I’ll keep this race report fairly simple.

I felt good coming into the race, but my times were not what I was hoping for. I didn’t do this race last year, but I did in 2012. My times for the swim, bike and run were all a few seconds slower this time around. I know that I’ve put in lots of hard work and training in the last two years, so I’m not going to get discouraged by one race. It’s a long season and I have plenty of time to improve before my ‘A’ race in August. So here are the details…

400 yard Swim

6:18.6 (1:26/100yd) – 3rd out of 14 in age group (22nd out of 61 overall)

T1

1:07.0 (1/14)(7/61)

16 mile Bike

44:22.8 (21.6 mph) – (4/14)(11/61)

T2

0:31.7 (3/14)(12/61)

5K Run

22:02.2 (7:06 pace) – (6/14)(19/61)

 Total

1:14:22.4

4th in my Age Group

9th Overall

It’s tough to find out that you have a top 10 overall finish, but yet didn’t make the podium in your Age Group. The Male 35-39 group is a strong one around here, so I know going in that I have to be on my best to get a top three finish. All in all, I’m still happy with my race and I had a good time with some good friends out there on the course. The weather was awesome and a less than perfect race is still better than most other things I can imagine doing on a beautiful Sunday morning!

Moving on…this Saturday will mark the 8th time that I have run the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon. I put it on my race calendar every year, regardless of what my Triathlon goals are for the season. This race is special to me because it was the first road race I ran, way back in 1998. I don’t even remember what motivated me to start training to run 13.1 miles, but I finished the race and from that moment on I started to feel the desire to get in better shape through exercise and healthy eating. My definition of both exercise and healthy foods have drastically changed over the years, but it’s a journey that I’m glad I started 16 years ago.

This years race just happens to fall on my birthday. I will be 36 years old on Saturday. As I started to think about goals for this race, I wanted to figure out a way to put my birthday (4-19) or age (36)  into my goal finish time. Running a half marathon in 1:04:19 was obviously not an option; and using it in something like a 1:44:19 seemed to be a stretch. So I landed on a goal time of 1:36:00. This is a bit of a lofty goal since my PR for this race is 1:37:27. Cutting a minute and a half off of my fastest time might look simple to some people, but trust me – this will be tough! I haven’t been training for long distance running since I don’t have Ironman on the race schedule this year. My longest run this year has been the Papa John’s 10 Miler a few weeks ago. I have confidence that I can run 13.1 miles, but can I run it holding the 7:20 pace required to finish in 1:36:00? We’ll see Saturday morning!

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