My first "podium" finish!!

So, I finished the Philytri Sprint event and felt great. I had achieved my goals (ok, i was off 27 seconds on the run). Had my gear packed up and was starting to the car with Jodie - my support "crew" today. Figured, I could just check the final results online later.
Why not just check the results posting before we leave? What? I came in 3rd in my age group? I think we better hang around!
Honestly, I was so surprised by this outcome that I got pretty choked up. That was not in the plan!
So, what happened?
Bottom line - I kicked it on the bike. The road course was sweet! Nice and smooth new pavement and a beautiful day. My goal was 55:00 on the bike portion. My actual - 48:39! The rest of my goals v. actual were right in line:

• Swim goal: 14:30 - Actual: 14:25. Perfect! I'm getting better at this goal setting.
• Bike goal: 55:00 - Actual: 48:39. Awesome! I guess this goal is going to be tougher to achieve in the future!
• Run goal: 23:30 - Actual: 23:57. Pretty close. Sort of balances with the swim. I was pretty tired from busting my butt on the bike.
• Transitions goal: 5:00 total - Actual: 4:45. Skippy!
• Overall goal: 1:38:00 - Actual: 1:31:47. Wow.
  

My position at the finish was entirely unexpected. Here's how I rated:

• Overall: 123 out of 1,436 participants. Top ten percent. Nice. 75th on Swim, 282 on bike, 214 on run. (Which means the swim leg is pretty darn important to the outcome, for me.)
  
• Overall males: 106 out of how many, I'm unsure. But I imagine 60-70% were male. So definitely better than "middle of the pack".
• Age 50-55: 3 out of 44. Amazing.

Thanks and love to Jodie for supporting this effort! Thanks Angie for inspiring me to "tri". I am totally surprised and grateful for the opportunity to have taken on the challenge of this sport.

(p.s. remember, I am trying to raise some money for "Serving at the Crossroads" through this blog. If you haven't already, please consider making a donation through the link at the lower right hand corner of this page. If you've already done so, Thanks - the new clinic is under construction and lives are being saved and the community is being improved!!!!)

Setting my goals for Saturday

The Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon - Sprint is on Saturday morning. So, I thought it might be a good idea to start stating my goals in advance so I don't get any trash about making them up after the race. Of course, now I'll get trash about missing my goals... so, I better make them achievable... sounds just like being a CEO!
This race is a little different from the "Black Bear". The swim is longer (900m v. 750m), which helps me relative to the competition since that is my stronger event. The bike portion is shorter (24K - a little less than 15 miles v. 18 miles) and the course is relatively flat - so, I'm expecting a higher average speed on that. Then the run is about the same at 3.1 miles (5k).

My goals for Saturday:

• Swim; 14:30 - a shade faster pace than the Black Bear swim but I was pretty tight for that. Hopefully the experience will keep my heart rate from going out of sight again. I'm a little concerned that they have my wave starting last (old farts in the rear!) so I need to be prepared to swim around stragglers from the earlier waves.
  
• Bike; 55:00 - based on my Black Bear pace this would be more like 58:00, but I'm thinking it will be faster on the flat. And, since it is shorter I'll try to kick it a little harder.
• Run; 23:30 - about half way between the pace of the "Black Bear" run and the "Media 5 Mile".
  
• Transistions; 5:00 total - about a one minute improvement over "Black Bear". However, this could vary quite a bit based on how they have the transition area set up. At BB the transition was a long way from the bike mount area - so, that added a lot of time to the Swim to Bike transition time.
  
• Total; 1:38:00 - we'll see....

Check back here to see the results sometime on Saturday afternoon. If you are following me on Twitter, you will get an update soonest.
(On Twitter - bradkingsr)

A surprising outcome

I may have mentioned signing up for the Media 5 Mile Race, here in our hometown. It was the race's 30th anniversary and Jodie picked up the brochure - so, I figured it would be a good Friday evening workout - but, had very low expectations for my performance since I had never run in a competitive running event before.
When we showed up, I was a little intimidated by all of the "studs" (Jodie's word) hanging around. But, it was a beautiful evening and I figured I'd just have a nice run then have dinner downtown with our good friends the Andersons.
There were 1,200 entrants, so the start was a bit like the "running of the bulls". After about a half mile or so the crowd started to sort itself out - a nice little hill helped the process. Then, I discovered that the running coach at my Triathlon boot camp was right - most people use a lot of energy slowing themselves down on the down hill portions of the course. By just "free wheeling" down the hills and letting gravity do most of the work I started passing a lot of people - then holding them off on the uphills. By the half way point (two 2.5 mi. loops) I was clearly in the middle of the pack. Seeing Jodie there cheering me on was great encouragement.
By about mile 4 it seemed like I was running all alone - in front of the main "pack", but a fair bit behind the front "pack" (and WAY behind the "elite" runners). Over the last mile I was able to close that gap and work my way up to what I felt was a pretty respectable finish - at 37:10 minutes, well below my goal of 40 minutes.
Jodie noticed that she hadn't seen many if any of folks in my "age group" (50-54) finishing before me. Hmmm....
We had a great dinner at the Fellini Cafe. On Saturday I checked out the official results and I was shocked to see that I had finished 3rd of 61 runners in my age group! I was 161st of the roughly 1,150 finishers. Surprising.