On September 25th, I participated in the Giant Acorn olympic distance triathlon at Lake Anna State Park in Virginia. Lake Anna is about a two hour drive south-west from Baltimore, as shown below.
It was my first time racing in about two years, so expectations were set accordingly and I went in with the following plan:
- Use the swim as a warm-up.
- Stay relaxed on the bike until I finished two bottles (one sports drink, one water), then think about pushing it.
- Stay safe and have fun!
The swim start was delayed due to fog on the lake, so the first racers set out closer to 9am than to the originally scheduled start time of 8am. I think the race directors made a good call since about 45% of the swim was away from shore.
I stuck to the plan, started near the back, and stayed wide (and way clear) of other racers on the swim. The water was warm and visibility was pretty good after the fog burned away. There was a giant inflatable wavy arm man (of the kind one would expect to see at a used car dealership during a Labor Day sale) positioned just to the right of the timing mats for the swim finish. From ~700m away, I had a good target for sighting my return to shore.
The bike ride started with a pretty good climb from beach-level out to the park exit. The race organizers suggested (appropriately) that athletes should start in a low gear. Sure enough, I saw some riders struggling to start going up the first hill. The course was a lolly-pop shape, covering about 25 miles on rolling country roads. A spectator named Joe who was taking pictures (and who met Chelsea) captured a shot of me on the bike at the end of the bike course. You can tell it's the end because:
- I'm going downhill.
- The bottles are empty.
The run was a two-lap course within the park, consisting of a loop with an out-and-back side spur. The run course began by climbing the same hill that the bike course started on, which meant that racers had the opportunity to test themselves on that hill three times (once on the bike, twice on the run)!
I wound up with the following splits and overall time:
- Swim 27:28.9
- T1 3:20.2
- Bike 1:17:43.9
- T2 2:07.6
- Run 50:30.3
Total 2:41:11.1
After two years away from racing, it felt good to go out and do an event like this. To make the run extra special, I paced things out such that the last six miles of a September 100-mile running challenge posed by a friend from Fargo took place during the race's 10k.
