Day 79 Deer Creek Race Report

Got to the race site and pulled right behind Mark Lemmon one of my Grand Master Elite friends and competitors. We shook hands and got working toward prepping our gear in the transition area. Since the elites swim in the first wave of the swim start we are able to rack our bikes on the first 2 racks of the transition area. This is a great benefit to be able find your bike easily after the swim transitioning T1. After chatting with all my racing buddies and competitors we made our way down to the beach start line. I just purchased a new full wet suit (marlin, profile desigh)and was eager to try it out in a race. After the first 200 meters the lead pack took off and I settled in right behind them. Feeling strong I got into a good pace and continued to pass swimmers all the way to the end. I feeling steong and exited the water at 12:30 for 750 meters. I felt the swim was a little long, but still a decent time. T1: I was all set to take off after a quick transition and noticed my ear pad of my helment hanging off. After attempting to fix it, both sides came off and I had to take my helment off as seconds were ticking away. I thought "sh_t horrible transition time". I believe I lost at least 30 seconds and could not even fix it and just took off with both pads hanging off. While on the bike the wind wasn't a factor and actually felt very averaging 27mph during some parts of the course. I ended up with a 33 min bike leg, PR on this course for sure. Coming into transition, I noticed Brian Barker (another HFP racing friend and fellow Grand Masters Elite) right on my tire. We came in shoulder to shoulder into T2. After a very fast transition I attempted to stay with Brian but I didn't have that next gear yet. Within 1 mile of the 5k I had to try and stop to bend over because of a bad cramp near my rib cage and I couldn't breath (I knew this was caused by going to fast...lol) after slowing down I was able to get into a nice pace and back on track. However, by this time Brian was 400 meters in front of me. I knew that I couldn't catch him now. Finishing strong the last mile I crossed the line in a new course PR for myself at 1:10:30s. I felt that I could improve on a few things for a first race of the season for sure. 1. Better T1 transition with no equipment problems. 2. Better pacing for the beginning of the run. Next race up, Fit for Tri in Sindey, Ohio this Saturday. After leaving the race site I got back to our camper to find Barb all done packing up and ready for me to help finishing the tear down of the camper and head home. It was great that she was back there having some alone time reading and writing all morning long while I was out having fun racing and talking with my racing buddies. By the way, I'm pecking on my IPad so I apologize for the random pecks and thoughts. Tomorrow 78 days left of summer...lol