Labor Day Weekend and The Austin Triathlon

First off I just want to say that Austin is awesome if you did not already know and my family cannot get enough.

Disclaimer: 1st half is about our trip to Austin and 2nd half is the Race Report.

Trip:
We arrived late Friday night as we do not make any long road trips now out of town until Pierce has decided its bedtime.  This makes travelling easier except we do not get places till way after my bedtime.

Saturday was a very relaxing day.  We got up and ate at Austin Java which we would do again on Sunday morning..  I highly recommend. Then we were waiting on some friends and Pierce wanted to take a nap so we drove over to Lake Austin and just enjoyed the scenery and looked at homes we cannot afford. How does a $3.3M 6,500sq ft house on Lake Austin sound?  Sounded great to us but again no way to pay that mortgage.

Then it was off to dinner where we tried to go to Moonshine with some friends. It was over an hour wait so we went to to Taverna off 2nd street.  This is our second time to go to this Italian restaurant and it did not disappoint   This is one of my all time favorite Italian places.

Sunday was an early morning as I went out with three friends Greg, David and Jason to ride the course and get in a short run.  Then Off to breakfast with the family plus David and like I mentioned earlier another trip to Austin Java. Lunch was another attempt to go to Moonshine but Sunday after church the wait was 1.5hrs.  So, we ate at a hole in the wall BBQ place that could be forgotten.  Finally for dinner we arrived at Moonshine early enough and got seated right away.  3 trips to this place in less than 24hrs.  3rd time was definitely the charm. Just like Taverna this place was awesome.  I had chicken fried chicken with chipotle cream gravy and a side of their groumet mac n cheese.  Delicious but definitely not something I would suggest a pre-race meal, but worth every bite.

Race Report:
Getting ready in the morning for a race in a hotel room while trying not to wake up your 7month old should be a sport by itself. That being said I would not be very good at it cause I definitely woke him up at like 5am or something.  Good thing was I was basically ready so I could feed him and let Megan sleep a bit more before I had to head to transition.

Since, we had to check our bikes in the day prior transition set up was a breeze and I had plenty of time to go for a short jog and do all the normal morning triathlon duties.  If you race you know what I am talking about.

Swim:
At the Austin Tri their is never a warm up swim as there are too many people and they just do not allow it. It was also non-wetsuit legal as expected with how hot Texas has been.  I did however have my Xterra speedsuit, which was great for getting rid of any drag from my two piece race kit.
The actual swim performance though was really rough.  Now is the part where I make a ton of excuses. 1. It was windy and we had to swim against a current on the way out and on the way back the current wanted to take us at an angle so we were fighting that. 2. Life is not giving me enough pool time. I am swimming at most once every two weeks on average and those count any race day swims.  I also have not put in over 1500m during a swim in a couple of months. 3. I am trying to work in a new swim stroke and I think that wore me out as my body is not used to it.
Enough excuses I am not a great swimmer.

T 1:
T1 was not as good as usual as I was worn out from the swim so my run in transition was definitely a slow jog.  Plus I was frustrated which made things a bit worse. Then once I got my bike and after exiting transition there was a long run to the mount line. At the beginning of the jaunt I got a rock stuck to the bottom of my foot.  Rather than stop and remove it I kept running hoping it would fall off or when I went to mount I would get it off.  The latter happened.  I did not think anything of this at this point but all of that pounding on the sidewalk with a rock stuck to my foot caused a deep bruise that affected me from the first step I took off the bike.

Bike:
The wind was howling and riding 88mm rims on the front and the back meant I was fighting the wind big time. A few of those gust definitely came close to knocking me over.  I know several time I was riding at an angle into the wind to compensate for its force. This course is rather hilly with one big climb that you do 3 times and then a long slight climb you do three times.  I chose to spin up these hills watching my power to make sure I am not pushing way too hard going up and burning up my legs.  I did well on the hills but there were several other parts on the course where I should have pushed much harder and did not. My avg HR was at least 7 bpm lower than it should have been, my avg power was 20watts lower than desired. So, I wussed out a bit on the bike which shower in my avg speed being just south of 21mph.  Should have been 22 at least.

T2:
I did much better in T2 as I was not frustrated coming off the bike and was only like 3 seconds off the fast T2 time in my age group. It was also faster than the top pro males who raced. This is when I noticed though the pain in my foot.

Run:
As soon as I left transition my left foot was hurting soo bad I contemplated pulling out of the race the first half mile or so. I decided as long as I could keep my pace with the pain I would stay in. I was able to keep my pace but then I feel my right hamstring cramping up. At this point I am probably low on sodium as I missed a dose getting off the bike as I dropped my pill container at the beginning of the bike. This caused some irritation but not any pain.  I just could not stretch my legs out or push any harder as I would have really cramped up.  So, 4.5miles to go with a deep bruise on my foot and some hamstring cramping.  To try to keep the cramp at bay I made sure I took in electrolytes at every aid station and I think that saved my race. The other thing that helped is my wife has a knack for finding the best places to watch a race and on this two loop run course she found a place where she could cheer me on like 8 times.  This always helps and my pace always quickens a bit when I am near her cause if not she will let me hear it. On the home stretch last 2.5mins or so I picked up my pace and was running sub 7's.  I went through the finish line hard and as soon as I did that my hamstring went into a softball size cramp and I need assistance getting to medical tent. With proper nutrition and an un bruised foot I should have been able to push the run harder as well.  My avg hr was at least 10bpm too low but probably more like 15.

Avg Pace: 7:17/mi

Total Time: 2:32

Summary
Overall I am ok with my performance and glad that I did not quit during the run.  I am really upset with myself for the fact that I did not push as hard as I should have and did not properly display my fitness but this performance showed me where I am and was great for that. So, not perfect but a lot of stuff I can take with me to help me at the Houston Tri oly in a few weeks.

Plus how can you be upset when you get a greeting like this from your son after your race.