Game On! First Triathlon of the Year is today and tomorrow.

The moment of truth is this afternoon and tomorrow morning. The Bengal Triathlon is today and tomororw. If that sounds weird, it's because it is a bit weird. We do the swim at the local university on Friday, and then the bike and run on Saturday morning. There's some coordinaion issues with the pool that make it this way, so we just live with it and go with the flow in order to get in an early race for the year.

I'm not worried about the swim. My swim time will be what it will be. I've improved my form a bit and hope to come it at about 9:45-10:00 for 700 yards in a pool. I want to average 1:20/100. I haven't been swimming alot lately, but I was doing 500s in 7:00 - 7:15 a few weeks ago.

The bike and swim on Saturday will be interesting. The weather is supposed to be about as nice as it can be in April in southeast Idaho....50 and sunny with calm wind growign to 4-7mph. That means at 0830 it's going to be about 40 degrees! At least the wind won't be blowing.

I want to bike the 12 miles in 30 minutes...going for half of the 60min 40k goal. Realistically, I hope to get 32 minutes. It's a mostly flat course but there is a stop sign that we have to turn left on, which might account for 30 seconds. Some traffic might get stopped, but I won't be blowing right through the intersection simply for safety's sake. I do the course alot, and have ridden it twice already this year, so I'm familiar with it.

The bike is truly the moment of truth for me. Did I make any gains this winter? I really worked hard this winter and put forth significant effort to improve my bike leg. I could have done better, but I did 90% of what I was capable of doing.  The TT race on Tuesday was windy and cold, and I came in at about 50% of everyone, but that "everyone" includes a couple of national champions (no kidding!), so that makes it feel not as bad. But I expected to do better. I don't know how much the start in the small ring cost me, but I figure it was about 15 seconds, which didn't reallly make a dent in the overall time.

The run should go well for me, as the (somewhat) consistent 10k's I've been doing have paid off in the past few timed events I've done.  I've only done one brick this year, so that is the question I'm facing for tomorrow...how will my legs run after a hard bike? We shall see.

Here are my goals and tactics for the race:

Goals
1. Have a good time during the first event of the year.
2. Perfect world times: swim=9:15, bike=30:00, run=20:00
3. Real world goal times: swim=10:00, bike=32:00, run= 21:30
4. Meet some more of the triathlon people around town.

Tactics:
1. Go hard on the bike, don't worry about the run while I bike.
    - stay down and just go hard on the bike.
    - avg cadence should be 88.
2. Dress warm for the bike but everything I wear has to come off quickly for the run.
3. For the run, stride out long and fast on the first half that is downhill/flat. Long and loose.
4. For the run on the second half roller/uphills, shorten and quicken the stride to approx 84.

There it is...my race goals out in public for everyone to see before the race. Maybe this will help me get them.

I just hope it's sunny with little wind..that will make everythign worth it!

And good luck to everyone else racing. Stay safe!