Loveland Lake to Lake Triathlon - race report

You can`t outperform what you have done in training?
What I have proven in training for the swim over the 1500 meter is 26,5 minute @SCM pool in Harstad. In other terms I`m a slow guy with 1:41 pace/100. I have also done poor @both navigation and TT in North Boulder Reservoir before the race. Therefor I had no expectations for the swim. Normaly my navigations has been bad due to double vision. My double vision comes from a botched eye surgery from my hospital back home many years ago.

But first to keep everything in cronological order.

My warm up protocoll was similar to my race south in sweden.

1. Easy jog for 20 min
2. 6 x 75 strides with walk back recoveries
3. Strethching to find myself and my raceplan (YOGA)
3. Entering the water and swimming for 10-15 min
4. Short pace changes to elevate my HR in the water
5. READY TO START

When the start went of I was in the first line of my wave. My goal was to draft the swim and do a solid 2-400 m effort at the start to get on some good feets. Justin camp director told me at things normaly slow down in a race, also for the swim. I had never tought about that. I got on somebodys feet and at the first turn he may have blown up. At least he got very slow and made breaststroke for a while. I made a pace change to catch up a new guy in the front of me and sucsesded with that. Easy when all I had to do was to catch the nearest guy with the same collor on his cap that I had. For the rest of the swim I was going two stroke breating at my onside to hang on his feet. I could not belive the time who was 23:46 or 1:35 pace / 100. A new PB, even if comming of 50 + hour the two last weeks leading up to the race. Anti tappering and altitude makes the resault even better! I`m getting good vibrations when writing this. 

Swim # `s
Avg hr 145 / mx 153 / 1:35 pace / 100

My transistion on the race was both good. Normaly I do fast transitions. My set up in T1/T2 worked well. With keeping everything simple I`m abel to rush thru them with my own routine.

I will not spend much time on the ride in this race report. It was a new experience with wave starts and a lot of slower riders in front of me. I was passing more of them then I could count. My HR was a touch high after the swim and transistion, but was in line after few minutes with a HR 160 cap. I had a feeling of not pushing my bike hard enough at the race and sometimes my HR on the decsents was low steady. Maybe because of fatigue from all riding the week leading up to the race or the fact that I was legally drafting a lot of guys with race wheels and tempo helmets. The computrainer session were Gordo talked about "chest down" and a lot more was a new eye opener for me. Riding is normal my strongest skill, but the fact that I saved some power at the bike made my run performance very good. Maybe the ride was a good one after all when looking at the total time for the ride and run? I`m not sure, but I know that I had great run legs directly out of T2.
Ride #`s
1:19:23 @48 k ride 
Avg hr 139 / mx hr 160

I found my run legs directly out of T2. Kept a focus on form and my strides Told my self.: Your are young, strong and sexy all way thru today. Did 4:16 pace out to the turn and was taking water at each aid. Also throwing some of the water over my head to keep me cool. At the turn mark I saw AC about 400-600 m in front of me. I started to play a game with myself. "Catch AC" before the finish line. He was easy to se at the end with his EC kit. At the 1 mile more to go mark he still was 200 m ahead me. I had to really go hard to catch up with him. Togheter we both crossed the finish line with encouraging each other to make a last push to the very end of the race. For my first time I felt racing in a triathlon and that is a big achivement from my point of view. My latest run test is lining up with threshold pace at 4:10-4:25 pace pr. k at sea level. A quick look at my run #`s show that I was going pretty sollid on the run compared to this test that was done at a track back home. Also had a feeling of a very strong finsish and could probably have gone longer at my threshold pace today if.
Run #`s
10 k @42:46
First 4,5 k @4:16 pace pr k
Avg hr 146 / mx hr 156 out to the turn mark
Last 5,5 k @4:15 pace pr k
Avg hr 156 / mx hr 165 from the turn mark and until the finish line

Overall I got 39 of 714 and 15th in my agegroup.

Chest down lesson - Gordo Byrn

Lesson learned.: 

Keep going with your wu protocoll

Sollid effort at the start of the swim the race will slow down 

Don`t kill your legs at the bike, save the racing for the run

Use all free speed and save power on the bike, remember Gordo`s lesson "chest down"

Have fun and don`t take life so seriously - after all this is a once in a life time experience. Enjoy it!

Hope my english is getting better due to my stay in US. Goal is to express my self also when talking to team EC without getting out of words before the end of summer.

Strong at the end,
JH