Des Moines Hy-Vee Tri Recap

Another year down! It was a good day overall. The week leading up to the race was very humid and Sara and I were refiguring our race nutrition to accomidate for this. Luckily the day before a storm blew thru and left race morning in the low 60's and an afternoon high around 82 and not much humidity. All the warm weather did warm the Racoon River water to a balmy 83 degrees and made it a non-wetsuit event. Oh well - a bit slower swim, but no hassels of getting the wetsuit off in transition.

My day went pretty good. I was about 4 min slower in the swim from the previous year. 25 vs 29 min (possibly from no wetsuit, possibly because I just got to comfortable and didn't push myself). It was my goal to swim smooth and comfortable so I could ride very hard.

Out of the water in 29:06, a so-so transition at 1:46 and off to the bike. My fueling strategies worked and I felt strong. I tried to keep it between 20-22mph for the first 1/2 of the ride. There was a pretty strong head wind so this was tough. The cousre was 60% flat with some hills at mile 2, 10-14, and mile 22. The turn around was at the bottom of a hill, but after climbing back up the hill it was a tail wind and some pretty fast speeds heading back into transition. I tried to keep my speed between 25-30mph all the way back. I hit 38mph at one point and felt like I was flying!

Back into T2 (1:12) and off to the run. I took a salt tab as I was running out of transition and unfortunately got it stuck in my throat. Man that sucked! I burped it up the entire first mile! Luckily the 1st mile was flat I did it in 6:55 and then it began to get real hilly! I fought through the hills and brought the 10K home in 46:24. I was pleased with my run, except for mile 3-4 where my quads cramped. Not sure if it was from lack of electrolytes or just my muscles need some work? Any suggestions on this? Hmmmm...

Overall I finished in 2:24:25. I really wanted to break 2:20 and probably could have if I would have pushed the swim, but all in all I was happy.

Couple of pic's for ya... Thanks for stopping by.