Spudman Race Report

Well, Spudman came and went. I didn't train for it as much as I had planned because the recovery from Vikingman took way longer than I had anticipated, and my knees, ankles and hips have been giving me problems when running or cycling. At any rate, I beat my goal time of less than three hours. Here's the official report:
My wave started at 7:40 AM, I was excited to see that the current was actually drifting in the right direction, downstream (click here to see my experience with the current going the WRONG way) ... which is the way we were headed. The swim was fairly un-eventful for me, I sidestroked, a little then a short stint of the crawl stroke, then breast stroked. T1 was pretty smooth, I got my wetsuit off fairly easily and was on the bike quickly. I averaged 18.2 on the bike, which is pretty good for me, I tend to be a little slow, but hopefully can start working on that in the off season. The second turn put us onto a pretty "bumpy" asphalt so the riding was a little rough for about 8 miles. After the last turn there were some rolling hills and a slight head wind all the way into T2. I know there are drafting rules in Spudman but, they were obviously not enforcing them! I had people drafting on me, passing on the right and riding in the middle of the road almost the whole bike segment. That was a little annoying but gave me motivation to ride a little faster to get away from them.
T2 was a little slower than I would have liked, I got halfway to the exit and realized that I still had my helmet clipped on and had to run back to my bike, so that took an extra minute probably. The hill coming out of T2 was killer after the bike ride but luckily it was very short. The run was hot, but the aid stations and fire hoses were really helpful. I ran my always consistent 10 min mile. I can time my miles to the T every 10 minutes exactly, I was hoping to try and break that this race, but it is SO annoyingly consistent! Anyway, the run felt long and I kept thinking I can't believe Vikingman was twice as long, what was I thinking?
My times were OK, I was 1 minute slower than last year.
Swim: 21:04 min
T1: 3:45 min
Bike: 1:22 hours
T2: 2:08
Run: 1:02 hours
TOTAL: 2 hours 52 min.
When I got done with the race the first thing that Brian said to me was "Did you hear about mom?" Immediately I was scared that she had fallen on the bike, or gotten hurt somehow. Then he told me that her swim wave was canceled because a man in the wave before hers had drowned and they had recovered the body. I feel so sad for his family, it should have been such a happy day. It also makes me a little more fearful of those open water swims. That is the second triathlon drowning in the local area this year. If I ever do a race longer than a half I am going to need some serious training time in the open water to be comfortable with the distance.
If I do this race again, I would leave my T2 stuff in a bag overnight to keep it dry and then pack it up in, and do something different for nutrition, I had a hard time choking down anything that I usually eat, I think I was a little sick from the heat, so I took in too few calories and ended up with a mild case of heat exhaustion at the end of the race. I didn't start to feel it that bad until I had been done and was sitting out in the sun chasing kids.
Spudman is always a fun race, and it works great for us because we get to visit Wayne and Janet in Burley!

Spudman coming soon!

Well Spudman is rapidly approaching!!!! I still feel like I am recovering from vikingman, and have been having some problems with my knees. So, I haven't trained as well as I would have like for Spudman, never the less it's coming right up. Next year I will have to remember to put my long race last so that I can stay a little more healthy and motivated for the rest of the season. I have been doing a little more strength training so we'll see if it pays off on race day.