Saturday was the 9th Annual Pat Griskus Triathlon in Middlebury CT which is the North East Regional Championship for Olympic Distance. This is the race I have been training for all spring and had tapered back my training the past few weeks so I would feel nice and fresh for the race. On thursday I decided to go on a last minute ride to make sure my Cervelo P4 was tuned up just right. I got back home from the ride and everything worked perfectly and proceeded inside to stretch and called it a day, nice and easy. Sure enough I wake up friday morning with two aching and extremely tight hamstrings, guessing from over stretching Not the best way to start your biggest race of your early season. None the less I proceeded onward with my day before a race routine just making sure I was eating and drinking water a lot, all day.
Sat morning came bright and early as the race started at 7am, that means a 3:45 wake up from my alarm and off to to Middlebury. Race was sold out at 500 competitors, went to packet pick up, set up transition, stretched and off to the water to warm up.
They broke up the swim start into 3 waves, luckily I was on the first wave. Unluckily there was 200 of us all fighting for the 40 feet of beach they were letting us start on. The horn went off and it was total mayhem, the roughest start to a swim I had ever experienced. It seems whenever I race in Ct, I always get smoked on the swim, they are just fast swimmers there, and today was no different. I came out of the water 29 minutes later (1st out of water was 21min, that's FAST!!!). I struggle my way back to transition and head out on the bike, as leaving I hear someone counting out our positions and I was 39, not a happy camper.
The bike course was challenging, multiple long hard climbs and wicked descents, and it was time to hammer down. I just got into a groove and started picking people off, worked my way into the top ten and headed back into transition. During bike segment of race, 3 other competitors and I had a car pull out in front of us and on a down hill of course. As I approached the slowing riders decided I had to make a move and had to make the pass on the left with on coming cars approaching, I dropped down a few gears and just sprinted my brains out and swerved back in front of the car barely making it. It was super sketchy as there was a car thinking about pulling out on a side road and a trooper directing traffic while all of this was going on, not a good situation to be in. Turns out the rest of the pack followed and they all made a similar pass on the left, way to keep things interesting!!
Coming off the bike, took my feet out of the shoes and rolled right in one side of transition and out the other with my run shoes and race belt.
The run was a hilly 2 loop 10k course. Knowing my run has been below par this early season I just took it easy and got into a good pace until 2nd loop. At the turn around I noticed a pack of racers putting a strong pursuit as they closed a 2 minute gap to 30 seconds at the halfway point. I picked up the pace and held them all off. One racer in my age group caught me a mile from the finish and put about 15 seconds on me. Approaching the final hills I picked up the pace and was able to reclaim the position and hold it all the way to the finish.
I ended up finishing 26th overall after the corrected timing from the different waves, and 5th in my age group. A few highlights of the race were having the 12th fastest bike split, the fastest T2 time and negative splits on my 2 5k loops. After the race, atmosphere was great, everyone was super talkative and nice as fellow racers were all reminiscing about the race. Out of all the races I have participated in I got to rank this one as #1. Top Notch!!
Moving forward from here, I have a packed summer of races and training, and am looking forward to my second attempt at the Olympic Distance races on Sept 18th where I will be competing in the Lake George Triathlon, which is another big sell out event every year.
Woodsy
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