Two weekends ago, I did my first WTC race as a Pro. I was really concerned about how it would go and if it would be too intimidating to be fun. In the end, it was way more fun than racing as an age grouper, thus I'm happy I made the jump to race with the big guys this season.
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| I've been fighting a while to earn the right to wear that "P" on my lower leg. |
In the week leading up to the race, Beth (wife) was in Maui on vacation with my sister and some friends. I was home with our son, and had some help out with watching Aiden from my parents when I needed to get workouts in. It was a great week with Aiden and I was able to spend lots of time with him and really bond with the sweet little kid that he has become.
Another note: I was lucky to have the Boulder 70.3 be at the time that it was. WTC has a 45 day wait period after you earn your Pro license to the first race that you can do. The Boulder 70.3 was a Saturday race this year, and came a little under 50 days after I received my pro card from USA Triathlon.
Race/Experience:
I got up around 3:30 on race morning and did my usual thing. Got stuff together and loaded in the car. My parents had Aiden for the night and were going to meet me there before I went off. I got to the Boulder Res and carried my bike in. My first special privilege as a pro was not to check my bike in the day before. Ill take it.
It was also pretty great to finally be in the "pro" rack in transition. There was a lot more attention to the people that racked bikes there. Lots of people came up and said "good luck, have fun, etc" than ever before.
Not gonna lie - the attention was fun.
Swim:
The swim was what I was most intimidated about. I have a background in swimming but I know that I NEED to make this discipline a priority in order to be able to race with the fast guys soon. We started at 7:05 and women started 5 minutes later. I lined up with a group of guys that did NOT include the likes of the fast ones out there that day. I think that was a mistake. I need to grow some balls and I need to draft. Lesson learned.
A good swim will be a painful one. I will remember this.
I had a steady pace throughout the swim and was with guys the whole time. I was expecting to get out of the water in 27 minutes or so. Nope. it was a few seconds over 30 minutes.
Race was pretty much over right there.
Bike:
I got out of T1 with the top women that just caught me at the end of the swim. Ouch... I lost 5 minutes to the lead women in the swim. I passed the one woman that got out of transition ahead of me on the Res road and kept my head down to try and get up to power/speed.
I never got up to the power that I was capable of, but managed a good speed throughout the ride. The overall average of 25.7 mph was pretty okay. Split was 2:10.
I rode the whole thing alone, and knew that would be the case after the very sub-par swim.
Run:
I got into transition well and started the run feeling good. There was nothing special about the run that day because there was a sprint triathlon that was happening at the same exact time, using the same exact transitions as the 70.3 racers. It was already crowded out on the run course. Lots of people to get around.
The road was also pretty beat up and very uneven from all of the rain that we had gotten the weeks before. I went through the run and was never at a point of pushing the pace. I just didn't have much to push that day...
In the end, I crossed the line and did what I wanted - I wanted to check off that first pro race and get it behind me. I wanted a glimpse of what it's like to be with the best in the sport, and I got that.
Overall time was a 4:10:40
Now I'm looking forward to the next one. I'll bring more oomph to that and aim to break four hours at the Half distance.
Aiden picked up my first Pro packet on Thursday with me.
A high five from Aiden before finishing. Picture of the day.
