Race Coverage

A Deja Vu Experience...

Thursday, 25 June 2015 00:10

By Mike Ward (mikeward.cool/blog)

Capitol City Sprint Race Report - Lead up to the Capitol City Sprint was pretty basic. I had a strong run week with a lot of intensity, which was good, but I am feeling it now. Especially with Grandma’s Marathon in five days, the plan is to take it really easy in order to feel as fresh as possible on race day. Either way, despite not a lot of volume, it was good to get some relatively hard running in this last week as a little mental boost for Grandma’s.

I put a little less weight on performing at Capitol City just because it was a sprint race and Buffalo was more of a “where am I at” triathlon tester. I already knew kind of where I was at going into Capitol City, and frankly, Grandmas is more on my mind at this point. So the setup and prep was a little less hectic… I wasn’t as stressed out with having all my gear and just generally less stressed.

On race day, I realized that this was a deep field. According to Minnesota Tri News, I knew it was going to be deep, but it hit me on Sunday morning when I saw a few fast runners setting up in transition. Nothing is scarier than a strong runner. I felt really strong and good to go on race morning. I set up transition and...

went for a little jog. Then, I warmed up on the bike with a time-restricted spin out on the course. It sure was bumpy! Finally, I got into my wetsuit because I wanted to make a point to get a solid swim warmup in, especially because the swim was so short. The water was the perfect temperature and I got a nice swim warmup in. I was ready to go! Little did I know how frantic the swim would ultimately be.

The distances were 500 meters on the swim, 13.3 miles on the bike, then 3.1 miles on the run. I think the run was a little short, however. So, literally a sprint. I was expecting to push a 5k effort for an hour straight. I had little to no race strategy, just crank it out as hard as possible. A small inkling in my mind said to save a little on the bike, but I decided that it was sprint and to go for it all. Also, I had done two run-off-the-bike workouts that week and felt like my muscle memory was coming around and I could hold a decent clip for the 5k. On that Tuesday, Nick and I ran a 5:40 mile (then two easy miles) off of a hard 15 mile ride. That gave me some confidence for sure. READ MORE