Winding Trails Race Recap - 2009 #1

The first race of the season went down this past Tuesday and I had a good time as usual. The family was represented by myself, uncle Eric and cousin Jason...

The usual butterflies were in place being the first race and all but I got through that before the start of the swim. I did a really quick warmup in the water and then had get out for the first wave to go off. I'll be in the second wave all year since I don't swim under 7 minutes and that was the cutoff that they chose for the first wave. I felt really good throughout the swim and managed to draft a bit more than usual. Came out of the swim right behind Eric but passed him on the run up the beach. Time for the swim was 9:47 and 45th place, which includes the longer run to transition. I'm guessing it's a minute and a half to two minutes for the run which means about an 8 minute swim, not too bad.

Transition went fairly well and I jumped on the bike. My biggest issue on the bike is that the middle ring in the front is shot and was dropping the chain every time I put a lot of power on while in the second ring. In retrospect, I really should have brought it up to my buddy at Tolland Bike to get it fixed (I have since dropped it off so I don't get this excuse next week). Finished the bike feeling really good and ready to run. Time was 32:13 for 62nd place. Clearly, I think I could have gone faster with a better middle ring, but we'll see next week.

Off on the run, and the usual results... not great. It was exacerbated a bit by the sore ankle, but mostly my lack of running conditioning hurt. I've been trying to strike a balance between letting my ankle sprain heal and getting some good run training in. The run was where the excitement came in though... I was walking on the last hill when my uncle came by moving pretty good. Immediately I took off after him, and actually felt pretty good about my chances because I had been able to catch my breath going up the hill. The other factor was that you can't coast down to the finish from that point anymore, the line has been moved out. That was the difference maker, as he couldn't hold the pace all the way to the finish and I caught him just after the old finish line but with 100 yards or so to go and pulled away. Run time was 31:38 and my total was 1:13:38 for 75th place out of 128.

Check out the full results here: http://thelastmileracing.com/results/results2009/09windingtrails1.html

Nice job to Tom Cornish by the way... #1 overall on the bike!!