Sunday, May 13, 2012

Rev 3 Knoxville Race Report


 Hey Guys,

This post is a little late but I was waiting for Rev 3 to post the results from the race. Still not posted, from what I hear they had some problems with the timing chips at the finish line, so until it all gets straightened out I wont be exactly sure how I finished. However with the results aside I felt great during the race.
I had the pleasure of traveling with my friend and fellow pharmacy student Jenna this weekend; it always makes it more fun to travel with some good company. Since the race was so close to Lexington we went down to the race site the day before on Saturday. We got there with plenty of time to get registered and place the bikes in transition. This year the transition are was set up in a parking garage which I thought was a great idea, this kept our bikes out the weather if there was any rain overnight, good thinking by the race director. After some quick warm-ups we were back to the hotel and put the feet up.
After a good night sleep the morning came early and we were ready to get to work. A bagel and some fruit, my normal pre race meal, was my fuel of choice for the day. We got the race site about 5:45am which was probably a little early, but there was a long walk from transition to the swim start. Once transition was set up we readied our suited up (wetsuits) and dove into the Tennessee River (yes I’m up on my shots)…
The swim started a little slow, I haven’t been in a mass swim start in a while and it took me a couple of seconds to get my bearings. But once I hit my grove and settled into a good pace I was passing people pretty consistently. I knew I had put a big effort into the swim because upon exiting onto the dock using just my arms (it wasn’t a beach exit) they suddenly gave out and I went belly first onto the pier, I think I looked like a seal trying to make the landing. But I managed to get up and running towards the transition. My time to transition was about 3 minutes but given the distance and comparison to the other athletes I think it was respectable. The transition was smooth and I was off for my first race with the new Shiv. She was very smooth and very fast the entire ride. Compared to most races this was extremely hilly and I spent a lot of time out of the saddle climbing. I spent most of the time riding with another athlete form Georgia ( I could tell by the kit he was a Bulldog). We spent most of the ride playing cat and mouse until the final couple of miles where he managed to pull away on some final big hills. On a positive note him and one other athlete were the only two to pass me on the bike. This gave me some confidence to crush the run. I felt like I was flying as I came off the bike and into T2. I threw on my K-Swiss kicks and onto the run. The first couple of miles were fast, maybe too fast.  By mile four I had already hit the turn around and was trying to catch up the Bulldog. But my efforts proved to be futile, by mile 5 I was feeling the effort I had put in the first few and was ready for the finish line. But there was a small surprise around mile 5.5. The course took a sharp right then wound around with some tight turns in a tunnel must have been the combination of light and turns but I got a little dizzy and things came to a halt. Once I managed to stumble out of the darkness and back onto a straight path things came together a little better. From there it was only a couple hundred yards to the finish which I pushed as hard as I could but the damage had been done. I think the final time was a 40:30 10K and 2:12:?? For the total finish time. I hope to have the results page updated as soon as Rev 3 gets them finalized.

Anyway I just finished my first half of the year, look for a race report later this week!

Until next time keep training
-T

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