The Austin Triathlon has quickly become a Labor Day tradition for those in the Central Texas, especially for those in Austin. The crew at High Five Events does a great job with this race, evidence through the race selling out at 2000 participants this year. Last year I was a volunteer for the race but it was time to put the race wheels on and see what was in the tank. I’ve been able to get some consistent training in over the past 6 weeks and was feeling good. The running has been going well, winning a 5k in Canada a few weeks ago with a 14:50, and believe it or not my swim training has been going great! So I had some confidence coming into the race but this was a stacked race and simply breaking the top 10 was going to take a big effort…as it should.

Race morning was typical, I woke up 10min before the alarm, which is always the 10 best minutes of sleep. But the coffee was already perked and it was time to roll. A quick bagel and a generous cup of coffee and we were out the door. We had racked our bikes the day before so set up was easy. Everyone seemed to get a kick out of me wearing a button up shirt to the race, I guess it was odd amongst the lycra and dri-fit crowd but honestly it was the first shirt I made it to when I woke up and it worked for me…

At the swim start Shawn Colvin sang the national anthem, pretty awesome to have a Grammy winner singing to you on race morning…oh, and then she raced!

The open wave had a 7am start and there were probably 50 in it. By about 400m a nice group of ~8 had formed. It was a good group, swimming straight and good feet to be behind. I tried a few times to go around on either side as I was feeling pretty good, but this had the same effect of my 4-cylinder Toyota leaving the protection of an 18-wheeler’s draft on I-35, it was just going to be too much effort to get around, so I settled in and conserved. I realized coming around the last buoy that AG National Champion, TX State TT champ and Durata athlete Mina Pizzini was right beside me…uh oh! We got out about 3min back of the leaders which is to be expected with the like of Richie Cunningham, Andrew Yoder and Jamers Cotter up there.

At T2 a large mass left at the same time, it was broken up pretty quickly through varying levels of transitioning skills and it was ON. The first 2k of the bike was a slight uphill and my goal being a small guy was to work the 3 uphill sections on the course and recover on the descents. This I did and did well, but there were some other athletes that had a little more of an advantage on the downhill part…gravity never fails.  So, inevitably we’d keep bunching back up at the base of the hills. This is where I made a stupid mistake, as a rider passed me who had leap frogged my self and others multiple times but was not strong enough to distance himself and I’d pull him right back and pass him. After about the 3rd time this happened I did not sit up and drop back at a rate consistent with USAT’s liking and I got busted for a 2min over taking penalty.  I didn’t gain an advantage I simply did not stop pedaling going uphill b/c, well it’s hard to re-acclerate going up hill, but there was the Referee writing my number down and I was busted. Oh, well now I’ve got to make up time! (the worst part was the guy that kept lead frogging us was a non-issue as the race went on, guess he was just a little froggy there at first!)

So, I pounded out the rest of the bike and felt decent, not great but actually better than I thought. My SRM file is attached, I was pleased with the power output. 275w average with w 287norm. I’ve seen a handful of the files that have won this race and they’re typically only ~10-15w higher, if that.  [ A side note is that, I had an athlete go ~60sec faster at 15 less watts, so that tells you how important positioning is.] So I split a 59:42, which I felt pretty good about, I think I could get a little extra speed by making my position more aggressive, in time I’ll work to get there. Here’s my file   DW Austin Tri

Coming off the bike I was feeling throttled and knew right away it was going to be a long run, that bike split had taken a lot out of me, usually I can hit the run and be at my terminal velocity in about 4 strides, nearly 400m into the run and I was still wondering where on earth my legs were. I started the run in ~9th and I felt like there were a few folks I could catch, so I set to it, just resigning myself that this was really going to hurt. Picking off three folks on the run was a little consolation but I Was hurting like I have not hurt on a run in a long time…but hey that’s racing, eh? Good friend Paul Terrenova was about 60sec up on me and he acted as a rabbit for a while until I realized he was not getting any closer, I was in no man’s land…an unfortunate piece of real estate where there’s no-one to push or pull you and where there is an unobstructed view of discomfort on the horizon, but I tried to keep at it. And then with about 3k to go I realized I’d better keep at it as Joe Thorne an All American runner turned triathlete from UT was closing and closing fast. He was going to make me work for it. I was able to hold him off through the end with Joe running a 31:08 (yes it’s an accurate 10k) to my 34:20 and myself crossing the finish line in 6th overall, but since the USAT and their infinite wisdom had labeled me a cheater I was bumped back to 7th behind Joe. Oh well it was a really fun race and I’m happy about where the training is and it was nice to just race a tri again as it’s been awhile.The race was very well put on, with great volunteers and competitors alike, this is one of the many events that makes Austin TX such a hotbed for endurance sports and an active lifestyle!

Great job to all athletes! Durata had great results:

Kelly Williamson 2nd Overall

Mina Pizzini 4th Overall

Jacqueline Fein 4th in AG

Britta Harrison 8th in W30-34

Dick Snyder 1st M65

Yancey Arrington 1st M30-34

John Turlington 4th M30-34

http://www.theaustintriathlon.com/