E's L2L recap

Time to get this blog back going as triathlon season is upon us in full force. Before this weekend, we hadn't done a triathlon since the Halfmax in October, so racing on Saturday (Loveland Lake to Lake), volunteering at the 5430 sprint (aka Ironman 20.5), and tracking our friends at IMCDA (I hope Amanda get her heartrate issue figured out soon, congratulations to Marit, Kerrie, and Glenn for great races) really made it feel like triathlon season started the same weekend as summer.

The main thing on the agenda was the Loveland Lake to Lake triathlon. It's a relatively small race (623 finishers), pretty much Olympic distance (30 mile bike) race that we've done off and on since we've been in Colorado. Last year, my race felt really good and I just missed breaking 2:30:00 by 5 seconds. Training has been pretty inconsistent recently, but I thought I had a good chance of taking a few minutes off of last year's time based on my improved bike fitness. We actually didn't sign up for the race until last Monday, by which time it was pretty expensive, but we wanted to get a race in before Buffalo Springs next weekend.

The swim was pretty uneventful. A reported to me (during the bike) that I had clobbered her when she passed me on the swim (she started 4 minutes later). In my defense, I was just trying to get drafts off of the sides of the passing women and not trying to get on their feet as I thought there might be people already drafting there. There is a pretty long run from the water to transition, so I stripped the wetsuit off on the way. My time difference from last year's swim of eight seconds was probably due to me stopping and picking up my swim cap that I dropped during the run (its a nice gold one, if it had been pink, I would have left it).

T1 was pretty quick as I already had my wetsuit off but I did take a few seconds to put my race number back in my pile of stuff after I had kicked it away from my stuff.

Starting the bike, my legs felt like crap. The first part of the bike is a lot of turns as you leave town. I caught sight of A up ahead in her bright red birthday suit (Sunny gave it to her as a birthday present). I eventually passed her and heard about my prior clobbering (or was it pummelling) of her on the swim. On the long, grinding uphill, A repassed me and pulled away by a bit. The mind was willing, the lungs were working hard, but the legs would just not deliver more power. At the top of the slow climbs, I started to gain again on A and by the steeper, shorter climbs, I passed her again. From there it was a fast trip back to Loveland from Fort Collins due to a nice tailwind.

For T2, I didn't plan ahead much and wasted a few section by putting on my number before my shoes instead of grabbing it and putting it on during the run.

Somewhere on the bike I must have lost my feet as I had no feeling in them for the start of the run. Unfortunately, they came back angry and weren't feeling good for the first two miles. I also seemed to have lost my turnover somewhere and that never came back, so I was stuck at less than full race pace. I saw A near the turn around and she had a pretty good gap to the next woman, but with there were other age groups that started behind her. The way back felt a lot like the way out, without any real turnover. At least I never got fatigued from the effort, so if I might have found my pace for Buffalo Springs next weekend. I managed to hold A off to the finish, but with my 4 minute head start, she beat me by about 3 minutes. I gained a minute from last years time, but considering I never felt good this year versus feeling great last year, I'm not too dissappointed. I really ready to give it again next week.

The post race food was very, very good. The awards were just a bit delayed. I missed out on getting a souvenir glass by one place as they had awards four deep and I was fifth.

Amber ended up with about a minute and half lead over the next woman and almost making enough to pay for her entry. Her biggest gains have come on the bike (3.5 minutes better than last year), but she also dropped time on the swim and run.

Next stop is Lubbock, Tx.