Race Thoughts for Trinona THIS WEEKEND!

I'm super pumped to race Trinona Triathlon this weekend! It's been a few years since I've been down to that race. (I did the Olympic Distance in 2012, the Time Trial in 2013, and had a lot of fun in 2014 where I raced the Time Trial and then did the sprint triathlon as a relay the next day.)

My chunky 1-year-old Henry from my 2012 Trinona race report. Such a cutie!

I thought Trinona and the Brian Kraft 5K were timed out nicely because they were 3 weeks apart: that'd be 1 recovery week, 1 hard training week (where I planned to do that bike/run/bike/run/bike/run/bike/run workout I like), and then 1 easy/taper week. But it wasn't until last Tues or Wed that Trainer Laurie at my gym noted: "Ah, no Steve... Trinona isn't 2.5 weeks away. It's just 1.5 weeks away!" Oops. Well, there goes my good training week! Oh well.

I REALLY don't have any specific time goals for this race. I know I said that about the Brian Kraft 5K too... and then I went on to still say what I hoped to do. Well here's what I THINK that I MIGHT be able to do next weekend at the race (not "goals" necessarily, just "predictions"):

• SWIM: When I did the sprint tri as a relay in 2014, I did the swim. I was in MUCH worse swim shape (coming off lots of rest after a sprained ankle). I looked at some workouts from before that race compared to recent workouts: 100 repeats were 5-7 seconds slower back then, 200 repeats were 10-12 seconds slower back then, and 500 repeats were 45 seconds slower back then. So I'm obviously in MUCH better swimming shape now. Back then I did a 7:14 swim (1:39 pace), and I hope to do that again even though I'm not JUST doing the swim in a relay. I think that's very possible. (But there are lots of variables like waves, buoys moving, my ability to swim a straight line, the fact that it's my first open water swim in 22 months, etc.)

• BIKE: It's a 11 mile out-and-back bike that's got a bit of a hill (100 feet or so) on the way out. I recently looked back over the last 3 years of results. Last year, Anne G from my gym did it in 30:16 (21.8 mph), in 2015 Brad M did it in 30:36 (21.6 mph), and in 2014 Lisa L did it in 31:06 (21.2 mph). I think I'm faster than Anne, but both Brad and Lisa have out-biked me head-to-head in the past. However, I'm in MUCH better bike shape this year (and with a new bike), so I HOPE to be around what they did in the past. (But this is the prediction I'm least sure of, being this comparison isn't that "scientific." When i did the Oly distance in 2012, the first part of the bike is basically the sprint course, and I had an 18.8 mph average before turning off to do the long course. But I was saving myself for THEE climb later on in the Oly, and I was also a much different [worse] cyclist back then.)

• RUN: This is a flat 5K out-and-back around Lake Winona. I don't have a major time goal here - it will be whatever I can do after riding. I've done my 2 duathlons right around 6:00 pace earlier this year, so that would be great here. Sub-19 hopefully?

Add in 2:30 - 3:00 of transitions (it's a long run to T1 from the lake, and the 3 friends who's results I looked at from the last 3 years have combined T times of 2:30-3:00), and that puts me right around 60 minutes.

Here's the scary thing that I didn't expect until looking at past results: a time around 60 mins would have put me in 4th-6th in 2014, 3rd-4th in 2015, 2nd-3rd in 2016! I didn't expect to be that close to the top, but who knows who will show up this year. I was HOPING to place in my age group, but now I might be hoping for a bit more. It's a "time trial" start, so I won't know who's in front of me or who's behind me as we're all out on the race course, so I'll just have to race hard the whole way.

Check back next week for a race report! (In the meantime, if you're racing Trinona, check out this post where you can simply send out a tweet to be entered for some goodies AND DONUTS.)