Sunday, June 10, 2007

Rocky Gap Results

http://www.wmtiming.com/2007/Tri07Splits.txt

This is the web site to view the results. Just to start off, the best part of my day was the friends that came to watch me. I had some support. My friend Bill Martin, his wife Mary, his son Scott, Levi (my son) and arriving just in time to see me start (he really made it fifteen minutes early) my brother from another mother Shawn Vashaw. So, just spending time with these people was the best part.

I was 107 out of 192. I lost a solid 25 places in the run. It was as I deem it a cataclysmic meltdown. The problem was not the run. The swim did. Open water sounds nice, but the constant banging into others, the sea (lake) weed and actually swimming into too shallow of water threw my rhythm way off. I lost it mentally. Could not breath right during freestyle. I told Shawn I thought I did Breast stroke 60% of the time but it was probably closer to 70%. This was to get more air and avoid obstacles mentioned above. I was two minutes slower in the swim than I thought. And my heart rate was way too high. I could not get enough oxygen.

The bike went well, but "Rolling" country road means you are climbing a hill or descending a hill the whole way. So I still was not disappointed until I hit the run. At ten minutes into the run I was convinced I had passed the mile marker and missed it. A minute later I found it. My air finally came back at the turn around on the run. I ran well then, but the damage had been done.

A couple good lessons about open water swimming learned, I also may be a bigger fan of heart rate training after talking with Shawn and experiencing what I did here.

All in all, my performance not what I expected, but it is a great race, beautiful setting and it was a great day. Just as a final note, I would go back. Also I think doing something this early in the summer is tough if I don't maintain over the winter, which I didn't do this year.

I will tell you about the winner of this tri in another post when I have more time. or Shawn could let you know. He is very impressive.

1 comment:

SJV said...

I can only say a few things Vinnie, the winner. He swam about as fast as we could walk from the start to the end of the swim, though there were several guys coming out within seconds of each other, all very fast. Then they started the bike, and disappeared. In what seemed like a few minutes, Vinnie comes screaming back in to the run transition minutes ahead of the nearest competitor. He took about seventeen seconds to do that transition, according to Craig's friend Bill. Then he ran like the wind. And when he came back, he appeared to be coming in from a daily stroll in the park, no sweat dripping or anything. And this is a guy who has a job that requires a pretty big time commitment and brain power. Made me feel a little like I don't know how to manage my time (which may be right).

While we couldn't expect to compete with that guy, Craig beat 85 people! So that was a nice showing, I thought. The bike course was very hilly (I rode it after the race was over to check it out). Hilly isn't good for Clydesdales. Depending on what the date of this one is next year, we should do it. Of course if it conflicts with the Mooseman, we can't. But it's only about an hour of work. How hard is that?