Race Result

Racer:	Jose Torres
Race:	Taylor Love Triathlon
Date:	Sunday, September 18, 2011
Location:	Herndon, VA
Race Type:	Triathlon - Sprint
Age Group:	Male 35 - 39
Time:	1:13:34
Overall Place:	6 / 88
Age Group Place:	1 / 8
Comment:	My first AG win. (no pain no gain)

Race Report:

Swim 300 Yards - 6:00
T1 - 1:00
Bike 17.8 Miles - 48:50 (21.7 MPH pace)
T2 - 1:03
Run 2 miles - 15:43 (7:50 pace)

Something to consideration before evaluating how this race went. I changed and learned somethings in the last 6 weeks, since my last race.

1. This was the first race I've done weighing less than 200 lbs. My race weight was about 188 lbs. About 22 lbs less than my last race.
2. The night before this race my Garmin stopped working, I could have used my GPS watch to see my speed and stuff, but I decided for the first time to go without any electronics hooked up to my body.
3. I like to read race reports and one thing I noticed in common between folks that race and do very well is how they describe pain. Not joint or back pain, but muscle and cardio pain. The Pain to hold a pace, Pain to catch up to the person in front of you and stay in front for the rest of the race. Honestly I have never felt pain or muscle discomfort during a race before but I planned to have me some pain today.

Swim - The snake swim started at the Sport & Health Worldgate Plaza Pool. It went pretty basic, I knew the race would not be won or lost in the pool. So I kept a steady pace. There were about 16 racers in front of me. I did the 300 in about 5:30 or so, the rest of the time was spent going down some stairs before entering T1.

T1 - Well Sunday morning at 6:30 AM was quite chilly. I had a sweater handy just in case, but decide to go with just my Bonzai tri top, no socks and at 6:30am no sun glasses.

Bike - As I headed out I felt fine. I thought I would be freezing. It was about 52 degrees and I was soaking wet. By the time I made it to the W&OD I had passed 2 racers. I could tell I was going really fast, much faster than I would if I had my Garmin. I was going as fast as I could, right before my quads would start to hurt. When I got to the Turnaround at the BBQ joint in Ashburn I past another racer. At this point I really picked up the tempo, started to think about the PAIN thing. I also knew most of the grade going back into Herndon was up, so I planned to keep a strong pace. Right at HWY 28 I past a FEXY guy, this really made my day. His number was at least 10 below mine; this meant he had a 2 minute head start on me at the pool. When I finally arrived at T2 I was the 5th bike in.

T2 - I thought I went faster than 1:03, but I felt good and ready to run. I noticed my toes were frozen. So putting on my shoes was a little challenging.

Run - A little background here, I've never run a pace with a 7 in front and my best pace in a triathlon run had been 9 minutes. I've been practicing and I was ready for some PAIN. I started running at my 5K pace right away. My feet started to defrost after about 300 yards. I've always done well in the bike portion of races just to have 50 people pass me during the run portion. Today I decide no one was going to pass me. I had no idea how fast I was running, but I kept pushing myself. At the turn around I saw Keith Bohnenberger and I knew he ran a sub 7 pace. So I really tried to push myself harder. With about a 1/2 mile left I could hear Keith behind me and then he passes me. I tried to hold on to him, but he just kept on going at that strong pace. But he was the only person to passed me. I finished with a 7:50 pace and I'm real proud of that. Plus Keith started the swim about 4 minutes before me, so beating me by 30 seconds in the run was OK.

In Summary I did everything I planned to do, I pushed myself on the bike, ran a sub 8 minutes pace on the run and I experienced some pain. Not as much as I had planned too, but a good start. When the race was over my quads had a burning feeling for about 15 minutes. That’s what I'm talking about. So, with a little pain came my first ever AG award. I would have been happy with 3rd place, but WOW I got first.

On one more note, the beneficiary for this race was young Taylor Love, who is now recovering from Cancer. We wish her the best and hope to see her one day out here with us.