I never made an update about my couple races in May; one a local sprint, another Memphis in May. The Sprint race was a fun event that kicked off with a swim in 51 degree water. Even with 8+ minutes of swimming, I still had numb feet until Mile 2 of the run. I felt pretty out of my element since it was my first race since January, but it was good to go hard again. I pretty much got my butt kicked by everyone, but that's kind of the way it goes sometimes.
Memphis was an event to remember. The professional race starts at 10:30 in the morning and Memphis was forecasted to have record highs. I'm not sure what the exact temperature was at the start, but I think was well above 90 with the normal Mississippi Delta humidity to go along with that.
I started the race with an OK swim then headed out on the bike. All I could think about at the start of the bike was how damn hot it was. I was actually sort of chuckling to myself as I thought about how warm I was. BUT, I had anticipated the heat and made adjustments: I held back early on in the bike, ditched the aero helmet, and had two water bottles with me. Eventually I found a good rhythm keying off of Zach Ruble after he passed me and I came in off the bike with him and two other athletes.
Again, the run was hot. Once again I started to chuckle as I thought about how hot I was. I was running around the pace I would run in a long training run and it felt like I was running all out. I posted a 39:16 10K and it actually ended being the fastest run of the day to help give you an idea of how slowly we were all moving out there.
At any rate, it was fun. I finished 6th; one spot of the money, so I guess that part wasn't as fun. But I had a great homestay and the local triathlon club/community there was awesome.
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Boise 70.3
I didn't start. Unfortunatetly, a little more than a week out I tweaked something in my calf that forced me to take some rest from running. I've since recovered, but opted out of racing as I want to stay healthy for my training for Placid. I'm more focused on long course events, so I opting out of 70.3 was an easy choice in this situation.
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Next week I'll be participating in an Endurance Corner Camp here in Boulder, then four weeks later will be racing in the Adirondacks of NY. I'm climbing a lot of mountains on my bike at the moment so that Maik doesn't embarass me too much.
-j