Heart of the Lakes 2008 Race Report

I'll give you a lead up to the race before I tell you about it.

Friday:
-Chris Rock Show with the gf.
-Drinks out late downtown.

Saturday:
-Mimosas over breakfast at the gf's house
-Wine afterwards
-Big time drama with the gf
-Go out for Martinis to talk things over. We were sitting on the patio during a huge rainstorm and were engaged in conversation enough to stay in our seats through the whole thing.
-"Cheers" and we tip up the martinis
-Go to noodles & company. Thankfully I could drive. The gf was blasted beyond belief.
-Drive back to her place.
-Nap
-Lay in bed, nap.
-Woke up at 10:45pm, drive home, pack, to bed around 12:00

Sunday
The alarm went off at 4:30am, I ate 2 yogurts, and was out the door at 5:15. I commuted and had my transition setup by 6:30. As always, FAST registration.

Although HOLT advertises as "MN Championship Race," and perennially brings people with their "A" game, I planned to treat this as a B race, and I wanted to go really hard on the bike, and see what happens with my run.

Swim: The lake was very foggy. You couldn't even see the far buoys. My red tint goggles need to go. Orange-turned-White buoys are not easy to see against a fog. Focus on gliding and reaching worked well. Looking back to see the entire wave behind me on glass water was cool. Going around the buoys was vicious as I ran into the wave(s) in front of me. I was out of the water first in my age group.

T1: 2:13 A long run to transition, and a long run to the mount line.

Bike: 23.6mph avg. I just hammered--sweat dripping, gel choking, rumblestrip weaving, 100+ cadence, "on your left" yelling, head-down-in-the-aeros-up-hills, spin-out-the-downhills hammering. I've never biked faster, even during a flat out TT. I'll thank getting into the gym and lifting some cycling-specific weights this week. I'm going to be lifting once per week through the remainder of the season to build strength.

T2: 2:13 run allllll the way to the back of transition, put on socks, slip on shoes, run alllll the way back out.

Run: 6:57/mile I remembered this course vividly from last year--it's longer than the posted 5 miles. There was some long inclines, and I wanted to charge them hard. I took my first half mile at a moderate pace, pretty happy with how my legs felt, and chose a fairly hard pace, intending to see how far I could take it. I made it to the top of an incline around mile 3 running at an identical pace with a woman from an earlier wave. I figured that I'd just pace along with her, but I could tell she was NOT having someone (or probably just me) running next to her. As we passed mile 4, I dropped her. I looked at my HRM to see a heart rate of 174,which is way higher than I've dared to hold pace at in the past, and I'm thinking "Forget this B race garbage, I'm going fast." And then she passed me like a bullet with about 1/2 mile to go. I had nothing left in the tank to counter with, but was able to finish strong.

I've never ran faster. And this is by far my best run pace ever, and it's by alot. My run is really coming together. My best pace to date was last weekend at 7:14/mile, and last season I never cracked 7:30/mile. Strangely enough, I'm getting pretty bad shin splints. I've all but stopped running in the last 3 weeks, and will be resorting to biking to stay in shape after my last race this season.

I ran into my friend & fierce AG competitor Ben at the finish line, and we chatted for a while. His excuse for me beating him is lack of training due to his 2-month-old, and we headed over to the results printer. I was #1 in my age group, and Ben was 3rd! Later on, after non-chalantly telling everyone everyone I saw that I won my age group, a repost showed that I was in 2nd place (d'oh)behind some guy with no run or swim split, and a bike split slower than mine, but ahead of me by 6 minutes---knocking Ben off the podium. A double whammy for poor Ben.

66/460 overall
2/21 age group

I got a place on the podium and a little plastic trophy.