QC Tri Race Report

Wow I've been really horrible about updating my blog, I wish I was a little better about it because I know some day I will enjoy reviewing these later in life, and let's be honest besides the 4 or 5 other people that bless me by reading these posts I'm really doing this for myself. Anyway as the title of this post says this is my QCT race report.

The day started off pretty good, woke up early, enjoyed a cup of coffee and a waffle with peanut butter (pretty much my new favorite pre race/workout food) and then packed up all my gear and made my way out to West Lake. I opted to park at the Church down the road and ride my bike in to avoid the crowds and traffic which turns out wasn't really all that bad, but it served as a little warm up.

Got my timing chip and as I was getting my transition area all set up it started to sprinkle which turned into a steady rain, it wasn't looking so good at that point. The swim and run would be fine, but I was nervous about riding the bike in the rain. I will run in just about any weather shy of a tornado or thunderstorms, but it doesn't take much to get me off the bike and rain is definitely on that list. I did go for a little bit of a warm up ride with Jen Paul who was doing her first Tri and she totally rocked it, ended up taking 3rd overall for the women even though she has done almost no training on the bike or swim, I guess that is what you can do when you are an elite level runner. After the ride I ran a mile warm up with Chad and then it was quickly getting time to put on the wet suit and head down to the beach for the start. Let me tell you what, putting on a wet suit is difficult enough, putting it on when it's wet and your wet is even more difficult. Luckily the rain had all but let up at this point and it was GO TIME!

Swim
The swim was a time trial start, 2 swimmers entered the water every 3 seconds, and we were lined up according to estimated swim time. I put myself in a conservative area of 10-11 min for the swim and lined up accordingly but I'm fairly certain there were more than a few people in front of me that may have over estimated their swim time as I passed quite a few people in the water and even crawled over the backs of some. At the very end I caught up with Jen who had started up front, I didn't even realize she was in front of me until I went over the back of the guy swimming next to her and then dropped my arm right on her head. I realized it was her immediately since she wasn't wearing a wet suit and I could see her Live Uncommon racing top. I actually apologized to her after we got out of the water. All in all the swim went really well, I didn't go out to fast and definitely did not push as hard as I could have, which was my intention but I did end up with the 71st fastest swim for the day.

Bike
My transition to the bike wasn't smooth, I had a difficult time getting out of my wet suit and with the rain I didn't have everything laid out like I would have liked, I had my shoes under my towel which was soaked. I easily could have saved 20-30 seconds but it wasn't a big deal in the end. I knew going into the race I wanted to have a much better bike than I did in Bluff Creek, I was willing to push harder and sacrifice a little on the run later. This ultimately paid off for me as I improved my time on the bike by nearly 3.5 minutes. The course was pretty flat, a couple of small hills.

Run
I got off the bike knowing that if I was going to make up some ground on my division it was going to be in the run my legs felt like jelly at first but after a half mile when we got on to pavement I was ready to roll and I set out trying to find and pass every "C" (for Clydesdale Division) that I could find. As far as big guys go I'm fairly fast, not as fast as my buddy Aaron Maurer who took first in the Clydesdale division and 11th overall, but much faster than most and I ended up passing at least a half dozen guys in my division which helped me move up to 6 out of 28 in the Clydesdale division and 89 out of 583 overall. Even though I didn't finish in the top 3 in my division like at Bluff Creek I am much happier with this finish, first off there was much stiffer competition with only one distance racing and secondly I ran a much better race and finished over a minute faster than Bluff Creek

Thanks to Phil Pancrazio, who actually may have gotten the only photo in history of me running where my feet are off the ground.

.Live Uncommon was well represented at the race with Jeff Paul taking the overall title, Jen Paul taking 3rd in the womens division, Aaron Maurer took the Clydesdale and 11th overall, Jay Gates won his age division and a whole bunch of others where out there doing their thing and representing this great cause. There is still plenty of time to make a donation to the Revolution by clicking here and checking out my fundraising page. Some truly worthing causes like Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Ouch wound research and a whole bunch of others, next race is the Moonlight Chase on July 14th which is also the same day as my next Tri and my first Olympic Distance, yup going for the double that day now that's living uncommon...
Until next time...Do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.