Lifetime Fitness - some days you have it, some days you don't

I've seen better days than yesterday's race, but that is how it goes.  It was probably the most important race of my summer but I managed to mess it up pretty badly.  I planned my taper for last week and this coming week.  While I was pretty pissed about it yesterday, I am trying to stay optimistic as I have another big race in 7 days.  The last thing I need is a lack of confidence next week.  

The morning started out nice and early, as my alarm went off at 4 am.  After a quick breakfast, I left Waconia with my parents at 4:30.  The drive went quicker than expected, and I was in the transition area by 5:15.  A race official went by our rack and told us that the elite amateurs would not be able to wear wetsuits!  This was not good news since it means I will lose even more time on the swim.  Fortunately the guy had no idea what he was talking about and we were allowed to wear wetsuits.  I did a 15 min bike warmup, some strides, and got out of transition before they closed it at 6:30.  The pro men started at 7:00 am followed shortly after by the pro women and corporate challenge relay.  The next wave was the elite amateur field, consisting of about 50 men from all over the country, and it was fun to have a running beach start.  My first step in the water was rough as I stepped on a sharp rock and sliced my foot.  We quickly caught some guys in the wave ahead of us, and it was very annoying that we started so close behind them.  I got out of the water alot slower than I expected, just behind Eric and Hauck, but the swim was probably a little long.

Onto the bike, I didn't know what to expect.  I have heard that the course is technically challenging and slow.  But it seemed to be going well right off the bat.  Most of the guys in the race aren't from MN so it was hard to know how well I was doing.  I didn't really know if I was biking well (speedometer was broken) and kept expecting to catch Dennis Dane and Eric on the bike.  It never happened, and in fact, I got torched on the bike.  It really couldn't have gone much worse, and with my first week of taper, I expected to see big results on the bike.  In retrospect, I probably didn't train very smart two weeks ago.  By next weekend, I'm hoping the bike comes around as I've focused most on that all year.  

By the run, I was just trying to do damage control, but it didn't go very well.  the 10k consists of two loops around lake nakomis and a little out and back section.  I managed to catch a few guys, but I was out of any race up front by this point.  The last two miles I slowed and finally finished.  All around, it was an upsetting day on the race course.  And it would have been a good day to bring my A game since there were 10 different states represented in the top 20!  An unbelievable field in our own backyard.  My good buddy Sam Hauck had a phenomenal race, snagging the 5th spot today.  Top 5 get a free trip to the US Open triathlon in Texas this fall.  Dennis Dane was right on his tail, taking 6th place, and Eric was 10th.  I was somewhere in the 'teens...

I'll have to redeem myself next weekend.