Manassas Tri It Now Tune Up Tri

Sunday morning, I competed in a small mini triathlon in Manassas hosted by Tri it Now.  I had to be up at around 5am, then make my way to Manassas to get checked in, marked up, and my transition area set up.  The morning was cold, upper 30s low 40's and cloudy.  The race started off with a 1.4 mile run, then transition to a 4 mile bike ride, then to an indoor 250 yard swim.  The order makes for an interesting and challenging transition.

The race started late that morning, at around 7:50am.  About 252 participants of all levels came out that morning and raced.  The entire race took place in and around the Freedom Aquatic Center at George Mason University.  Three waves of about 100 athletes took off on the run.  I was in wave number two, I try to get up to the front with all the other runners who tend to be faster.  I knew I wasn't the fastest out there, but better to be up front and not have to dodge the slower runners.  The whistle blew, and we were off.  I probably started off way too fast, but the idea was to get some distance so I wasn't clustered with runners, then settle into a rhythm, but 1.4 miles is too short of a distance to do that, I almost felt like I was trying to run hard the entire way.  The route was windy, running on the main street, around a building, through a mulch trail, and back around for a total of 1.4 miles.

Next was the transition to the bike.  My transition area consisted of a towel, swim cap, goggles, cycling cleats and helmet.  Once I got to the transition area, I kicked off my shoes, and tried to quickly get my cleats on.  Ideally, you want to have the cleats already clipped into the bike, grab the bike, and start running to the mount point.  Unfortunately for me, my cleats are not that easy to slip on because of the buckle, vice velcro.  After getting my cleats on, I buckled my helmet on, then started clanking down the asphalt with my bike.  At the mount point, I clipped into the bike and took off.  The bike is my most comfortable event.  A few days before, I was refitted, which means a bike fitter measured my angles and legs to get the ideal bike position.  As a result, my seat angle was adjusted, moved forward, and raised slightly to give me a more aggressive and forward leaning position when in aero position.  During the race, the position felt great.  The only downside to being more forward is my head needs to lift slightly higher to look up, causing additional strain in the neck.  I'm wondering if my position would be more comfortable on a TT/Tri specific bike.  The bike course had 4 or 5 u-turns, which is a bit annoying since there was left over sand from the winter, and it causes bikers to slow down.  I ended up passing people on the bike around the u-turns because I would attack the curves fast, then slow down a lot and take the inside position on the turn, and push out hard.  I came in quick to the dismount point, so quick that the marshal asking people to dismount jumped out and started yelling at me to stop stop stop, which I was planning on doing, just at the last minute :)

I clanked my way back to the transition area, hung up my bike, took off my helmet and glasses.  I pulled my shoes and socks off, then my sleeves, then my bike top, then grabbed my goggles and swim cap and started running to the pool.  On route to the pool, I put my swim cap on, then my goggles so that I could just slip into the pool quickly and start going.  The pool swim was crazy, cause you just started swimming once you got there, so you could potentially start swimming with 3, 4 or even 5 people at the same time.  Definitely an experience, the closest to open water swimming with other athletes I've had to date.  People pushing, touching, elbowing - fun and scary.  After finishing the swim, rather than waiting for people to climb out using the ladder, I just pulled myself out and walked quickly to the finish.

Results
I finished 10th overall, 4/21 in my age group but got 2nd in my age group since the 1st and 2nd place overall winners were also in my age group.
Run - Ranked 25 with a time of 8:43 (6:13 per mile)
T1 - 1:13
Bike - Ranked 7 with a time of 11:30 (20.87 mph)
T2 - 1:30
Swim - Ranked 39 with a time of 4:51 (1:56 per 100yrds)
Finish 27:46

Lessons Learned
Run - Not sure I would change anything here.
T1 - Start off with my cleats clipped in, and slip my feet in while on the move (may need new cleats for this)
Bike - Happy overall with my bike performance
T2 - Should have unbuckled my cleats, and slipped my feet out while approaching the dismount point. I also should have worn an underarmour longsleeve, vice wearing single arm sleeves, for quicker shirt removal
Swim - I should have been a little more aggressive with my swim to try and pass people, there were slight bottlenecks at the walls though because of the number of people

Overall, the race was fun, and an added bonus was Christine was there to cheer me on, and other friends competed as well.