Maple Grove Triathlon

Wait, the race is Saturday?? Me to Stu at 9pm Thursday evening.

BIG RING OR DIE

Preface: Well, your local genius did not look when the race started. I just assumed it was Sunday, but turns out, nope, Saturday at 6:45 am. So, saying I was mildly unprepared, and extremely stressed is an understatement. The Tri-Hawks brought the hammer to Maple Grove, bringing Lauren, Stu, Hannah and Danielle, along with yours truly. We left at 11ish Friday morning, got up to the race course, got packets, illegally parked our trailer, and went to the MWCTC pasta dinner hosted by the Orth family, which absolutely slapped. Then we stayed at a local teammates house, and went to bed at 9:30, also I had only slept 5 hours the night before trying to prepare everything for the race after closing your local Chipotle.

Pre-Race: Up at 3:30, getting a solid six hours of sleep, but feeling okay honestly. The race started at 6:45, so we tried to get to transition as early as possible, got to it around 5:30. I was pretty mentally exhausted so racking my bike was a struggle, and I just couldn't seem to get stuff working. Anyways, I decided to go on the shortest warm up I have ever done, a short run with Stu, and 2 build ups in the water. Smart man right here. Then it was go time.

Swim: 21:05 for 1650m

So the swim was long, which works for me. It took me no longer than 30 seconds to have a lead, and no longer that 90 seconds to have gapped everyone else. About 50m in someone kept playing grab-ass with me so I turned my head around and breast stroke kicked super aggressively. Turns out it was Stu, sorry man. After that I was a little pissed so I went out hard, which I then created a gap. Rest of the swim was pretty uneventful, with me occasionally checking back to see where people where. By the second bouy, I had about 75m on second, and I increased that to over 125m by the end of the swim, getting out 1:40 ahead of second.

Bike: 24.1 for 23.6 miles?

Pretty unclear what this distance was and what I did pace wise. I held great power, but honestly felt very drained by the halfway point, and found myself relaxing and not pushing very hard. I went out in 260w, and built that up to 280w, and maintained that. I don't know what the issue was, but I really felt off on the bike. I just couldn't seem to hit any better than 285-290, so I just kept it a little easy hoping for a decent run. I got to follow a moto for an entire race, as I spent almost an hour completely alone in the Minnesota countryside. Got back to T2, and was feeling ready to run.

Run: 5:59 for 6.1

Again unclear, but whatever bro I just ran. I knew I had a large gap, and the only person that could keep pace with me on a hard run was Stu or Garret Williams from Minn. I just kept it nice and relaxed, and honestly didn't push it very hard at all. I was a little worried about getting run down, but as I went through the second lap, I just maintained pace. I kept looking back, but honestly with a 3 minute lead, I was unable to see back that far. I went through the finish line just above 1:59, and was a little irritated to be honest.

Afterwards:

Let me tell you, having a group to ride with is so much more fun than having to do it all alone. Shout out to Lauren for kicking ass and taking names, unsurprisingly. Stu also killed it, coming in second overall, and Hannah finished her first ever olympic, and Danielle again scoring double MWCTC points. It was overall a great course, it was just hard to lead from, essentially the gun, with never knowing where anyone was, and not really knowing how hard to push myself. Hoping Cyman will be much more competitive, as the sprint distance is not my strongest distance. Also, I need to run more I could do a lot better if I actually ran well.