Wednesday, April 21, 2010

3-Peat at Emporia

This past Sunday all Spring Migration participants were pleasantly greeted with excellent race conditions at a race which is typically plagued with wind. I was back for my 3rd year continuing to use this race as my season opener to dust off the cobwebs. Team Nickel was in attendance. All in all it was a solid race with swim, bike, and run with some minor mistakes in transition that typically happen when I haven't practiced them.
The 400m swim was uneventful with a 5.32 split (2nd). That still has to be the slickest side walls in a pool I've swam in. After biffing the swim/bike transition that included not getting my helmet clasped on the first few tries and a shoe coming unclipped from the pedal before I had it on my foot, I settled in on my new Felt B2 for its break in race. I'm absolutely loving this bike. And though I'd like to give all the credit of probably my fastest bike split in a sprint (12.43 miles in 28.45 according to my bike = 26.0mph avg) to my superior off-season training, there is no doubt the upgrade in bike made a difference. And for those of you keeping score... pace motorcycle - 1, Kevin - 0, just couldn't catch him.
A slightly better bike/run transition, and I cruised to a 16.52 5k which I think includes transition so maybe more like a 16.30ish. Overall time was 52.52, 2 minutes faster than last year and good enough for a 4 minute win over 2nd place.
I want to thank all of my returning and new sponsors (links on sidebar). They make it possible for me to compete at the level I do and are not only tremendous businesses I would support without their sponsorship but are fantastic people that I trust.
Next stop, TriZou Missouri in 2 weeks.