Race Report: Xterra Last Stand

First triathlon since Escape From Alcatraz.  The weather was great and the water temps were okay, a little chilly for me but after 51 degree swim in the SF Bay, 65 degree water was much better.  My finish time was 1:57:26, which is about 40s faster than last year.  It should be noted that the mountain bike trail was longer this year so it’s best to compare averages.

Swim (data)
As I said earlier, the water was a little cold for me but I got over it quickly.  I wanted to have a quality warm-up, but didn’t get to the water in time to do that.  I did get maybe 200 yards of warm-up, but not enough.

This Xterra is a mass start, so there is no way to avoid people diving on you, bumping you, climbing over you, etc.  I line up near the front to limit this but there is still a lot of bumping.  Other than that my swim went okay.  My HR did spike faster than I wanted it to which forced me to slow down my kick and at times stop kicking all together.  This helped control the HR better but did slow me down.  My swim time was 12:48, which is the 8th fastest time.  Last year my swim time was 14:28, so a solid improvement.  My average pace last year was 1:38 and this year it was 1:33.

T1
I was slow in T1.  Last year I finished T1 in 1:28, however this year I was 2:09.  I cannot pin point any specific reason I ways slower other than a lack of hustle. 

Bike (data)
The bike was smooth and fast.  With a faster swim, I had minimal traffic on the trail.  If I had any constructive criticism about the bike is the lack of disciplined nutrition.  Bike nutrition is what set’s up a good run.  I didn’t really have a planned nutrition set up since it was only 13ish miles long. 

The route was different last year so it’s best to compare average speed.  This year I averaged 13.6mph while last year I averaged 12.6.

T2
I was slow again in transition.  I almost fell off my bike because my left foot wouldn’t unclip from the pedal.  What slowed me down in T2 was putting on a fuel belt and a race belt.  Normally I’d only do a race belt and rely on aid-stations, but with the heat, I wanted something extra so I put two bottles on my fuel belt.  There was no where to also attach a number so I had to wear a race belt as well.  I should have put them on while running but opted to put them on while in transition.  My T2 time was 1:22 while last year it was :54.

Run (data)
As always, my run is my weakest link.  I was concerned about sore feet from the Fifth Third River Bank Run 25k.  Leading up to Xterra, my feet were sore on all my training runs.  I added some additional heel gel pads to help and I wore my normal running shoes instead of trail running shoes.  Just wanted more padding.

The first 1.5 miles were absolute torture.  My legs would not get into a groove. I stopped once to stretch but was then attacked by mosquitos.  At the two mile mark, I felt more confident and slowly picked up my pace.  I was over-heating so used my fuel belt water to pour over my body.  I downed salt-tabs like they were gummy bears.  My average pace was 12 minutes last year, however this year I did improve that too 10:32.  That equates to almost 3 minutes faster than last year.  I am still disappointed because I thought I could hold a 9:30 pace, but my legs are not use to the stress of a 25k race followed by a triathlon.

Overall I’m okay with how the race went.  I left a lot of time on the table with my slow transition times, but did show good improvement in the three sports.  Still need to get my run pace down, but I’ve been saying that since I started triathlons.  I am training hard at it and it is slowly falling.  Hopefully by the end of the season I’m running sub 9-min miles.