Once again, inclement weather reared it's head so the sprint distance triathlon was shortend to the 'My First Tri' distance of a 300 meter swim, 6 mile bike and 2 mile run.
This was my first OWS in my new Aquaman Racer wetsuit so I was a little concerned about my history of panic attacks. To make matters worse, it was an in water start and all men ages 20 - 39 started at once. I started on the inside about three (3) rows deep which gave me plenty of room to flip over and backstroke if a panic attack set in. I started off extremely slow breathing every stroke, and much to my surprise....no panic attack! I think some of this can be attributed to how differently this wetsuit fits compared to the Orca Sonar worn last year (high and tight around the neck). My left goggle took in water the entire swim which was frustrating, but I continued to "take it easy" on the swim and came out of the water in 3:35 (first third).
There was a long uphill run to T1 and I was rather slow removing the wetsuit.
The bike course was rectangular with only a few Texas hills mixed in. The course was wet so only having to navigate a handful of turns was good. I was only passed by one (1) rider on the bike who just happened to be in my AG, although I kept him in range. I averaged 21.5 MPH on the bike which is a new PR and had the 18th fastest split out of 165 total men.
I managed to make it in and out of T2 in only :26 seconds which was an improvement. I lost my water bottle on the bike so I took a second to hydrate before heading out on the run.
The run course was an out-and-back on residential sidewalks. I new I was a little slow on the way out and hit the turn around at an 8:00 pace so I picked up the pace on the way back. I finished the run in 15:41 (7:50 pace) which was way slower than the 7:14 pace I ran the race prior.
In the end, I finished 5th out of 17 in my AG and 33rd out of 165 men overall (20%) so another good outing.
My next race will be the TexasMan Olympic Triathlon on May 20th so I need to start focusing a little more on my training, especially the 10k run.
