St. Anthony's Preview

We are leaving this morning for St. Petersburg, FL and the St. Anthony’s Triathlon.  St. Anthony’s is one of the largest triathlons in the United States, having over 3,400 competitors.  It is an Olympic distance race, so that means a 1.5km (.93 mile) swim, 40 km (24.85 mile) bike, and 10km (6.2 mile) run.  Among the 3,400+ competitors, will be some of the world’s fastest professionals and elite amateurs. That’s one of the cool things about triathlon, us everyday age-groupers get to compete on the same course, at the same time, with the best in the world.

Because of the large field, the swim start goes of in waves.  The first wave will start Sunday morning at 6:50 am with the Male Pros, which will be followed a couple minutes later by the Female Pros.  Matt and I are in the 12^th wave (M35-39 M-Z) and will start our race at 7:35 am.  If you’ve never done a mass swim start, it’s an interesting experience.  Approximately 100 people all swimming in a similar area, all at once.  It pretty much expected that you will bump into each other, and you will probably get kicked at least once.  After about 200 yards or so, it starts to thin out and you can settle into your stroke.

Matt and I are in the same age group (Male 35-39).  It’s one of the largest age groups in the field, having close to 300 entries. (290 I believe is the exact amount).  My goal for this race is to be in the top half of my age group.  In order to accomplish that, I’m going to have to need a time of about 2:40-2:45.   I’ve broken down my goals as such:

Swim: 31 minutes

T1:  3 minutes

Bike: 72 minutes

T2: 2 minutes

Run: 55 minutes

That gives me a total time of 2:43.  Each of those is certainly doable for me,  my only concern is controlling myself on the bike, so that I have enough left for the run.  I have a tendency to go too hard on the bike (it’s probably my strongest of the 3 disciplines) and I don’t have enough energy to put forth a good run.  I’m going to try and control my pacing on the  bike for this race, and if I’m successful at that, then I think my run can be much better than my 55 minute goal.  I’m hopeful that I can break the 2:40 mark, but I’ll be happy if I’m less than 2:45.

I’m looking forward to the event, it should be a good time!