SML Race Report 5-1-10

Saturday, race morning I ate a bowl of oatmeal then drove 45 minutes out to Smith Mountain Lake from Forest, VA. The weather was almost perfect, a little hot for me. I had plenty of time at the race site to get everything together. Went for a short run and a short swim to get warmed up. The starting gun went off at 9 am.

The swim was a 750 meter distance, finished in 12.5 minutes... which is very frustrating for me considering that is the time I swam it in last year. Although I don't remember a beach start last year. Anyways I should have been a lot faster, considering the amount of time and effort I put into swim training.



Jumped out of the water into transition and onto the bike. Did not start off well though. I made a rookie mistake by forgetting to buckle on my helmet first, so I had to stop and waste time doing that, then my shoe clipped out of my pedal and fell on the ground as I was hoping on my bike. I easily wasted a good 30 seconds with stupid bike mistakes. But this is why these early season races are good, I get the kinks out.

I never really got comfortable on the 20K bike coarse. I think it had a lot to do with me being fatigued from riding a tough bike coarse the week before and heavy training miles during the week. And the rolling hills were no picnic, but everyone had to deal with those. I was 4th coming off the bike.


Immediately on the 5K run I put myself in 2nd. I was told I was 2 minutes back from the leader. I felt pretty good the entire run. Once again the hills really threw my pace off. I knew I was making up time, but for whatever reason I didn't push myself hard enough to win. I came in 30 too late and finished in 2nd place.


So...the negatives... I starting off the race by putting myself in a big hole (as usual), coming out 2.5 minutes after the leader. A huge deficit in such a short race. And I made (what turned out to be) a huge mistake at the beginning of the bike losing 20-30 seconds fumbling around my helmet and shoe. Things would have gotten interesting had I not done that. And I never pushed myself to that dark place on the run to fight for the win.

The positives.. I had a ton of fun. My mom, Jean, and Fritz, and dogs came out to watch the event. The weather beautiful. The race coarse and the organizers were great. Two of us Virginia Beach guys took 1st and 2nd place. Derek Russell, who by the way is a fish, won. Very happy for him. And Ryan Day, who is always somewhere in the mix in these races, came in 3rd with a monster bike effort.

Next weekend is the Kinetic Half Ironman. I will put 2-3 more longish training sessions in on the bike and run by Tuesday. Then just swim, physical therapy, and rest until race day, Saturday. My sciatica injury has really dissipated with this physical therapy training I do.. it s mix of Yoga and Core exercises.

More Pics!!!


My mom and I.

Ryan, Me, Derek at awards.


Fritz's company, Harris Corp., was a sponsor for the race.