Race Morning:
This race morning was a little different than most. Since Warsaw is about a three hour drive from Bloomington I went up to Indianapolis the night before to stay at my girlfriends sister's house, so that I would not have to drive so far. Either way I woke up at 3:30 AM to start the normal routine as follows; Bathroom, Cheerios, And lots of water! I made sure I had everything grabbed my bananas and gatorade and out the door I was.
When I arrived at the race site I was one of the first people there, as always! I can't stand to be late it just adds to the stress level. I went and checked in and did the normal body marking and check out the transition area. As I walked back to my car the area became more packed and all of the people started to bring out their fancy bikes, which makes my jaw drop. So I set my bike up and got everything ready to go to transition and then waited for my brother Alex to get there. When he arrived we did a little talking and then went for a quick ride, it was a good thing we did because I probably would have wrecked at the very end of the bike course due to a sharp turn!
As 8:00 AM got close the lake area became packed with fans and athlete's. So I got in the water and made my way to the front of the pack with Alex. We said a few last words and then the gun went off. I always start the swim off as fast as I can to get away from the pack. So I hammerd the gas down and moved to the front. As I look up to see where I am going Alex and I are side by side. As we finish up the swim Alex was ahead of me by a few seconds. Into transition one I had a hell of a time getting the wetsuit off, but I was out at the same time as Alex and one other guy. We all mounted our bikes at the same time, and I gave it hell up the first hill to take the lead. The bike was an out and back course. As I made it to the turn around I could see that I had about 45 sec. to a minute ahead of everybody but I knew they were coming. At mile 12.5 I got passed by a guy from Michigan State. He didn't get much of a lead on me. Into transition two, the lead guy was out ahead of me about 25 seconds and he was flying on the run. I took the run out kind of slow because I had really slammed the bike and I was feeling it a little bit. As the run went on I was gaining on him and got passed by one other guy, who was taking monster strides. With about .75 of a mile to go I passed the guy ( he was drained). I crossed the finish line in 1:04.27.
I took 5th overall and I was happy with the overall race. It was very well organized, had awesome volunteers which is always a bonus, averaged almost 25mph on the bike, and it was just fun to race with nice people who have such great talent! I will for sure be adding this one to next years list. I also qualified for the Age group National Championship!
That's all for now, I'll have an update in a few weeks after Ironman Muncie!
