Morgantown Tri Race Report June 26

I'm writing this on the plane down to Miami, so hopefully I don't have very many mistakes with this IPad thumb writing. I decided to drive down the morning of the race, so I had to get up at 1:30am and leave my house by 2:00am. I wanted to give myself 4 hours to get to the packet pick-up by 6am. I arrived at 5:30 and had plenty of time picking up my packet and setting up my transition area. After reviewing the entrances and exits of T1 and T2 my rack was right next to the entrance. A great position for a quick transition. After talking with all my buddies while getting everything ready I wondered down to the swim start line to be one of the first in the time trial start off a dock. Being in the elite division we always start with the 29 and under males. I was second in line behind Shannon Kureck and Todd Ricketts. As the gun went off I jumping feet first into the monongahela river and hit bottom because it was chest deep. Looking up there were now 6 people in front of me and I only traveled 10 feet. This was a typical rectangle course. After setting into a good pace I just started drafting off of a couple of swimmers, but I had no idea who they were. I was able to see a young kid swim past us that was really kicking hard and stroking fast. Half way down I noticed that something like a wire/line had caught my arm as we were near the banks. Looking up I noticed a big belly hillbilly messing with his fishing pole and line. I had swam right into his line. He was probably laughing at us the whole time, looking like some freaks with our wet suits splashing around in his fishing hole. I continued to draft off of someone not knowing who it was and finally passed this guy feeling strong. I then set off trying to catch the next swimmer along the back stretch. By the time I got to the last turn I was on his heels and followed him to the dock to get out. It was kind of hard to get out, like a seal on the beach. When I got out I noticed that it was Shannon in front of me and I had passed Todd and the rest of the people that were in front of me at the start. We had about a 100 meter run up the path to our bikes and by the time I got up there Shannon was almost taking off and I was right behind him with a :49 sec transition running with my bike out the exit. My swim time was :45 seconds faster than last year with a 14:26. On the bike there were a series of small climbs and I could still see Shannon about 1/4 a mile in front of me and slowing moving farther ahead. I glanced back on the first turn and noticed that Todd was right behind me. On the first big climb, I dropped my chain and had to get off my bike to put it back on. That took about 30 seconds and Todd went climbing past me at that point. I just thought to try and stay with Todd knowing that he is such a great biker. On the fast descents I was able to pass Todd traveling around 45 mph, but Todd was able to out climb me on each climb like i was setting still. Near the turn around I saw Shannon and he was now had a 1 mile lead and was still leaving us in his dust. Todd was finally able to shake me on the last mile heading back to transition. I had another good transition of :37 seconds and I was :30 seconds faster than last year with a 39:10 bike split. Heading out to the run course it was nice, shady and flat bike path. I couldn't see Shannon or Todd due to all the twist and turns, but my first mile split was a 6:55. I didn't want to push the pace due to the previous 3 races that were filled with cramps during the run. This was an out and back course so at the turn around I was abled to see that Shannon had a mile lead on me, and Todd had a 1/3 mile lead. On my turnaround I noticed that Curt Haywood was right behind me around :45 seconds back. This is when I decided to pick up the pace, not wanting to get passed by Curt. My second mile was 6:53 and my 3rd was 6:45 feeling strong. Heading down the path at the finish line I was now running a 5:30 pace. The 1/2 IM swimmers we're still coming out of the water and we had to share the path running in opposite directions. I heard a volunteer shout out to watch for the swimmers, which I was because I was all the way next to the cones on the right. I noticed one swimmer looking down coming toward my way but I was running downhill at full speed and couldn't get over anymore. He ran right into me with a huge hit like in the movie Waterboy, my left pec hit his shoulder and I heard him make a grunting sound like he was just hit hard by a linebacker. After the race I had a 2 inch mark on my pec from the hit. I continued to the finish line with a 1:17:10, 30 seconds faster than last year. On my GPS it said that I ran 3:55 miles. My run time was a 22:07 but due to the length of the course according to my GPS I had a very decent run with no cramps. After, the finish we found out that Shannon was first, Todd was second, Curt was third, and I was 4th overall. We then had our picture taken together and went out for a cool down run. Morgantown is a great venue and it was a perfect day to race. My lessons learned for the day: Watch out for Hillbillies fishing on the swim course, be extra careful on steep climbs when shifting, and continue to work on my run pace. Next race is the MiltonMan Tri up near Akron this Sunday, July 1.