Tri the Midlands Sprint Race

I just took about a week and a half off from working out, as I wanted to take a break before I start my preparation for the fall season. My racing season started in April and ends in November, so I knew that was way too long without finding some break somewhere. I just started back training the week of this race, so luckily I still had some residual fitness from my weeks prior.

This race was all for points in the SCTS. The schedule wasn't the best for me, but I need to take advantage of any series races that would not require an overnight stay for me. This would be one, but the 2 hour drive before the race was a bummer.

First off let me say that this is the first year of the Tri-Midlands, and it was a great race. Set Up Events continues to put on incredible races. Hopefully this race will be here to stay. The race took place in the Lake Carolina Development. It's really nice!!! Very new development that has some very nice houses. Overall a very nice place to race. I'll definitely come back next year.

Swim: A shorter than average open water swim at 500m. The idea here was to stay close to Peter K. I've only been in the pool twice in two weeks, so I know my swim fitness wasn't great. Mission accomplished. The short swim kept me from losing too much time as I exited the water around 20 seconds back.

Bike: Only an 11 mile ride, so I knew I needed to lay down the hammer right from the begining. I wanted to try and put a minute on Peter, as I felt like my run fitness could get me in trouble. We exited T1 together, so I tried to go hard right from the start. Bike course was very nice. Good combination of rollers and flats. I just hammered as best I could, hoping to make a time gap. When I neared T2, I felt pretty good. Time to see if I could run. My lead was a little over a minute.

Run: Exiting T2, I felt good. It's always hard for me to tell what kind of pace I'm running right off the bike. It always feels real slow, but the splits sometimes tells me otherwise. The plan right now was to try and stay out front. I didn't get any splits as I forgot to start my watch. The only splits I did get were times between me and the others after the turnaround. I had about a minute on second place, so I felt confident I could hold him off for one more mile. The run course was pretty cool. Most of the course was on paved bike/jogging trails. It had a pretty serious hill at around a mile and a half.

Was able to finish 1st overall. : )

Overall I'm real happy with my result. The first half of the seaon has gone very well for me. Now it's time to go back into hiding and prepare for the fall season. Just kidding about the hiding part, as I'm happy to train with anyone that wants to. The SC Half and Beach2Battleship will be my "A" races, while doing some of the other series races for points. Time to get in some mileage!!