Kinetic Sprint

I found on Tuesday evening that I won a lottery entry for the Kinetic Sprint at Lake Anna, VA on Sunday April 20th. Since I waiting too long to sign up the race was already full, so the lottery slot was great news. I wanted a decent sprint to see where I was in regard to my fitness (slow and fat) and to have a good training day. Plus Lake Anna is a beautiful area.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a beautiful day for the Half that was part of the Kinetic Race Weekend, but today was dreary. I was up at 0545 to get some coffee and cereal in my system before John and Mira arrived to pick me up. I looked out the window and it was effing pouring down rain. AHHHHHHHHHH. I got on line to look at the weather and guess what? More rain out of the south ALL day. Oh well, it effects everyone the same way.

John and Mira arrive a little early, we get my bike loaded, coffee them up, and hit the road--in the rain. The trip was uneventful as it was wet. We arrive, parked in the mud, and slugged over to the packet pick-up. John and Mira were wearing trashbag ponchos, but I just decided to get wet. It was about 60 degrees and the rain was still falling. I saw no reason to try and stay dry. After packet pick up, I got my transition bag and bike and hiked through the rain to set up my spot.

I got on my wetsuit and headed down to the swim start to warm up. The water temp and the air temp were very similar, so there was no real shock getting in the water. I swam around for 10 minutes or so and then went tooking for friends. Then guess what happened? It stopped raining. WOW!!!! Its not raining and I am getting ready to swim.

My wave went off at 10:12. I make pretty good time to the first turn buoy and I got tied up with the wave in front of me. Or more specifically the stragglers who where holding on to the buoy for dear life. The rest of the swim was pretty uneventful, except for the second turn buoy, where more people were hanging on for dear life. It was not a bad swim, there were just a lot of newbies swimming and cold water does cause people to panic at times. Swim time for the 750 meters was about 17:20, about two minutes slower than I had hoped for.

I ran into T1 got changed and slogged through the mud with my bike to the mount point and guess what? It started to rain again. It rained the entire BIKE ride. The only time it did not rain was when I was swimming. Who says God does not have a sense of humor? It took me a while to get my HR down on the bike, but then that is not unusual for me. It was a nice rolling course which made it interesting, but not impossibly hard. I think I average about 17 mph for the 18 mile course. I came in a little over an hour.

Muddy run through T2, kept on my wet socks and was soon on the run course. I was feeling really good on the run for the first 200 meters then I had to run up a short steep hill. I got myself back under control and continued to a nice steady run through the rain. During the rain, it just poured. It was nice loop course along park roads, through the camp ground, and then a nice 1/4 mile down hill to the finish. I think my run time was about 27 minutes for the 5K run.

This is not an attractive picture, but if gives you an idea of how wet and miserable this race was.

After a little post race chow, it was back in the car for the trip back home. John and Mira stay over where the spousal unit prepared a great feast at the house. I am really stuffed and about ready to go to bed.