Bacon Weekly- First Tri Finish

Mon-Friday---prep swims,rides, and run for Saturday's Evansville YMCA Triathlon

Sat- Race day....
YMCA Spirit, Mind, Body On-Road Triathlon

Summary
Number of Finishers:277 Number of Females:92 Number of Males:185
Average Time:1:44:51

Claude Bacon
M3539
115 of 277- overall finish place; 22/32- age group; 97/185- males
13:28- swim time; 2:07- swim rate; 212- swim finish (of 277)
1:35- T1 time
55:03- bike time; 20.7- MPH; 107- bike finish (of 277)
1:15- T2 time
28:17- run time; 9:08- avg mile minute; 117- run finish (of 277)
1:39:35- OVERALL TIME


I skipped the mon-thurs details so I had more time to write about race day....we'll, I made it....wasn;t a long journey from the first time I failed...about a month and a half; but that was a long time mentally in prep for this race.... all went well in race prep...arrived early had a choice spot on the rack...registered; then with over an hour to race time, plenty of time to warm up wait on my family to arrive, and prepare mentally for the swim. I was fortunate that this race allowed a swim warm up, so I was first in the water to avoid the crowd and swam about 200 meters to loosen, taste the water, and peer in the murky mess...yikes...got out of the water and suited back up in full clothing..long pants, socks, and LS pullover, and hat to stay warm...a tip from an article that Karl sent me and it really helps to keep the core body temp at it's warmest point so the water plays less on performance....then trotted for a while to stay warm...my famiky arrived and I got them settled and then race time...I was in wave 2 so the first wave went...my heart pounding...so we moved to the water and I sat down and got wet and rubbed some on my face to acclimate...5.4.3.2.1 GO....the kid had positioned himself right rear of the pack to avoid the crowd and while I had a longer swim the lesser amount of traffic helped keep my cool...still got bumped and kicked plenty of times, but was all good...about half way through I noticed that I was not out of breath and that I had a shot at this thing so kept my head down and kept moving....some goggle fogging hurt me again and lost a buoy so was swimming blind for a 50 meters or so, but I just follwed the guy in front of me and it worked out.....when my hands hit the bottom of the lake when it was time to stand up, you can not imagine my excitement...I slapped the water and did a few "tiger" fist pumps...gave the thimbs up to my family and headed for T1...it went fine and mounted the bike and off I went....probably went a little too hard on the bike, but I was so pumped I couldn't control it, so a big effort went into making up some time on the bike...cause I knew my swim was decent, but for placing, I wanted to be above 50% of the pack overall.....the bike was tough....long climbs...none extemely steep but long and about 8 of them.... came in to T2 and all went well....the run started with 2 big long climbs off the bike, so that had me out of sorts off the bike and was questioning how hard I went on the bike, but after about 1.5 miles I settled in and had a nice run the 2nd half......a sprint finish to beat a 17 year old in the run completed the race for me and brought me a nice finish overall... Thanks for the texts, emails, and other words of encouragement to help me though my first tri finish...already can't wait for more.... I'll send some pics the the blog too.... Thanks all....CB