Since the lake is 15 minutes or so from my place I arrived there early and grabbed a nice spot in transition. Then I chatted with people from the triathlon club and with friends who were doing the race. At some point I went and rode 5km or so with Steve, then we went for a 2-3km run and after I finally got my wetsuit on I jumped in the water for a couple of 100 meters swim.
My plan for the swim was to do everything possible to beat last year's time. I placed myself in a way that I would be into the traffic at the beginning, and it worked ;) I got kicked, punched and grabbed in place that you wouldn't believe.
Sighting went pretty well, I have the feeling that I swam pretty straight versus last year. Since there was a lot of waves I swam with people from the start to the end. Trying to find a pair of feet to hold to, but no luck with that. I basically had to swim the entire km alone, oh well life is not always easy ;)
I got out of the water, and hit my watch when I reached the beach. Not a bad time, but not as fast as I expected. I thought that maybe today I would finally swim my km under 20, but no way. I still have to work on my swimming to reach that goal.
Then it was into transition one, I had some problems with my suit, it got stuck on my heels. Didn't lose much time on that though. I then grabbed the bike, ran to the exit and jumped on it. New bike and not a lot of practice this year made it a tough one. I lost times trying to get my feet on the pedals/shoes and then getting up to speed.
I had no idea how my biking would go today, and I had my new bike on which I rode a total of 35km before this race. I was a little anxious, not too sure how it would go. I was pretty sure that the bike wouldn't be where I would gain time this year, but I almost finish with a split 3 minutes faster than last year, which made me really happy!
I gave everything that I had on the bike, I couldn't see my speed since I didn't put my watch in the quick release (I was scared to lose it during the swim so I used the bracelet without the quick release) So I just push hard, and harder. At some point during the bike I got a cramp in my right calf, happened twice to be exact. Both time while going up a hill standing on the bike mashing the pedals as hard as I could.
It worked fine, bike felt really good. My legs were not at 100% though, I guess that 2 days is not enough I could still feel that they were tired. I got a peak of 65km/h which was not too bad :) The bike handled really good in the wind, and in the turn also.
Transition two went almost flawlessly, I jumped off the bike and passed like 10 person while entering the transition zone. When I got to my transition spot there was a bike in my spot, which made me lose a couple of seconds but not much. Put my shoes on, grabbed my race belt and there I went for the race.
Going into the run my plan was to get a faster run split since my running has been really good so far this year. WRONG!!
Dammit when I got out of transition my legs were sooooo dead, I couldn't get any speed. I tried to convince myself that it was only 8km, that it wouldn't be too long. I honestly wanted to stop and walk a couple of times but I just kicked myself in the butt and kept running.
Eventually I saw the first km sign, then the second and the third. At that point I was going up a hill and I was suffering. I tried to keep a good pace, 4th km was better, going down a hill helps ;) Then the last 4 were just survival, trying to stay with a not too bad pace to finish with a good time. I finally finished the run a little bit more than a minute faster than last year. I will take this with the legs that I had ;)
Swim Time = 20:34 (2:04/100 meter)
Transition 1 = 0:56
Bike Time = 42:36 (32.4 km/h)
Transition 2 = 0:49
Run Time = 37:17 (4:50/km)
Total Time = 1h 42m 23s (1:47:48 last year)
Overall Rank = 102/218
Age Group Rank = 14/28
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