Race Preview : Lake Waconia Triathlon

I signed up for this race because it was on the list and a couple of guys from work are doing it. I find myself looking for people to race with more than just doing races these days. I probably say it every review, but a race where you see people you know on the course is more fun than a race without.

Race Info
The race is in Waconia, it's about 25 miles from our house. Apparently it's a qualifier for something "Best of the U.S. MN Qualifier", but I can't figure out what.

The swim is a triangle in a lake - the weather has been quite warm during the days lately with lots of sunshine, I guess it's possible the water could be in the mid to upper 70s. Then again the lake is pretty large, so maybe not. I'll take the wetsuit, and I'll wear it if they allow. A neat aspect of this race I'm looking forward to, except for elite and team waves, it's a time trial start. They still group by age-group which seems a little silly to me, but I'm looking forward to hitting the water on my own anyway.

The bike is a 20 mile loop, pretty rolly, there aren't really any big climbs, but there aren't huge stretches of flat either.

The run is an out and back, surprisingly along the same route as the bike. I guess it doesn't matter, it's probably not likely that someone will be starting the run the same time someone is starting the bike.

Goals
I struggled with how to set goals for this race. I want to go hard and fast, but this is in the middle of a training program, and I'm not planning on taking it easy on the training leading up to the race, for example I'm planning on a 3.5 hour ride the day before, and I've been feeling sort of fatigued lately.

	Goal	Pace
Swim	12:30	1:25 per 100 yards
Bike	1:00	20.0 miles/hour
Run	30	7:30 mins/mile
Total	1:45

1:45 puts me in the top 30% overall, but in the middle of my AG. I have to admit, I'd like to be moving up out of that. 2:30 faster and I could break the top 10 in the AG, that's significant though on a sprint. Maybe a mph on the bike and a little on the run. Then again a really fast transition can give me as much as 45 seconds (T2 in Alex was around 45 seconds.)

1:25 is my go to, I'm assuming wet suit. It could really go either way though, with or without I may be able to hold faster than that. We'll see, it's only 800 meters.

20.0 should be doable. I don't really ever hit that during training, but racing seems to be a different story. I have already biked this course once, so I know that 20 miles is a pretty accurate measurement. One sort of odd thing about this course is that a lot of it is on major roads. When we road it last weekend I'd say easily half of it is on a well traveled road. Odd for a Minnesota event that isn't in the city.

7:30 is a pretty aggressive goal, I put that down because I've done it before on a sprint this year. The real test will be if I can figure out how to get there on my own or if I'll need a rabbit.

I put three minutes for transition. If I have a wetsuit that might slow me down a bit, but I'm going to try some controlled speed to get through it fast.

Closing Comments
I'm looking forward to a sprint distance, even though this is on the long side of a sprint. I'm also looking forward to seeing some people I know on the run. I don't know wave times yet, but I suspect I should see both the people I know at least on the way back from the run.