Naval Station Newport Sprint Race Report

Naval Station Newport Sprint Tri Race Report

Pregame – Ate a nice meal of pasta with avocado pesto the night before.  Can’t say I went to bed early but it could have been later.  Alarm was set for 4am and coffee pot set for 4:15.  Morning included a new system of a packet of instant oatmeal, water and coffee at home.  Hit the road at 5 and pulled into the parking lot at 6.  Very easy check in and body marking.  I did forget my bike pump and thankfully a stranger allowed me to use his.  Bananna went down the hatch at 6:30.  Set up transition and began to pace.  It was a pretty small field and my bike rack only held 10 bikes so there was plenty of room.  Headed down to the water at 7:02 for the prerace meeting.

Swim: .33 miles in 10:17 (garmin) 11:17 (official)

Swim was in a cove at the Naval Station.  Not flat water but really not enough chop to count as any real waves.  Event started a little late, but could have been worse.  It was at the swim when I realized that we weren’t grouped by age group and our ages weren’t written on our legs.  Not a huge deal but it’s always nice to know who is passing you.  My wave was the 3^rd to start, it was out to a bouy, across and back in.  Ocean swimming is definitely a different animal than freshwater and it was a shock to my system at first.  Quickly found my groove and kept at it.  I hate those who choose to breast stroke, it should be outlawed in races.  After dodging a few breast strokers it wasn’t long til we hit the shore.  Official results are still pending but I know I caught up with the wave a head of me and missed the onslaught of faster swimmers from behind.  My swim training has paid off as I felt strong, wished I hadn’t doubted myself in the very beginning but overall happy with my performance.

T1: 3:13 – garmin – no official transition times

I have no idea what happened here.  It was a jog to the bikes but it shouldn’t have taken this long.  I knew it was going slow but really couldn’t get out of my own way.  Need to address this somehow going forward.

Bike: 10.35 miles in 35:14 (garmin) 39:19 (official)

It was an out and back on a pretty much closed course.  Some rolling hills but nothing dramatic.  I didn’t love the conditions of the roads but loved having the course closed to cars and enjoyed all the excitement of the volunteers so won’t complain.  I tried to be focused on this ride, stayed low on my handlebars for entire ride.  Took a  GU at the turn around.  Anyone I passed stayed behind me and anyone who passed me looked like they meant serious business so I was ok with it.  No complaints with an average pace of 17.6 MPH, again I really feel like my training is paying off.

T2: 1:51 – garmin – no official transition times

Again, I promise I didn’t stop for lunch.  It was clumsy.  I need help with fixing this, maybe time to practice. 

Run: 2.66 miles in 22:58

I’m irritated that the course was short, they announced at the start that due to some construction there were some last minute adjustments but still.  Nothing special about the course, it was on the base so not much to see.  The course snaked around so you saw a lot of other people.  Again great volunteers so will keep my grumbling to a minimum about the short course.  It wasn’t flat but only had an elevation gain of 157 so not bad at all. 

Finish 1:13:32 – 5^th in age group!

It’s hard to claim a PR on a new-to-me course but I will, based on the fact that each leg (other than transitions) had a faster pace than I’ve done in any other tri.  I really enjoyed this race and will plan on racing it again next year.  It would be nice if they got some bike support, cleaned up the roads and accurately measured the run course.  Also the official timing system should have transition splits.  I LOVED having really no traffic to deal with.   All the volunteers were excited and knew what they were doing.  Post race there was plenty of food and drink and it was an easy set up and break down.  It’s also a cheap entry fee compared to other similar events.  As for my own training, I'm going to keep doing what I’m doing and start to think a bit more about what I need to do differently in transition.

Ran 2 miles this morning, again I'm telling myself that something is better than nothing!