Great day in Bloomington/Normal Illinois today. This Olympic distance triathlon is the Mid-West Regional qualifier, and always great to see the college crowd out racing... Good weather, low 60's, partially cloudy, but with some wind. This year featured a new bike course which contained more hills than last year. Although the corn was high (4-5 ft tall) it didn't help too much with the winds on the bike.
My goal was to beat last years time. Here's how it shook out. The swim 28:13, which is about 1:00 slower than last year, but this isn't bad since I really haven't done much swimming. T1 was about the same at 1:52. The bike started out pretty good, cool & some wind. I did see a sign that indicated gravel on the course at the middle of the bike course. I used caution slowing, and coming into the corner, apparently not enough...I went down. Lucky I was going slow, but I've always thought of myself as a pretty good bike handler (bruised ego). Hey even the pros crash. There was medical support parked there, they cleaned me up (lost 6:00) talked with me and I was off. I ended up with a divot/flap of skin on the heel of my left hand, and a scrap on my left shoulder. Adrenaline, is a powerful thing! I rode hard trying to make up time. T2 was about the same as last year at 1:13. The run went well! Last year after dropping my gels ran out of energy on the run, and was disappointed with my result. This year I felt as though I performed like I should with a 7:43 pace and a time of 47:54.
I am still happy with my performance! My day could have ended right there on the bike course, but I was able to power through it and have a pretty good race.
