Thursday, July 12, 2012

Race Preview : Minneapolis Tri

I signed up for this race because it's a major local race. I like the idea of a larger races, and I'm not even sure why :) I signed up for the sprint because next week I have a 70.3 and at the time I figured that mattered, now I'm not sure that it does.



Race Info
The race is in south Minneapolis which should be a fairly short drive from home. It's part of a national Toyota cup and draws some well known names in the world of triathlon. They all race the longer race, but it will still be neat.

The swim is a triangle in a lake - we had a hot stretch a couple of weeks ago, I seriously doubt the water will be below 78, I'll probably take my wetsuit just incase, but I'm not planning on wearing it. This race has a time-trial start like the last one, I talked about that in the last review. From what I can tell I'll be starting very close to the end of the pack, so there will be plenty of people ahead of me. The swim is only 400 meters though, so hopefully the swim portion will be pretty painless with only half the distance to cover I should pass far fewer people.

The bike is a 15 mile loop (that's practically an out and back with a river in the middle), I'm thinking it will be pretty flat due to where the race is, but I suppose I could be wrong. I've heard recently that the course is pretty bumpy in spots though, but I suppose those are the breaks with city races.

The run is a loop around the lake we swam in, 3 miles. They mention that they'll have cliff-shots available around a mile which is funny, but I may take advantage of it just to try a new shot flavor, actually I'll probably skip it because the time it would take to open it and eat it and then take a drink of water would probably annoy me. Usually on runs I take gels I take the gel long before the water stop and then just a swig of water to wash it all down.

Goals
Like the last race I'm training right up to the race, full intensity. I'm feeling pretty good though, so I'm not really worried about tired legs.

GoalPace
Swim6:301:30 per 100 yards
Bike4520.0 miles/hour
Run22:307:30 mins/mile
Total1:18

1:18 puts me in the top 10% overall, and top 15% in my AG. So, I'm wondering if I'm missing something, because a race this size seems like it should draw some pretty fast people. Perhaps they're all racing the Olympic, but still. I had to do a little math, it looks like last year the swim was .4 miles, which is almost double the distance that this year's is advertised so I added some time to figure my virtual placing from last year.

1:30 seems pretty decent for a 400 meter swim, with rounding buoys and traffic that seems reasonable, I'm assuming no wet suit.

20.0 should be doable. It's all on city roads, and it doesn't appear that hilly. So we'll see.

7:30 - yep I'm putting that again. I did a seven miler yesterday where the middle segment I was supposed to build speed; at peak speed I was sub 7. So I'm thinking I can do it if I can get my head in the game.

I put down four minutes for transition. I looked at the results last year and I didn't see a ton of people under a minute, and since my times are not usually super fast comparatively I decided there must be something about the transition area that slows people down.

Closing Comments
I'm looking forward to this race, I'm hoping to push myself pretty hard, I'm still not convinced my brain isn't getting in the way of a solid performance. Out with the doubt. Also my sister and a friend from California are in town and are doing the race too, that's always fun!

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