Annie and I woke up at 3am on Sunday morning and made the hour drive south to Sugarland for the Tejas Triathlon. This was going to be Annie's second Sprint Tri and I really was just looking for something to do after IMTX.
We got to the race site and had to park about a mile away. It was already in the low 80s and the humidity was extremely high. It was going to be a smoker.
Swim:
The swim was in a duck pond and it was 656 yards (600M). The water temperature was 88 degrees and it felt like I stepped into a warm bath.
I was in the first wave (M30-39) and the RD wasted no time getting us in the water. I was sort of late lining up (big shocker) so I got stuck towards the back of the group at the start - it meant I was going to have to swim over and around a quite a few people.
Swim:
The gun went off and it was your normal washing machine that is associated with the triathlon swim start:
The first 100 yards or so was a little rough but I found a seam and really pushed to get ahead of the big pack in the middle. There was a big turnaround buoy at about the 400m mark and by this time I was towards the back of the lead pack of about 12 or so guys. It was really hot and I could not wait to get out of the water to cool off (read that sentence again).
At this point I could see the finish and was just trying to stick on some feet to pull me home. Then a guy in a kayak told us we were going the wrong way and we need to go to another buoy and make the turn. It was about 50m away and we had to swim BACK to it and then make the turn. This sucked because I easily lost a minute or two doing this but so did 6 or 7 other guys so it wasn't a big deal. But the people coming up behind us picked up some ground on us as they all followed us in the right direction.
According to the pre-race announcement and the athlete's guide we needed to keep to the left of all buoys. By us going around this last buoy it was to our right? The funny part was I asked my buddy Steve, who was 3 waves behind me, if I just missed the announcement at the pre-race meeting. He told me that they were watching us swim the wrong way from the shore and the RD made another announcement telling the rest of the swimmers to go around the buoy! This is why I love the small local races - we all stood around after the race and laughing about it! If it was a big race and something like this happened (See CapTex from last week) everyone would have been bitching and moaning.
My Swim Time was 11:27 which is 1:45/100yd.
Bike:
I had a quick transition at 1:33 and jumped on my Kestrel and started to spin in granny the gear. Then I realized it was a freaking sprint and I needed to hammer. My last 4 races have been an IM and three HIM's so the spinning has become a habit to get the legs ready for the long ride - not need here buddy.
The bike course changed some from previous years as it used to be 13mi so I really had no idea what to expect. The RD told us it was a little over 11mi this year. The course was flat and on good roads but had a bunch of turns as it was a 2-loop course. It was difficult to every really get in a groove as you kept having to slow down to hit a turn. For the last year plus I have not been training for this type of burst on the bike so my legs were screaming for most of the bike split.
Transition came at about the time I was starting to warm up!
My Bike Time was 31:32 and the distance was 11.54mi (according to the Garmin) which was a 22mph avg.
Run:
My bike to run transition was only 52 seconds so I hit the course fast. My problem was that the competitive portion of my race was done when I put my bike on the rack. I've been experiencing some pain in my right achilles for about the last 2 months. And to make matters worse over the last 2 weeks I have had some piriformis and lower back pain on the left side. I probably should have done the Aquabike but just decided to take it easy on the run.
The run course was a picturesque little 3mi jaunt though a nice neighborhood with big old Pecan Trees that offered excellent shade. It was still in the low 90's but the shade really helped.
I had trouble fighting the urge to run harder as people were passing me but kept myself at the 7:30/mi pace that was comfortable. My legs were feeling awesome and I had a sub-19min run in me but for once I did the prudent thing and did not push the achilles.
My run time was 22:26 with a 7:29/mi pace.
Overall I finished in 1h 07m
It was 87th out of 400ish.
This is the first sprint I have done in a long time and I forgot how hard they are!! It is just an all out anaerobic effort from start to finish. Lots of pain on the bike! The best part was hitting 28-30 mph on a couple of the longer flat areas on the bike and not worrying about blowing up because you still had a long run upcoming! The bad part about doing this sprint was that my body had no idea what was going on! It was like, "Whoa, Jeff, slow down bro, we need to ease into this!"
This is a fun local race that is just a great way to spend a Sunday morning and I would recommend it to everyone. Lots of food and drinks at the post race party too! Annie had a really good race and more importantly is really enjoying doing swim, bike and run.
I'd like to thank our friend Anne for coming out to support and to take all these pictures. She is a talented photographer and captured a ton of great shots of Annie!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
