So, it was finally my turn to race! With all the excitement around the kids Baseball and Softball seasons, plus their continued triathlon training, I had almost forgotten that I had a race coming up as well…and not just 1 race, but one a month for the next 4 months! Sommer Sports always does a great job hosting these events, and it is always nice when they are fairly close. So that said, I had a race to do, and I hadn’t trained for it as much as I would have liked!

After the 70.3 in Panama City back in November, the sprint at Daytona in early December felt like a breeze. Two weeks later though, I had a surgery that kept me from running and riding for 6 weeks. I did a 5k at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont, FL at the end of January, and I was barely able to keep pace with Keila, but she did a great job, and we caught up to Noah in the end and we all finished at that same time.

So after this I decided I need to pretty much start from scratch. I found a 12 week training plan for beginner to intermediate athletes that had nice quick high intensity workouts that would get me into better training habits. Unfortunately I was slow to start, and then we went on a road trip for spring break, and 100 other excuses, so we were into March, and I was still not in shape. Long story short, I started going to the Tuesday team swims with the kids, and got better about riding and running. Not great, but better, but it was better than nothing!

Race morning came, and it was a nice morning. Wasn’t too hot for Florida in June, there was an early morning breeze, but the water in the lake was nice and calm. The SLAP Tri Team had their tents set up and lots of people rocking their bright yellow kits. We were all ready to go! And as they usually do, the races started on time! The international distance racers as well as the Special Olympic athletes doing the sprint were under way. I was in the second wave for the sprint, men aged 40-54. There were a lot fewer in our group than there were in the first men’s group, this may have given me a false sense that I might actually place well (spoiler, I didn’t!). And just like that, the horn sounded and we were off. A simple 440 yard counter clockwise loop around a couple of buoys and then back into shore. Sounds pretty simple. We had done a practice swim at this same spot on Wednesday, so I knew that the lake was low, and if I really wanted to, I could have walked out about 75 yards before I really needed to start swimming. I decided to be a real triathlete and swim as much as possible since I had been training for it, and I thought it would be less tiring on the legs. I didn’t feel bad in the water, and I was going at a consistent pace for most of it, the only issue is that it was a slow pace! I have never been a great swimmer, I can go a long distance, but it’s never been quick or with much form; but this was slow! I am not sure why it was so slow. I didn’t go too far off course, and I thought I was moving alright, but wow…slow!

My target time for the swim was a 2:09 pace, so about 9:28 for a total time. Coming out of the water already 3 minutes behind is never a good thing, but it is what it is, and there was a lot more race in front of me. Just thought to myself that there is something I need to work on before the next race, and I carried on!

Transition 1 was uneventful, I had actually remembered a towel so was able to dry off the feet, shoes and socks were on, and I was on my way. I had a target of 5 minutes for T1, was out in 3:20, so I had made up about half of my time! Was feeling good…sadly the camera is not my friend

Not sure what is going on there. I love all the people out there cheering and being supportive…but next time if there is a picture that looks like this, feel free to delete it! On to the bike…

The bike ride was nice. Before I moved to Florida, when people mentioned the hills of Florida, I always assumed that they were being sarcastic or just joking around. Now if you’ve ever spoken to anyone who has ridden in the Clermont area, they will assure you that the hills out there are no joke! While we didn’t hit the biggest of them, there were definitely a couple of quick climbs that got the heart rate going! Aside from these few climbs, the route is fairly flat and fast. It goes around Lake Minneola, there was excellent support from race staff and local Law Enforcement, and quite frankly I think that the locals out here are just used to the bike traffic, so there weren’t any issues that I encountered on the ride.

It wasn’t a bad run. It just wasn’t a great run! It still counts as a negative split if each mile is 1 second faster than the last right??

I had hoped for an 8:00/mile pace for the run, ended up with 9:06/mile, like I said, not great, not terrible. This was however another 3:40 slower than my target, so for the day I was 4:23 slower than I was hoping. Now if this was a 70.3 race or something, I wouldn’t be too upset, but in a sprint, that’s pretty substantial. So yet another thing to work on!

All in all it was a fun day. The weather was perfect, I was done before the heat really came down hard, and honestly any day racing is a good day!

I have upped the intensity for the next 5 weeks to try to make up some of this time, so far I’m sticking to it, and ideally I will hit my goals for the next race!

Between now and then, the kids have two races, I’ll be making two roundtrips to Boston and back, and we have the 4th of July. There are some obstacles in the way, but I will do my best to clear them and be ready for the next one!

Thank you for reading, and as always, check out the Barilliant Adventures YouTube, Instagram and Twitter to follow what we are up to!

Have a great day!

-Dad