Hotels are for couch potatoes

So this weekend was the Lake Minnetonka triathlon. I was pretty skeptical on how I would do going into this race since I had been on the road for work a lot lately. I could tell that my fitness level was dropping but I couldn’t get a handle on just how fast. I went into the race looking at it as a way to gauge where I stood physically and to let me know where I needed to focus training efforts to get ready for the Minneman in two weeks. The swim was unique in that it was a point to point swim rather than some type of “loop”. Luckily it was with the wind so that was in my favor. About 100 yards into the swim I started to swim up someone’s back and ended up catching a foot in the chin hard. I saw stars for a little and felt like bagging it. I regained composure and kept heading away from shore. I got boxed in by two swimmers that were quite a bit slower and swam a line that looked like a Z. I put in a pretty hard effort to finally break free from them and then was in open water for the rest of the swim. The swim definitely took the biggest hit from my travels. I finished up the half mile swim in just under 15 minutes, a good bit slower than Owatonna.

The bike was an out and back on a pretty hilly course. The good thing was that it was mostly in town so the wind was not much of a factor. I got really pissed at one point when a guy was sitting on a faster rider’s wheel for about two miles. For the non-triathletes drafting is illegal and you should be penalized for it. I wanted to say something to him, but I kept things to myself. This was not by choice, but rather because of being incoherent. I passed both of them at some point, though I don’t remember it. It’s amazing how little cognitive ability you have when racing. Low oxygen supply to the brain leads to crazy things. Anyway, a little later on the dude starts to pass me, but never makes it all the way around and just kinda hangs out on my left. We were coming up on another rider and this douche bag was going to end up boxing me in because he would not fully pass me. We were on a climb and I was pretty gassed but hammered a bit and cut between the two riders and then started to bomb the hill. I wish I would have known the route better because at the bottom of the hill was a 90 degree left hand turn. I didn’t want douche bag to catch back up so I took the corner way to fast, close to 30 mph. I thought I was going to tag the curb, but made it through safely. Over the 15 miles I averaged right around 22 mph.

The run was pretty uneventful and disappointing. I managed to squeeze out a 6:56 pace, much slower than the last few races and what I’m capable of doing. I looked at my workouts for this week and they seem to be pretty tough. A tri club that I am part of is doing a century this weekend that I may do, we’ll see.