Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Lake Padden Triathlon 2008

This was my second run at the competitive version of the Lake Padden Triathlon and was hoping to improve on my previous time from 2006. Last year I was at a little race over in Coeur d'Alene 8-)

Got up early and drove to the park and got the closest parking spot one could get and then rather than just sit and veg I decided to jump out and help Lance and his crew setup transition. It was fun setting up the racks and then being able to set my bike at the premier spot (first row closest to bike exit).

As more and more people started to show up I stopped helping and was able to visit with friends and before long was in my wetsuit and down at the beach for a short warm up. We all got out of the water for pre race messages and then the first wave went off. I was able to get into the second wave and we went off about 3 minutes after the first.

Got into a nice groove and actually swam pretty straight. Hit the turn around buoy with lots of other swimmers still around me, so felt good about keeping pace. Way back to the beach it was definitely thinning out, but still enough to help keep me swimming straight. Hit the beach at 14:32!

Run up the grass hill and into transition and saw Debbie and the kids, they found the cattle bells and were ringing them for me, awesome. Real quick transition and off up the steep driveway out of the park and onto Lake Samish road.

The bike course is pretty hilly, but all that goes up must go down, so we get lots of downhills too. But first we must climb up and out of the Lake Padden area up towards the parking lot people use at the bottom of Galbraith. I was trying to keep a good pace, but this first hill is always tough on me and got passed by a couple riders, but was able to keep them close and on the long downhill into the lap around Lake Samish passed them back.

Kept a good pace around the lake and then back up that long downhill towards Lake Padden, but we turn at the freeway and go onto Old Lake Samish road that is generally downhill towards Chuckanut Drive. I like this section as you can really hammer it and get back some time.

Once on Chuckanut it is uphill again but it is short and get to come right back down the other side into Fairhaven and then we turn towards the freeway and the climb kinda starts before the freeway but once under it really turns up and this short 3 block climb is tough and pretty much straight up, but once at the top you come out onto Lake Samish drive and just another mile or so back to the park.

My bike split of 1:02:20 (20.2 MPH) was 3 minutes faster than 2006, woohoo!

Quick transition and off to run around the lake twice. This part is always tough to run past the finish for your second lap. The finish is right there but you cannot use it, must run around again.

I was running at a pretty good pace and it felt like I ran at a consistent pace not slowing too much. Each lap was within 30 seconds of each other. I was able to run the finish with Jacob and Alex and stopped the clock at 1:58:06 44Th out of 256 overall and 9Th out of 29 in my age group (M35-39). I was VERY happy to improve by 4 minutes on my 2006 time!

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