7/17 Evergreen Lake Triathlon

The Evergreen Lake Triathlon in Bloomington IL I have participated in for the last 3 years, it is a well run race that attracts the best midwest talent.  Plus is sponsored by Erin Baker so I needed to represent our team.  This year my sister came down from Chicago and my friend Joel came to race as well.  We all arrived after work Friday evening checked into the race and found our campsites.  We decided to camp at this race since the race site is a nice park with camping anyway.  It turned out to be a good decision since we got to wake up a little later and take our time race morning.  My dad was bringing my girls back to us after watching them all week so I was excited to see him and the kids.  It was a little hot out and I did not sleep very well, but got what I needed.  Race morning we all got gear set up in transition and readied at the starting line.
The elite wave was combined again this weekend with men and women, so my sister and I started together.  The wave was quite large though as the collegiate age group was in there as well.  After the start I found myself in front with Bryan Rhodes, Andy Starykowicz, and one other.  The entire swim we swam together, I came out of the water right behind Bryan in 2nd place.  I was out of T1 in first place but not for long.  Bryan passed me again while I was putting on my shoes not 1/2 mile from T1, followed by Andy a mile or so later.  I could not match pace with those two on the bike, but I kept them within sight the whole bike.  It proved to be pretty good for me as I was at 317 normalized watts and 25.6 avg mph throughout the 42 k bike, it is a little long due to some road construction I think.  The end of the bike it was starting to heat up pretty good, the run was going to be brutal I thought.

I entered the run in 3rd place still and since the run course started out opposite the bike I could gauge where I was at in the race.  1st and 2nd were a few minutes ahead, Bryan by not too much and 4th place was a few minutes behind I found out at the first turn around of the run.  Heading out I saw my Dad, Betsy, and my girls cheering me on, this was great to have them all there to watch. 

The run was very hot and humid but nothing major.  I ran at a nice pace, not really pushing myself very hard since I thought 3rd place was in the bag.  Plus I was trying to heal these shin splits that have been plaguing my for a few weeks.  At about mile 5.5 I heard footsteps behind me, no way could this guy of caught me.  Before I could even look back came the pass, crap, I had to stick with him and pass at the end now.  I kept pace for about 500 meters, then I knew I was beat for sure.  I ran hard all the way to the line as you can see in the picture below but he was a far faster runner, turns out 33 low 10k in the heat, whoa!

Anyway this took me out of the prize money and into 4th place.  I found my girls, Dad, and Betsy as we all waited at the finish line hoping my sister Christine had better results, she did not disappoint. She came in to the finish in no less than 1st place female overall.  All was not lost after all she had a great race and took home $1k too.  My friend Joel did the sprint race as well which started 1/2 hour after us, so I did not see him on course.  He came in a little while later, in his first sprint race that had a longer 42k bike.  He had a great race as well finishing in 5th place in his age group.
I can't really be too disappointed with my race I had good splits, and was just ran down in the last mile, it will teach me to not get too complacent and think you wont be caught.  They are always chasing.  Christine had a great race and it was good to race with Joel and my family watching as well.

Swim 19:54.9    1:13   
T1 00:36.6   
Bike 01:01:04.5    25.5   
T2 00:41.0   
Run 38:39.5    6:13