I raced a local sprint the past weekend, the Scarborough Sprint triathlon. This was the first year of the race and the race takes place near where I lived last year. The course went over the same roads I used to ride and run everyday so I was excited to race on familiar roads. The day before I was able to get out for my longest ride of the year, 4 hours. It was great ride from our house in Westbrook up to Sebasco Harbor. It was probably the best I had felt on the bike in a long time.
Race morning. The race has two transition areas which makes it a bit more stressful in the morning making sure that you put everything where it needs to be. I went for a brief run with my coach, Kurt, before the race and felt terrible! My legs were really heavy and I felt like I was working really hard just to jog. I try and not let that bother me too much and just hope that by the time I have to really run, my legs feel better. After the warm-up we went to the beach. The waves were huge! There were 5 foot waves pounding the beach. After getting in the water for a brief swim I was a bit nervous about the swim. Luckily it was only 1/3 mile. I was in the first wave, with a bunch of fast guys in the wave behind me. I knew that I would have to push to make sure I stayed ahead of them. They lined our group up and we were off. Luckily when we started there seemed to be a break in the waves. I was at the first bouy before I knew it. I was about 10th or so at the 1st bouy. Swimming to the 2nd bouy(and last bouy), I moved into 3rd. On the way back to the shore I moved into 1st. I ran across the beach and was the leader heading into T1. After a slow transition, I headed out on the bike in 2nd place. I had about a dozen rocks in my shoes from T1. I thought about stopping and taking it out but figured it was only 15m. The rocks shifted and didn’t really bother me after a few minutes. About 1-2 miles into the bike I pulled into first. My goal was to really push the swim and bike. I had pushed the swim and was really pushing the bike. I felt really good on the bike and averaged 26.8 mph, and 320 watts on the bike. I came into T2 not know exactly how far up I was on the people in my wave or the other waves. Just to make sure I kept the run pace fairly quick. I came into the finish with a time of 59:48. The next finisher came in at 1:05:55. Overall I was very happy the way I raced. I had the 2nd fastest swim, fastest bike and fastest run. I also felt really strong in all 3 sports. Now it is off to Racine to race the Spirit of Racine!
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