Day 74 Flag City Race Report

My day started off early getting up at 3:30am in order to make it to the race site in Findlay, Ohio by 6:00am. John Sachs met me at my house at 4:30 on the dot to make our 80 mile trek up Rt. 23 to Findlay. It was much more pleasant heading up that early with a fellow triathlete than heading up alone for sure. John and I arrived at 6:05 and was able to register and pick up our packet and timing chip with no problems. This race course is unique like few others with two separate transition areas. We were able to park at T2 and place our run items near a rack with a first come first serve placing. I placed my shoes, visor, and sun glasses near the entrance of the transition area. Once we staged our running gear we headed to the start which was one mile away at the swim start/T1 with our bike and swim gear. This was a great warm-up prior to the start of the race. Once we staged our bikes it was time for some chit chat with Rich Fowler, Shannon Kurek, Sandy Donald, Molly Fowler, Andy Wilson,  Deanna Kiesel, Josh Dwire, and many other great athletes out there racing and working the race for us. While chatting I was able to see Randy Lehrer and Brian Barker arrive who are my main competitors in the Grand Masters Elite for the day. After a good swim warm-up in my new Marlin full sleeve, I was able to make my way to the front of the dock with Randy. We were right up in the front of the entire wave of approximately 20 racers in the first wave. At the start we had to jump in feet first due to shallow water off the dock and came up with a nose full of water. The swim felt nice and fast for me coming out of the water in 4th or 5th place at around 12:30. Since we had to pack our wet suits into our transition bags this took 10-15 seconds longer to make sure that my swim gear was bought back to me at the T2 after the race is over. Unlike last week, I was able to get my helmet on without it falling apart. I did some minor tape repairs during the week to make sure that my ear pieces did not fall off again. The Flag City course was super fast with just a little bit of wind that didn't make much of a difference in my time. In addition, to repairing my ear pads, I mounted a torpedo mount on my aero bars during the week. This was a nice feature of not getting out of the aero position and still having a fast profile. While riding, I knew that Randy was ahead of me out of transition with a 30-45 second lead. I was able to catch up with Randy at about the 4 mile mark with good pacing and just trying to hammer the course as hard as possible knowing that flat courses are suited for my strengths. After the turn-around, I was able to see Brian coming up but still had a 4 minute lead on him overall. I was thinking that he had a bad swim or was at the back of the pack in our wave. Once I got back to T2, my shoes and visor was ready to be thrown on and out of there pretty fast. The run was an out and back course on top of the reservoir where we ran on a gravel path. Heading out, the wind was a minor factor and heard later that the run was around 400 meters longer than the 5K distance. After the turn around on the run I timed that I was 1 min and 20 seconds ahead of Randy and I thought 5 minutes ahead of Brian. At this point, I thought I had a good lead on both competitors, but I would be wrong later and was letting up off the gas a little and cruised in for a time of 1:07. This was my fastest time sprint distance race yet after being a heavyweight for years. After hanging out at the finish line, I thought I came in 5th overall, but Randy informed me that Brian didn't go out with us in the first wave, and started 3 minutes behind us in the second wave. However, I thought that he was pretty far back there and might have been having a bad day. After they made some adjustments, we found out that Brian had beat both myself and Randy. Brian was 3rd overall, I was 6th overall, and Randy was 7th overall. Not bad for 3 guys over 50. I just now need to find some run speed coming off the bike for my run. It's not there yet for sure, but maybe a little bit better with Maumee next weekend!