Greeley Triathlon

I chose the Greeley Triathlon for my second race of the year, just like last year. Greeley is a great sprint with a time trial type start and the regional championship for the juniors. It's a great chance to watch the potential of the young triathletes and always motivating.

Due to high winds the previous night and during the early morning hours, the race was on hold while a decision was made. After forty-five minutes, a decision was made and the race was on. The race director made the swim optional for anyone concerned but since the wind had died down, I thought the conditions were safe. I was concerned about the smoke from the forest fires but since they were far enough west and north, Greeley wasn't too impacted.

The swim is a time trial start in reverse age order with men and women starting together. I think mixing the men and women was a good improvement from last year when the women's field had to wait for all the men. I like the time trial start and had a good swim. At only 500 meters with two ninety degree turns, the swim is quick. I swam pretty straight and only had trouble sighting the exit. The rubber duckies were quite big enough for me to see. I remembered the exit from last year and knew to swim up the exit ramp as far as possible.

Coming out of the swim and into transition, I noticed a racer in my age group had caught me. From his number I knew I started before him so I lost fifteen to twenty seconds to him. I would have to close the gap on the bike. He had a faster transition since he didn't wear a wetsuit and that meant I had to get back even more seconds.

The bike course is similar to last year's course but the start had a new out and back with a round about. I thought we went to the second round about but we were supposed to u-turn at the first round about. Since I wasn't quite ready, I overcooked the turn, almost came to a complete stop and had to accelerate hard.

The major out and back was also moved to the front half which enabled me to get a good feel for how far back I was. At only ten miles, I would have to work hard to close the lead down. On the back half I finally caught my competition and made a hard pass. I didn't want him to think  he could pull me back so I jumped around and went hard. I was lucky because after my pass, there were a couple turns and then a climb. I pushed it and used the corners to hide. It worked out well because when I made it back to transition, my chaser was gone.

With two climbs and two u-turns, the run is tougher than Pelican but it's still only a 5-k.The run starts with a downhill so I let it fly. After the first climb and u-turn, I could see my competition and I knew I had a good gap. I kept the pace up knowing that based upon my Pelican performance I would have a good run.

Overall, the race went really well. I had good splits in all disciplines and held a good solid pace the whole way. Of the age groupers, I finished fifth and won the age group. My strategy for nutrition and pacing were both good and I think that Loveland will be a good test in a couple weeks.