Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Race Report: Redhawk Rampage Triathlon


First Place in Age Group!
On July 2nd, 2011 I participated in the 2nd Annual Redhawk Rampage Sprint Triathlon in Charleston, IL on the EIU campus.

I finished 1st in my age group and 12th overall out of about 70 participants.  Since this was a USAT (USA Triathlon) sanctioned event I was able to qualify for the 2011 USAT Age Group Nationals to be held in Burlington, Vermont in late August 2011.  Unfortunately, I will be unable to go to Nationals this year.  Nonetheless, it is a pretty cool feeling and accomplishment. 

I can qualify for Nationals with a sprint triathlon but the National race is an Olympic Distance Triathlon (1500 meter swim, 24.86 mile bike, and 10k run).  Hopefully I can qualify for 2012 Nationals early enough that I can properly train for that event and make travel plans.  Never been to Vermont, but I hear it's nice.  We'll see!

I beat my closest age group competitor by 40 seconds.  He was faster in the swim, barely faster in the transitions, about the same in the run, but I gained 1 minute and 45 seconds on him on the bike.  The bike portion won the race for me.

For this being the second time doing this event the Lincoln Trails Council Boy Scouts of America did a great job with this race. 

The race featured a 300 yard swim in Lantz Arena, a 12.5 mile bike, and 5k run.  The run course was generally flat with a couple of hills.  The bike course was challenging as it had two big hills.  One hill is known by locals as "Stairway To Heaven" as at the top of the hill is a cemetery.  It was fun flying down the hills at 41 mph but really tested my determination going up them at about 12 mph. 

The Swim

The swim went pretty good.  It was in a 25 yard pool with 6 lanes.  This meant we had to do a snake swim where you go down and back in one lane, go under the lane line, and repeat.  When I started I forgot to turn my watch on until about after 50 yards.  The only mishap was my right eye part of the goggles had a leak for some reason that threw me off a little.  Congestion wasn't that bad.  However, me and another guy ran into each other when he drifted over on my side of the lane.  Once out of the pool you have to run probably about 135 yards out of the arena and into transition.  Not that bad, but the timing mat that calculates your swim time is right before the transition area (135 yard away from the pool) which makes it hard to get a feel on how you actually swam the 300 yards. 

My swim time was 6:46.  I would estimate my actual swim time (in the pool) was closer to 6:10 or so.

Transition #1 (Swim to Bike)

Leaving transition after swim
  After running 135 yards to my bike I once again struggled with getting my socks on.  This is due to being wobbly from the swim and wet feet.  I need to maybe think about riding and running without socks.  That would require some conditioning of the feet to prevent blisters on race day.

Got sunglasses, bike shoes, race belt, and helmet on without any issues.  Mounting bike was good too.  Transition 1 time was 1:13.







Bike
Once on the bike I started off pretty good as it was pretty flat for the first few miles.  Averaging about 22 mph.  Once we got out onto the country roads my average dropped a bit as the course presented several rolling hills and quite a few curves.  I only got passed once and that was right at the very beginning of the bike leg. 

As we got into the rural area of the course I knew what was ahead of me.....two big hills.  The first hill around the cemetery going out was down hill.  As I started down the hill I gained pretty good speed and kept pedaling.  What a rush this was.  I topped out at 41 mph on the downhill ride.  Once I reached the bottom I knew there was another one just ahead so I tried to maintain momentum.  I arrived at the first big uphill which was about a 1/2 mile.  It started pretty good then the more I went up the hill the slower I got.  I was at a snail's pace around 11mph.  I should have been down a couple of more gears.  I was going to shift but I was putting so much torque on the bike I didn't want to risk downshifting and breaking/slipping the chain. 

Once at the top the course flattened out and got curvy.  Picked speed back up to around 21mph until the turnaround.  After the turnaround, and still maintaining good average speed on the flats, I was looking forward to going down the hill I just went up.  At the downhill I got really good speed again and carried it to the next hill....."Stairway to Heaven".

The "Stairway to Heaven" hill was tough, but I got in the right gear this time, and slowly made it to the top.  I am not sure if that was the "Stairway to Heaven" or the "Highway to ...." because that was exhausting. 

After I got through the hills I concentrated on a fast cadence and trying to maintain a 20-21mph average to the finish.  I gained back a little time that I lost on the hills.

Overall, the bike portion went well given the terrain.  My official average on the bike was 19.13 mph. 

 
Transition #2 (Bike to Run)

Coming into transition

Flying into transition #2 I got the bike slowed down and got unclipped from my pedals.  Got the bike racked pretty well.  Put on running shoes, threw helmet off, grabbed water bottle, and I was off running.

T2 time was 0:40 which was pretty decent. 







 
Run

Start of the run

The run started off pretty good.  My pace was a little behind what I wanted to average for the run, but I wasn't prepared on how much the hills on the bike would tire my legs. 

It was an out and back run course.  The first half was generally flat with a slight decline the first half and a slight incline on the way back.  The only hill of significance was the hill going into a park area about a half mile or so from the turnaround.

Overall I was satisfied with my run performance.  Anticipated doing it faster as I have done in my brick practices, but pleased overall.  I averaged about 7:19/mi.

Final Official Results

The Hardware
 The official results:

1st in Age Group
12th Overall

Times
Swim     0:06:46
T1:         0:01:14
Bike:      0:39:12
T2:         0:00:40
Run:       0:22:38
Total     1:10:30


Well onto the next race and thanks for looking!





Miscellaneous Photos



The Finish

Getting all setup

 

Waiting to start swim


1 comment:

  1. With this new cooperation, Swintt goals to ascertain itself as a leading one} supplier of online gaming merchandise in Sweden by placing its games in front of a large new audience. The 정카지노 partnership between Glitnor and Swintt promises to be long and profitable. James Warner is a content supervisor and editor of onlinecasinohex.ph with 10 years of experience. Thanks to my experience within the gambling business, I can share my information with my readers. From me, you can to|you probably can} at all times discover dependable and in-depth casino critiques.

    ReplyDelete