Notes
Pigman Sprint Triathlon run. This was rough and by far my slowest run of a triathlon. I started out trying to push it but I just couldn't get my breathing under control. It felt like my tri suit was really tight and my chest and back were compressed. Another guy that started with me was running away from me after about a half mile and I knew that wasn't good because no one has ever pulled away from me during the run. I continued to hurt pretty bad for the next mile and felt like I was barely doing more than a trot up the small hill in the race. I was seriously questioning if I would have to stop and walk to recover in a 5k which just seemed ridiculous. Finally on the way down that hill everything started to feel better. My breathing was completely relaxed and I could focus on how hard to push my legs. This was right before the turnaround and I saw the guy that ran away from me was about 200-300m ahead of me. I set my goal to reel him back in and caught him with a little over a quarter mile to go. I finished hard and wouldn't be surprised if the second half of my run was a minute or 2 faster than the first half. Disappointing run but still the 8th fastest of the day. If I could have run a 16:30 like last year I would have moved up quite a few spots. But based on my running training this isn't too surprising, and I'm glad I was able to get through it and finish in a decent time at least.
Overall I finished 15th in 1:08:47 which is 3-4 minutes faster than last year. My transitions still need work and my run could have been better but I feel like I am continuing to improve overall which is good. I think I need to work on my bike to run brick workouts before the first race of the year as well as a few really hard bike rides in the aero bars so it doesn't feel so foreign. I won the 25-29 age group for the second year in a row and was the second fastest non-elite participant which I feel really good about (Would have been the fastest if I wouldn't have had to go back for my chip.)