War at the Shore Triathlon

Rewind to Friday July 11th AKA 7-11, free slurpee day....which I unfortunately did not make it to....By anywhoo.

With the help of the Tri Devils I put together a triathlon transition clinic for Friday night at Thompson park. The clinic included PoweBar product tasting as well since one of my sponsors is PowerBar. Their products are awesome and so I decided to share some of my favorite bars with everyone!

During the clinic I taught a bunch of skill sets that are great to have come race day. Even the smallest change to your transition area and setup can make quite a few seconds difference in the end and maybe a place difference among competitors. I was able to teach some basic skills along with more advanced. The goal was to learn the skill and then it must be practiced to become super efficient at it, just like most other things we learn. However some people used a few of the new techniques on race day two days later and their times showed the difference! 

"Thank you for the clinic. I compared my results to my Long Branch race last year (so same set up) and my combined transitions were 30% (or 47 seconds) faster." Sean Casey

Great job Sean! I have to give you the MOST IMPROVED athlete!

Fast forward to Sunday morning....
Up at 5am and out the door shortly after to head to the race and get set up in transition. I found a good spot for my bike next to a landmark so I knew where my bike was when I came out of the water. I ran to warm up after everything was set and then headed down to the start at 6:50ish am. The women started a few minutes after the men. The water was brutally cold for this time of year....last Sunday read 47 degrees....it warmed up a bit into the 60s but it was still cold and my hands were numb while warming up a few minutes before the start.

Off we go after the men (4 or 5 minutes), I dolphin dove in because the water was shallow and it immediately boosted me to the front and into a nice lead. Left around the first buoy and then the second and straight in. First one out of the water by a good margin (which NEVER happens for me, like ever...) into transition and out in 55 seconds, onto the bike and I began passing some of the guys. I wound up averaging 22mph which is great for me so I am very happy with that bike. Into T2 and out in under 30 seconds. Onto the run my legs took a little too long to get themselves together but I was able to run a few guys down and get my legs under me for the second half. I managed to average 6:12 miles but thats still not where I want and need to be. I will get there in time and I now know what I need to focus a little more attention on.