Nations Triathlon

Another wonderful race day/weekend. I love this post-race athlete's high. I'll try and provide a good recap. It's always hard to do so; I want to be thorough but without overwhelming with details, some of which I may think are interesting, but wouldn't make since unless you were there.

The Nation's Triathlon was an Olympic distance, i.e. 1500m swim, 40 K (approximately 25 mile) bike, and then a 10 K (6.2 mile) run. Over 7000 people registered with 5300 picking up their packets which gave us, [the event] the WORLD RECORD FOR LARGEST INTERNATIONAL DISTANCE TRIATHLON (previously held by the 2006 Chicago Triathlon). So far this is the longest distance I have done, but the second one. In May I had done the Columbia Triathlon in Maryland as a member of Team in Training.

There are many interesting details surrounding the race: staying with my cousins (thanks Jenny!), the packet pickup and expo, the weather this morning, etc. It may be best to just stick to the race.

Like most, if not all, triathlons, the race begins in wave starts. First elite/open triathletes go off, and then racers go off based on their gender/age group. Sometimes they'll send the younger (and likely faster) ages first, but usually the older age groups go first since the younger people catch up and therefore minimize road closures. For me this meant being one of the last waves (30th out of 33 waves). This made the wait HORRIBLE. My wave started TWO HOURS after the official start of the race. Being soaked through from the rainy morning, it got very chilly. Swimming in the Potomac turned out to be a lot better than I expected. It was fairly calm, and for the most part I couldn't notice a significant current.

Both the bike and the run were unfairly flat. On the bike, my makeshift strategy was to push a decent pace, but let up later on to restore my legs a little bit for the run. But with such this course there was no need to. Unfortunately, I hate to stop twice to take care of nature (this is the second race this has happened, despite minimal/no pre-race hydration (???)), but I'm pretty sure my split was still faster than my Columbia split.

The run was awesome as well, while my need ached some, I set a reasonably quick pace and set a PR.

A big motivator was due to the nature of the wave starts and having most of the field start ahead of me. Of course a couple of my age group past me on the bike. However, the WHOLE time I was passing people. Sure they were the older age groups, as well as women racers. However, overtaking - and a lot of cases just BLOWING by - other competitors always helps you keep up a grueling pace. Twice on the run people asked (light-heartedly) for me to slow down. I think in both I then overheard them realize "oh, he's 23" (triathlons have you marked with your age on your calf).

Again, overall a phenomenal race. Here are some time summaries:
Swim: 25:23 >1500m > Slightly slower than my Columbia time, but being in a river and sure to have SOME current, it's understandable.
Bike: 1:15:16 > 40k, 19.8 mph > Almost 10 min faster than Columbia. It was a flatter course, but I also had an extra pit stop (both had slick, post-rain roads)
Run: 40:52 > 10 k, 6:36 min/mile. Just over a minute faster, which can be pretty significant for a 10 k. I give credit to the flatter course. I'm really happy about this because it was below 42 minutes, which was a secondary goal, just below breaking 7:00 min miles.
Overall: 2:28:52
18/108 in my age group (top 18%)
412/2835 males (top 15%)
452/4392 finishers (top 11%)

Most surprising - for me - was my rank on the run. My bike and swim places didn't really stick out to me, but I was 156 on the run, which if it is out of 4392 finishers, puts me in the top 5 %! That % statistic isn't official, so don't hold me to it...

Now it's back to the grindstone. City of Oaks is Nov 7, just 8 weeks away.