Savannah Sprint Triathlon Race Report 6/17

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." - Steve Prefontaine

This was my first race of the season, I was really excited about this race. I've been training pretty constantly since November, so I was looking forward to see if the work I've put in as paid off. The race took place in Savannah, I left Atlanta the day before after work and stayed with my friend Torrie (THANKS again !!). I crawled into bed around 10 but I couldn't really sleep I woke up at 2ish and just rolled around in bed till 4:30. I ate my breakfast and made sure I was drinking fluids. I tried to be quite when I was leaving the house but I end up waking up the dogs, so I'm not sure if I had woken up everyone else in the house. Whoops

My setup 

I got to the race around 5:20, I was one of the first people there. I was able to get a really good spot on the second rack closest to the bike exit/entrance. I had forgotten a flashlight so I began to unpack everything with only a small amount of light coming from the check-in tent. Once I was able to set up everything up, I went for a warm up ride, followed by a warm up run. As I was getting back they announce that wet-suits would not be allowed, the water was 84!! When I got in for a little warm up swim, it felt like bath water, the air temp was in the high 60's which caused the water look like it was steaming!

Transition Area 

Transition closed about 15 mins before the race started so I made my way to the swim start. The start/exit was up the steep little bank on the lake that had turned into a mud ramp with all the people coming in and out of the water, even while paying attention, I almost slip getting into the water for my wave to go off. I was a little bit worried that I'd fall when I was trying to exit since I would be a little bit dazed after the swim.

The Swim

The gun went off at 7:00 I had positioned my self towards the middle of the pack. It was a full contact swim for the first 100 meters. I got kick in the head by someone that it took me a second to recover and then I had someone else grab my leg, not really sure if it was an accident though. After that I was able to find my rhythm. and some clean water. I realized I need to work on my swimming more because it took me a few seconds shy of 10 mins to cover the 500 yards. I'm glad the swim was over I was starting to get a little hot in that water! Turns out I didn't fall getting out of the water and I was able to run to T1 with no problems!

The Bike
The bike course was flat it reminded me a lot of biking back home in Miami. It was a one loop course, with very light traffic and basically zero wind. I settled in at a little faster pace then I was expecting, I was staying between 20-23. At the half way point I was averaging about 21, I decide to pick up the pace a little. End of averaging 22.04. This was the first race I've done with my new race set up It included Victoria Open Corsa Evo race tires, a wheel cover, and the Rudy Project Wingspan. I'm not quite sure how much of a difference the new equipment made but it defiantly felt a lot faster. I felt great the entire time, I was hurting a little bit towards the end of the bike but kept pushing it.

The Run
I got to the run thinking, I was going to be in trouble because I thought I had pushed the bike a little to hard. I ran out of T2 and actually felt pretty good, my last race my legs felt like they were about to fall off, but this time they felt like jello. Even though they were feeling strange I was still moving I went out at 6:50 miles for the first 1/4 before I turned settled in at around 7:50 miles. The run was a 2 loop course around the lake it was flat and my first lap was pretty empty. there was a lot of shade running by the lake, there was water station right when you came out of T2/starting lap 2. I wasn't hurting to bad till the 2.5ish mark, I started to ramp up my speed at this point trying to catch some guy I thought was in my AG. End up closing the gap, but turns out he wasn't in my AG. I felt like that I finished with a little bit of gas in my tank, I could have maybe gone a little harder in mile 2 where my avg pace was 8:05.

Top 3 AG 20-24

2nd Place 20-24 AG Award 

Overall, I felt like I had a pretty good race, I finished 2nd in my AG and 19th OA with a 1:08:46. It was a new PR which I was really excited about and it was a great way to start off the season.

Swim 9:57
Bike 35:03
Run 22:39