Race Recap: Muncie Sprint Triathlon I competed in this race last year to prep for the 70.3 at the same location and finished 5 out of 7. Its really an amazing site to have a race! My goal for this year was to get on to the podium in my age group. Going into the race I knew my run was my weakest point. This morning I was searching for people in my age group (35-39) and got to chatting with one guy(well call him red; thanks to his red tri-kit) just before the swim, he said he was a strong swimmer but bike was his challenge. I was the first time-trial starter and he was second. I knew if I could stay ahead of him the whole race I had a shot! Red past me at the first buoy because I went a little wide, I was tracking him and then he disappeared after the second buoy, turned out he had went wide right and wasnt targeted toward the swim exit. I ended up ahead of him in the swim. I pushed pretty hard through the swim; and inhaled some water so I was pretty winded and took it easy up the hill to transition. Red ended up exiting T1 about 10 yards ahead of me but I passed him pretty quickly into the bike. The Bike went well, felt really good most of the way with a little bit of a burn around 5-7 miles but I hit the gel and came back to life. I got passed by about 4 bikes during the duration. A note, when you start out first in the swim, anyone who passes you is beating you... I kept thinking, Im a damned rabbit. I still didnt know how many were in my age group so I just kept on trucking hoping that none of the first fast wave starters were... Then on the start of the run another guy (well call him yellow) started right with me. Now I knew of 2 people in my age group that I was actually competing with. This was the first time Ive EVER felt like I was actually competing with someone and it was actually 2 people! With 3 miles to go I was ahead of Yellow and was focused on running my own race, remember Im a slow runner :) but I felt good! We get to the turn to head back to the finish and Yellow decides to catch me and pass me. I was pissed but stayed true to running my own race. I suspected that Yellow was faster than me because Id never seen him before the run ... Then I saw Red! I wasnt going to let him catch me so I stated to pick up the pace. I kept looking for Red and saw him gaining on me for a bit. I knew I only had to beat him by about 5 seconds to actually be ahead of him at the end. I pushed to the finish and got a new PR, if you saw the photo I also looked like I was dying! I ended up 1:21:31 landing me 2nd in my age group, it turned out that Yellow beat me by about 1 minute overall. I finished 24th out of 69 and I was really happy. I realize that I got lucky that none of the really fast people were in my age group, but Im going to happily take the 2nd place finish. I think the best part was that I had fun competing and actually feeling like I was racing. Thanks to all those who reached out, and special thanks to my Mom Cheryl Eash, my great friend Dave Ellison and of course my son Nolan for posting awesome updates. Sorry so long...
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 17:49:19 +0000