It's a sprint!

The first clap of thunder woke me up at about 3:30am with a loud introduction that rattled the windows. As I rolled over to check the radar to be sure the thunder wasn't a precursor to a rare tornado in the area, I saw lots of red, in a continuous line, stretching from north to south, indicating the severity of the storm that was passing over head. "Ah good", I thought, "this should be by soon and leave race day clear". Not quite. 

The 2013 edition of the Lifetime Triathlon Minneapolis was less that straight forward. The storms began to self sustain, rolling back on itself and not moving from the area. By the time I had called Napoleon to get a ride, it had rained about 2 inches and would rain 2 more by the time it stopped later that morning. As we past thought the bike route on the way to transition setup, the water was half way up the tires. The creek,  having broken it's banks, was now covering much of the International bike route. Not a positive for time trial biking. A sinking and oddly somewhat of a relieving feeling began to pass over me. Perhaps there would be no race today. Fatigue had been hanging around a little since the beginning of the main Ironman training earlier in the week and although the Olympic distance would be a good indicator of my fitness, I wasn't overly enthralled with actually competiting.

At 7am the course was closed and contingencies would begin to play out. By 8 we were all racing the sprint distance course. Half the amount expected. Double the effort. Adapting was needed, which again added to the experience bag that I was slowly collecting throughout all this triathlon malarkey.  It was definitely a good one, as I now had to apply some of what I had read to the diverse situation developing ahead. Longer warmup. Bike bottles removed. Nutrition adapted. Transition was ready.

A sprint really is exactly that. All out mayhem right from the gun. Don't look back until the finish. This distance is not what I would expect to do leading in to an ironman race, but that was what was on the menu and onwards I thrashed. I very crowded and chaotic 5min swim later and I was on the bike. Much to my own surprise, I went out harder that I had done before and maintained it the length of the bike course. Certainly not setting any records, but certainly putting out a good showing for my lowly bike skills. The YouTube video by Joe Friel on biking technique, which was watched the night before, appeared to having a desirable effect. With the fastest bike split of my racing career behind me, I thrashed out a respectable 5k at a much higher pace that I would have expected from a slow poke, long distance guy, like yours truly.

Crossing the finish line, I knew I had to be close. Very close to Napoleon. A quick check an the most depressing 20seconds of my triathlon life came in to view. 20seconds!!! That was the margin of "victory" he put on me. How depressing. Yet how encouraging, to have discovered that my body was capable of putting out that kind of speed.

Now on to the next 6 weeks of much higher volume and much slower activity.

Good luck to us all!