Oh my what a nice weekend, feels like middle of the summer with high 80’s or almost 30 C and a nice crayfish party with Swedish Women Educational Association (SWEA) Saturday evening. We had crayfish caught in Lake Washington and sang songs and had a few drinks together with friends. Perfect end to the day that started a couple of hours before the 7am start of the opening 1 mile swim in really warm Lake Stevens.

This event is my last before my A-race so all about testing my nutrition plan and not so much about racing for a good time … well I got into the swim after about 400-500 meters and felt pretty good so thought what the heck. I picked it up a bit and managed to repair my slow start a bit and got out of the water at about 28 minutes which turned out to be 37th overall and 1st in my age group.

Since I’m a pretty strong swimmer I don’t pass a lot of athletes on the bike and run .. correction.. I never pass anyone after I get out of the water so just as my other races I ‘m passed by the “sitting tight in aero over 20 mph in average” group of athletes. Nothing different this time around as the first 10 or so miles was a steady stream of about 50 people swishing by me but when the really fast riders have passed I get stuck in a vacuum where I ride on my own for another 15 or so miles as I manage to keep away from the just under 20mph riders. Lake Stevens was a little different in that they ran the Sprint triathlon on same bike course so when I was on my way back and passed the sprint turning point I started to pass people.. fun!

The fun continued on the run where I felt pretty strong and glad that my nutrition on the bike had worked even if it was starting to get quite warm. The run was 5k out an back loop that we ran twice and the sprint athletes did once so I was able to run past people from the sprint and even quite a few olympic distance runners at least on the second lap. I finished the 10k strong with little over a mile at sub 8 min per mile tempo.

Summary for the day is that I feel I am getting less worried about my half ironman in two weeks .. that is to say I’m pretty confident I will be able to finish it but I ‘m not expecting any sub 8 min miles nor being able to pass a lot of folks.

Official results for this event is that I ended up 63 out of 160 and 6 out of 15 in my age group and I lowered my Olympic PR to 2:43:18 but you cant really compare the different races on time as they distances vary a bit.