Race Coverage

Putting Fears to Rest...

Wednesday, 13 March 2013 01:10

By Dan Hedgecock (danhedgecock.blogspot.com)

Race Report - 2013 is officially on! Every winter I spend months training without any real racing and for some reason at the end of every winter I have an absurd fear that I won't be fast anymore. I know that it doesn't make any sense but I even have dreams about it. What if I'm doing all these workouts and think that I'm going to be faster than last year, but when I step up to the starting line I just don't have it anymore?

Putting this annoying fear to rest is always a priority for the first race of the season and this weekend I was able to do that at the Clermont Draft Legal Challenge. The race was early Saturday morning, 8:30 eastern time. It was a sprint distance of 750m swim, 20k bike and 5k run. There was 75 people in the race. 75 guys doesn't sound like a lot, except that all 75 of us start at the same time, and the distance to the first buoy was only 300m, and it was a U25 Elite Development Race, so almost everyone was fast all things considered. On top of all of that I put off registering until the very last minute and each person gets to pick their position on the start line based on when they signed up, so I had a terrible start position right in the middle of the field trying to squeeze in half a step behind two other guys. The first 200 meters was closer to a wrestling match than a swim, complete with swallowing plenty of lake water, getting kicked in the face, swimming over people and getting swum over....

Despite all this, I finally kept my cool in a race, found some open water and got back into decent swimming form. Up until now I have always took off sprinting at the gun and shot myself in the foot with sloppy technique. I could feel myself losing form and kept refocusing on a strong connected pull. I came out of the water in 20th and was right on the tail end of the first pack getting on the bike. With the draft legal format this made all the difference for me. I couldn't be happier with the swim progress that I've made over the winter.

The bike was four 5k loops with a 180 degree turnaround at one end and a tight circle through transition at the other. My Florida training partner Jake Rhyner and I pushed the pace on the bike to make sure that the first chase pack didn't catch us before the run. I love the draft legal format, the pace is constantly accelerating and decelerating with people moving up and down the pace-line. 20 kilometers of biking goes by in what feels like 2 minutes. READ MORE