantly. I did, however, keep one race on the calendar -- the Giant Acorn international-distance triathlon. I have done pieces of this race in previous years, and the course is similar to the Rumpus in Bumpass (though not exactly the same, as I would find out). But this would be the first time I ran my own race.
The Bishop of our Ward has a fantastic lake house at Lake Anna, and he graciously invited all the triathletes to stay overnight on Friday night. I just can't emphasize enough how nice it is to sleep in and drive only 15 minutes to the race start. Sure, traffic between DC and Fredricksburg is always a nightmare on Friday afternoons, but I had a nice relaxing evening, slept in a comfortable bed, and got to spend time with some great people. A big thank-you to the Forsyths for the great "local-race" experience!
In training, I did my best to get back to my mid-June fitness level, but I was still not at 100% in my swim and bike. However, after swimming with Team Z for a year, I have improved my swim substantially. Plus, I believe the swim course was a bit short, so I turned in my best swim time ever.
The bike course is almost the same as the old Rumpus course, except that there were an extra 3 miles or so of hills. I didn't think it would make much difference, but my bike time was almost SEVEN MINUTES slower than my fastest Rumpus pace. So the time I had gained in the swim was completely gone by the time I started the run.
The run went very well. When I set out my Iron goals in 2012, the only goal I did not achieve was a sub-45 minute 10K at the end of an olympic-distance triathlon. At last, the goal has been achieved! A 44:29 10K will probably stand as my PR for a while.
As in every race, I had one technical problem -- this time, my watch malfunctioned, leading me to believe that I completed the race about 2 minutes faster than I really did. So while I was hamming it up at the finish, believing that I had narrowly conquered my PR, in fact, I had missed my PR by 51 SECONDS!
The good news is that I came a little closer to finishing on the podium at this race. I ranked 6th in my age group, my highest ranking so far at any triathlon distance. But most importantly, the race gave me this totally sweet photo-op ...
