Kinetic Half Race Report (Justin)

Last weekend we competed in our 1st race of the year- the Kinetic Half in Lake Anna, VA. Both of us were a little more nervous than usual...for me it was b/c the distance for 1st race of the year, new race wheels on the bike, unknown course/bad weather. And the biggest reason is that my training has been very inconsistent this year. My workouts have been more focused and purposeful but I'm missing a lot of them.

To spare an extra 20 minutes of sleep, we stayed at Courtney & Kyle's apartment on Friday night. When the alarm went off at 3:45am, I was happy to have had the extra rest. We dressed, ate and were in the car by 4:30am. The ride down was pretty uneventful but unfortunately we didn't get through parking and packet pick up until 6:40am...my swim wave went off at 7am...better hurry!!!


Swim (41:42)
I decided- being the 1st race of the year- to just swim on my own and not try to draft. I've worked on my swim a lot this off-season with the Masters program and was hoping to see some big improvements. The good: I was pretty confident throughout and swam a half-iron distance personal best. The bad: my time still stunk, I was weaving throughout, and I expended way too much energy. Coming out of the lake, my HR was 180 (even sprinting its hard for me to go above 165 while running/biking).

Bike (2:49:42)
The weather decided to stay overcast and drizzling- which is much better than the predicted rain storms. It felt good to get out on the bike course. The course is lollipop-shaped with 2 loops around and was pretty flat throughout. I decided to forgo the bike computer and decided to pace off heart rate alone. I stayed within my target HR for the 1st loop and then just went all out for the 2nd. Around mile 45 I started to blow up a little so I settled into a comfortable but slower pace and cruised through the last 11 miles. Good: another 70.3 personal best and I was really comfortable. Bad: Didn't take in enough calories and struggled through the last few miles.


Run (2:02:53)
Happy to be off the bike and into transition I quickly realized I left my socks in the car and only had recovery compression socks. I love my running shoes but they're pretty bad when sockless so I put on the compression socks and off I went. The run course is 3 loops with a big hill out of transition. The rest is a lot of up-and-down. My goal was to take loop 1 easy and progressively get faster. Instead, my body let me go faster Loop 2 and blew up on lap 3. All of the up and downs had taken their toll and I was spent. Good: my second fastest 70.3 run time. Bad: My body felt like poo.

Overall
Set Up events puts on really good races- Liz and I have really enjoyed the 2 we've competed in. The weather was ideal throughout being around 65 degs and overcast. It was great having Courtney at the race to cheer us on- THANKS!!! Randomly, my assigned transition spot was right next to Brian Cook (I'm good friends w/ his brother Dan and Courtney/Kyle are friends w/ Brian from high school). Unintentionally we stayed together throughout each leg of the race- I pulled away at the end of the bike and kept a 3 minute lead going into lap 3 of the run. I couldn't believe it when he passed me right as we were entering the finishing chute...so I was kinda bummed but still extremely happy to have PR'ed.

Next up is TriRidgefield...