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Race Result

Racer: Jeff Wolfe
Race: Reston Triathlon
Date: Sunday, September 10, 2006
Location: Reston, VA
Race Type: Triathlon - International Distance
Age Group: Male 45 - 49
Time: 2:38:18
Overall Place: 152 / 465
Age Group Place: 24 / 56
Comment: Another fun day in Reston!!



Race Report:



Splits:
Swim 0:35:33
T1 0:02:39
Bike 1:07:03
T2 0:01:36
Run 0:51:29

My goals for Reston this year were simple – a little bit faster than last year. I had not been swimming too much but I thought what I gave up in the swim I could pick up in the run. Last year I did 2:35:09.

Pre-Race:

Nothing special. Had breakfast at home and made the short drive to the high school. I must have been real early since I got a parking spot right near T2. Got my chip and made my way down to the lake. I love the bike ride in the dark… just a bunch of crazy triathletes up and on the road so early on a Sunday morning.

Swim:

I used to be petrified of open water swimming and so I always worked hard to make sure I didn’t miss any swim workouts. After 4 years of doing tris, the swim doesn’t scare me anymore. Unfortunately, now it’s the first workout I skip when I am tired and my times this year showed it although I did most of my swims without a wetsuit. I did do the Reston Lake swim in under 1 hour and 10 minutes in a wetsuit earlier this year so I hoped I would do 35 minutes. The swim felt easy. My wave did feel crowded and I was jostling with people almost the entire way. My time was 2 minutes slower than last year.. no surprise, just a little disappointed.

T1:
I had no trouble getting my wetsuit off. I used someones PAM and that really helped. I was out in 2:39 which was a 10 seconds slower than last year.

Bike:

My goal was to average over 20 MPH for the bike like I did last year. Nothing to report. Consistency is the game and I was 1 second faster than last year. My bike computer was messed up since I forgot to reset it after biking down to T1 in the dark so I just biked as I felt. I love this course since I always see people I know so it was fun. I biked around the same group of guys the whole time where I passed them all on the uphills and they screamed pass me on the downhills. I passed my buddy Rick on the 3rd loop going up Colts Neck. Rick is one of 3 people to do the triathlon all 23 years. I was his best man and he was in my wedding so we know each other a long time but do not get to see each other much. He had a 6 minute head start on me but he is just doing the triathlon to keep his streak going. Anyway, we biked into T2 together.

T2:

No issues in T2. I was a few seconds slower than last year but that was because I had to tie my shoes.

Run:

I felt good starting the run. Rick is a much faster runner than I am when he is in shape, so I was thinking I could still PR if I could run 7:40 miles which is what I ran at the Culpepper sprint last month. First mile was right over 8 minutes.. 2nd mile was 7:55 and then I started to slow down a little. I knew at the halfway mark that there was no PR today so Rick and I just ran it in together. It was great to get Gatorade on the run (that was one of my suggestions from last year). It was fun to run with Rick (probably the most time we have spent together in 15 years) and we still passed a good number of other runners. My run time ended up about 45 seconds slower than last year.

Overall:

What did I learn from this year’s race? At 45 years young, I need to practice swimming, biking and running faster if I want to continue to improve. I usually swim by myself and bike with a buddy who is slower than me so maybe this year I will join Reston Master’s swim and try and fit in some RATS or RBC rides to get faster.

Thanks to all the volunteers for a great race, especially the kids at the run water stops and the police all over the course but especially on the bike course near the Hunters Woods shopping center and at the last bike turn onto Ridge Heights road (it was much clearer than in the past).

See you on the road.

Jeff