Race Report - Bucker Mission Man

This past Saturday (gloriously overcast, thank goodness!), Sara and I stepped up our game and took on a full sprint (vs. super sprints).  This was my first ever open water swim tri, and Sara's second... although she mentioned minutes before we hopped in the water that her first OWS race was a shorty.  Technically, this was a first, then, for both of us!

I didn't even have the luxury of many OWS practices beforehand.  Thankfully, Sara and I popped out to Beaver Dam Lake the DAY BEFORE to log some quite OWS time!  I'm glad we did, it calmed my pre-race jitters considerably.  There were still many left!

So we got up at the ass crack of dawn (technically, before dawn even thought about getting up!) and drove to Burlington, NC.  We arrived bright and ugly, and made a beeline to the porta potties, where we had the first-time-ever priviledge of being the FIRST TO USE THEM!  We had to break the seals on the TP rolls!  We quickly christened them, and moved on to packet pickup.

The race itself was great!

• It was small - there were just around 300 finishers
• Well-managed with super nice volunteers (church folks, this race supports an annual mission trip, hence the name)
• It had great swag - nice technical tees, socks, a tower, and a water bottle
• Good post race food - lots of fruit and carbs served by the aforementioned super nice volunteers!
• ...and a BEAUTIFUL course!  The lake was.. ya know, a lake.  The bike course had maybe 3-4 turns, rolling straight roads, and the run was a trail run through the same park as the lake.  Hilly, but pretty.

(view of the lake, through the transition area)

I won't lie, the swim freaked me out a little.  I think I went out too fast (when Sara told me later that I was ahead of her, that confirmed it.  That should NOT have happened!).  I couldn't catch a good groove or control my breathing.  The first leg was a funky combo of breast and back stroke, followed by random crawl when I could manage to catch my breath.  I locked it down a little on the 2nd leg, breathing every other stroke, and then by the third leg I settled in.  I stuck to the other edges of the mass of swimmers, but in hindsight, had I gone right up the middle, I probably would have saved considerable time.  I also bumped into a few people (and shoved my hand into some poor guy's teeth at one point!).  When I did, I took a sec to reorient myself and then just kept going.  Overall, it was no where near as frightening as I thought it would be.  When I climbed out of the water, I felt pretty good!  Overall time was just over 18 minutes for 750 meters, and I think I could do much better with some control and better steering!

The bike course was nice, too.  I found myself trying to do math while pedaling furiously!  Was this a 12 mile ride or a 15 mile ride?  I passed way more people than passed me, although I did get passed by a clump of dudes right around mile 14.  I could've gone a smidge faster, but again, I was pretty ok with my time - 49 minutes for 15 miles.

The run... whew.  The run.  3.1 miles of hilly trail.  The good:  I took 2 short walk breaks to grab a drink, and other than that, kept going.. even right up those hills.   The first 1/4 mile or so was a total douche grade, but we noticed that when we arrived and were prepared (just enough uphill to make you feel like you're working way too hard for what LOOKs like flat).  Once you hit the trail, it was a gravelly little roller coaster!  It peeked out over the lake at several points, and was a really pretty run, just not an easy one.  Sadly, it also ended STRAIGHT UP A DOGGONE HILL.  Just under 32 minutes for the run.  Not my best, typically my tri runs avg less than 10 min / mile, but with the hills, I'll take it.  

We were so pumped up that we both took to the plunge and signed up for White Lake International Tri in 6 weeks!!!  (kidding, I nearly peed in my pants when I hit "register", but I did it anyway).  And that, as they say, is that!