Another week, another race report!
This week we come to you from Perdido Key, FL for the annual Mullet Man Triathlon. Upon arrival at the site I realized that the transition area was "first come, first served" so it was a cacophony of chaos. The closer racks to the entrance/exits had twice the amount of bikes the further ones did. I racked mine about the 4th rack deep 3 bikes in from the end in one of the only available spots due to our somewhat behind schedule arrival. Organized my area, rolled my socks this time to speed putting them on, and decided I hadn't forgotten anything this time. Off we went to check out the beach.
The swim was in the Gulf of Mexico, and was sort of strange. The waves were pretty good 4 foot swells or so, with a hard current to the west. They had set up 2 buoys in line paralleling the shore, and as it turns out the course was hacking about 100 meters out through the waves to the first buoy, swimming 200 meters east (with the current) to the second, and then riding waves in 100 meters to the finish. Nothing like the all upwind all the time 1000 meter swim of last week. There were 10 waves and I was 4th. We all got a good laugh watching the first wave who had lined up perpindicular to the first buoy thinking shortest distance traveled wins. Well of the 50 swimmers maybe 2 made the buoy, and the other 48 ended up having to swim completely agains the current to try to get back around it as they had already gotten blown way too far east. This led to a mass migration of the swimmers yet to start to the left in order to compensate. About half the second wave still ended up missing so we moved over further. By the third and my waves people seemed to figure it out. DW got a great shot of them sounding the horn for my wave, me running down the beach expecting shallow water like the lake last week for several dozen yards, stepping right off the shelf into waist deep water, and simultaneously getting plowed over by the 4 foot wave I thought I was going to jump. Light blue swim cap this week by the way, even more girlie! Still no goggles though, and the salt wasn't all that great, probably going to have to purchase a pair soon.
Turned out you could touch partway across the parallel leg, so people were bounding a few dozen yards and then continuing to swim. I hit the buoys pretty well without going much out of my way, and was sure to turn real tight around the last one and fight back toward the finishing flags instead of ending up 100 yards down the beach and having to run back. Was expecting around 12 min or so, but the current/riding the waves made it much faster. In a pool 400m takes me like 10 min so you know I was benefitting. Swim split 400m:
6:59
Today's challenge of the transition was getting my durned road shoes on. Salty and sandy feet + trying to get on tight shoes really doesn't work. I guess I'm going to have to cave and go with the bucket of water strategy everyone else uses to clean off their feet before applying socks/shoes. Probably took 2 minutes just on the shoes. They didn't do transition splits here so I guess that just got tacked on to my bike split since they took the swim split right out of the water.
Onto the bike I went, trying to chase down the other people in my swim wave. Believe it or not I beat several out of the water, but while I was in transition swimmers from the next wave 3 minutes behind had already caught up. The interesting thing about this one was that the waves were by bib number, so you were somewhat random and had pros intermixed with newbies intermixed with everyone else. So while I would be passing someone crawling along on a rusty mountain bike, I'd be simultaneously getting passed by someone with a crazy $5k bike and pointy helmet and the whole schbang. Got passed by several pro looking types, but passed several dozen of my own. We did go over a steep bridge which had a lot of people struggling going over, and a lot more going back. It was 8 miles or so straight downwind to the west, and then a turnaround and 8 miles striaght back upwind, so the second time over the bridge was a struggle. Out of the saddle, pump pump pump thank goodness I'm at the top. Coast downhill wee, and on to the run. Mile splits were averaging 2:30 on the way out, and 3:30 on the way back, ouch. I'm going to go with what my Forerunner said for the 16 miles, as their split probably includes both transitions. Bike split 16miles:
47:45 Avg: 20.1mph!!!
The run was back out 2 miles to the bridge, underneath the bridge, and back on the south side of the road to the finish. You had already biked it, so unfortunately you knew mentally how far it was. I forgot to take off my cycling shorts (today's newbie mistake) but surprising they didn't bother me that much although I'm sure they were restricting my stride. Walked a few dozen yards at the halfway point while downing some hydration and through the 1 and 3 mile water stops but ran the rest of the way. Even had a monster finish as I caught someone that was like 50 yards ahead of me with 100 to go or something. Sadly DW missed the finish (again) so I have no evidence... It was tough enough getting her out of bed so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Run split according to them (not sure what it includes):
37:54 9:28mpm
Total time:
1:40:10 Overall: 165/344 Age Group: 21/40
Top half overall, just missed top half age group. 240th in the swim, not sure how me the worst swimmer ever beat 104 people. 110th in the bike, I'm guessing a lot of those people in front of me had better transitions... 209th in the run, I was tired!
In any case I had fun! Next week is the Boll Weevil Metric Century in Enterprise, AL. My longest ride to date has been about 35 miles (might try to get in a long ride today of 40+), so 62 should be a challenge, and prove I can do the 56 mile leg of the Ironman 70.3 next month!
GO, TEAM, GO!!
Great job!!!
) run, and nobody got hurt, so all in all, it was a good day.
