So we arrived in Iowa early it was a little humid out, did the course talk, check in, expo, a little bike ride, and a swim. The lake was nice and cool so we knew it was going to be an wetsuit race. My sister was again at this race, Mark from the Timex team, and whole crew from Well-Fit Elite team in Chicago. Christine had the Timex Ford Flex for the race so that was pretty cool. We had a nice dinner with everyone that night. I booked a dive hotel by the airport to impress my wife with how cheap I can be. We had to get to bed early as my wave was first at 6:00 AM.
Race morning I was out the door to the race at 4:00 AM, got all my gear ready. With the last name Anderson and the Elite wave I had the best rack spot in the race. The course was setup really nice for spectators thanks to the huge pro race for $200k each in the afternoon. While walking the transition, the announcement was made that the race was going to be a sprint triathlon due to a huge impending storm. I was quite disappointed since the bike and run get cut in half but the swim was down to 400m. Plus it was a time trial start now too, I was really looking forward to a head to head race.
We still went off at 6AM and I started first for the time trial 400M swim. The swim was uneventful, I was a head by a little bit upon exiting the water. T1 went well though it was muddy. I got on the bike and tried to hold 320 watts for the 12 miles. It was a simple out and back, I think I pushed it pretty well holding an average of 334 watts, 26mph, coming in at just over 13 miles on my computer. I got to follow the lead car and motorcycle the whole bike which is always cool. I was still in the lead coming into T2, one of the race directors ran in front of me through transition clearing my way since other age groupers were still starting/exiting the water and we had the same run out swim out exit. Very nice of him to do for me thanks. I ran through the grandstands and tons of people cheering me on. I had a lead mt biker to follow on the 5k run. I tried to keep the run fast but really did not get into any type of pace since it was so short. I saw the 2nd place guy a few times on the course so I kept pace. I
tried to run the last mile a little faster as I was not too tired at all, but the finish line was coming right up.
It was really cool to run into the carpet finish area with grandstands and to grab the finishing banner at a big race like Hy-Vee. The best part was a few minutes later my sister go to do the same thing. She took the womens race by 8 seconds. Though some jerk came through as she finished and grabbed her banner, she got to do it again for pictures.
About 45 minutes after I finished it started to rain and rain hard, we had our bikes and gear but were stuck under a tent. It was not letting up so we just packed up got to the car and left the race site. The awards got canceled and I was really wanting to watch the pros race, but it was not worth waiting around till 3:30 in the rain. So back home we headed, I got home early to see my girls so that was nice considering I was not planing on coming home until late that night.
Overall considering the weather and the change to a sprint race, Hy-Vee was a great race. I kind of felt bad for the whole race staff as so much money and time is put into this race and the weather does not corporate. The pros got a break in the weather Sunday afternoon and put on a great show. What a great setup for a race, and winning for my sister and I was cool too. And a special thanks to my wife for the support at a rainy race, though I think I need to get her trained on camera use.
swim: 6:13
t1: 1:05
bike: 29:57 24.8
t2: 0:43
run: 17:30 5:39
Total: 55:27
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