I slept surprisingly well once I fell asleep and probably got a full 6.5 hours of sleep. I left the house right at 5:45 am and arrived at the race site shortly after 6 am. Once I got out of my car, I quickly realized it was a bit chilly (in the upper 50s) but I figured once the sun came up, it would warm up quickly so I never really gave it a second thought.
Swim (400 meters)
I have been swimming 30 minutes on my lunch break twice a week fairly regularly at the new Thomas Hannah YMCA. Their 25 yard pool is around 78-79 degrees which is about the same as Middle Tyger. That is a good thing because I usually have an issue with "cold shock" when jumping in chilly water. This time, it wasn't bad at all and the water actually felt pretty good. I ended up swimming the entire 400 meters non-stop in about 9:40. Add in a 20 sec run to transition timing map and my swim split ended up being 10 mins even.
Transition 1
As as soon as I exited the pool area, I realized it hadn't warmed up much at all. Probably only in the low 60s and being soaking wet, it was downright chilly. Of course my adrenaline was going so I didn't really have time to dwell on it for very long. Managed to get on my socks, cycling shoes, sunglasses, helmet, and number belt, grabbed my bike off the rack and off I went.
Bike (14 miles)
Now I started thinking about how cold it was. I was downright freezing cold the first 3 miles or so as the bike course starts downhill. Once I hit the first uphill, I started generating body heat which helped me warm up some. While I love cycling, I'm not a fast cyclist. I absolutely hate the bike leg in a triathlon because I feel so slow compared to everyone else. Even averaging around 14 mph, riders were passing me like I was sitting still. I definitely need to ride more than twice a week and really work on getting faster on the bike before Furman. The final 2 miles were brutal as it's mostly uphill and I really had a hard time getting up it even though I train on much longer and steeper hills.
Transition 2
Went extremely well. It had to be super fast as all I had to do was rack my bike, swap my cycling shoes for my running shoes and remove my helmet and grab my hat.Run (5K)
At first I felt pretty good but then about a quarter mile in, my legs were screaming and I feared my calves were going to cramp up so I started walking and taking longer strides to help stretch them but it only made it worse so I started running again. At times I felt great and other times I felt like my calves were going to seize up at anytime so I had to stop and walk a lot more times than I would of liked. At the 2 mile mark I was at 24 mins so I was averaging a 12 min pace. The 3rd mile was tough but I used the 45 strides / 30 sec walk break technique to get me through it. The run was a slow 37:31 mins but it was a huge improvement over last year and I have only been running twice a week for the past 6 weeks so I can't really complain that much . I wanted to finish the run in under 35 mins but that didn't happen with the uphill finish. That's one thing about Middle Tyger...it's hilly and you have an uphill finish on both the bike and run course.Overall Time and Final Thoughts
My official time was 1:50:52 and a new PR. I beat last year's time by 5 minutes which coming into this race, I really doubted that I would do better than last year considering my training has been a little "off".The past 6 weeks haven't been easy as I've been dealing with my dog's declining health. Kelsey scared us when her auto-immune disorder came back and she needed a blood transfusion to survive and it wasn't 2 weeks later, Kato's heart got worse. Both are doing okay for now but we know it's only a matter of time.
And just like last year, the volunteer's and spectators were great. Lots of encouragement at every intersection and turn.
Swim Time (400 meters) - 10:00
Transition #1 - 1:18
Bike (14 miles) - 1:01:18
Transition #2 - 0:47
Run (5K) - 37:31
Total Time - 1:50:52
Compared to last year, the swim was a 31 sec improvement, T1 exactly the same, bike was 4 secs slower, T2 was 2 secs faster, and the run was nearly 5 mins faster.
