Columbia Tri

Finally!! It is such a good feeling to have a great race. To go into a race, not worry about what my time is going to be, feel good the entire time and do well. The Columbia tri is an Olympic, and the distances are 1M Swim, 26M Bike, 6.2M run.

Overall, it was AWESOME. I swam my fastest mile yet in just under 56 minutes, which is about 10 minutes faster then last year. My first transition time sucked as I could not get myself geared up quick enough (4 -minutes). I think I was still too excited from the swim. On the bike, I was expected to average around 14 mph, but for some crazy reason, I averaged 16.2 mph for a total of 1:34. With all those hills, that is the fastest time I have had on the bike yet to date and still stay in zone 2. Well, for some of the hills I crept up into Z3 and Z4. On the bike I felt like my whole age group passed me except this time, unlike Lake Anna, I did not let it get to me because I had a plan and was going to stick with it. I flew through the transition and took of on the run. This course is super hilly and I took the hills slow and flew on the downhills. I smacked T2 and was in and out of there in only 80 seconds. As my plan continued from the bike, this time I started counting how many people in my age group I passed on the run. I didn't count everyone because I would have lost count. I averaged between 8:15 and 8:45's for the first 4 miles and then I picked it up some and average around 7:30's for the last 2. I was on fire and felt really strong. My time on the run was 51:39 (average 8:19/mile). My final time was 2:57:13 and was 125 out of 186 in my age group.

Well my placing may not reflect I did compared to others, but man, I finally ran a smart race. I stayed in zone 2 for most of the race and know I could have pushed it harder on the bike and the run but I wanted to stay conservative. To do that well during the middle of a build cycle and at the hardest part of our training is a good feeling.

Oh, and by the way, I passed at least 20 people on the run during my little counting game.

So, we have one more week, and then taper. One more HARD week. I feel pretty tired now but at least we got home early so I can rest the remainder of the day. one more week. I'm actually going to miss this but all good things must come to an end.....so they can begin again another time.

Totals for the week:

Swim: 2.8m
Bike: 99 m
Run: 12.2m
Total: 10-hours, 114 Miles

**note, the workouts have been getting less in volume but higher in intensity.