Rev3 Knoxville Olympic Pre-Race Report

Hard to believe it, my first "A" Race of the season is here.  Revolution 3 Knoxville Olympic! I am excited, anxious, and slightly nervous for this race.  A great mix of emotions is in the air.  This will be my first Olympic distance race.  The distances do not scare me, I know I am more than capable of doing the distances, the big question becomes, how will I do at pacing the race since I have not done this distance before. 

Swim:
1.5k - Starting upstream and then heading back downstream makes this course fairly easy to navigate and sight.  Hopefully this means I will not swim out of line too much.  This will be my first open water swim of the year.  Thankfully I will have my TYR Cat 5 Wetsuit all ready to go.  I am aiming to do the swim in 25 minutes.  This is about a 1:30/100 yd pace.  I can typically hold that in the pool, so hopefully adding a wetsuit and not too much swimming in the wrong directions will get me right at this goal. 

Transitions:
Last weekends transitions went very well, so I hope to bring that forward, add in some complexity of getting the wetsuit off for the first time in a race this year.  Since I do not know how the whole transition area is laid out I am giving myself 5 minutes total for transitions, this should be high, but I want to make sure I give myself sufficient time since I do not know the layout. 

Bike:
I will be riding my Kestrel Airfoil Pro SL again this week.  I like the aggressive position and comfort it provides me.  I have put all my miles on this bike so far, so I am naturally most comfortable on this.  I presume later in the year I will be riding my 4000, that is going to be the long course bike for the time being since I can get so low with the Airfoil!  From what I have seen, this course is pretty low winds, so I will be rolling on the HED Stinger 9s and wheel cover again.  Outside of a few climbs, they should get me some good aero benefit when I can push the pedals on some flats.   I have had some good training rides of 1:30 and pushing 240 watts or so as well as running well off those rides.  I am going to aim for around 245 watts again as I am pretty sure my legs will hold up.  The biggest question for me is how the heat will affect me either on the bike or the run after this effort. 

I want to get the most from my bike split as possible without killing my run, and since this distance is new, I am not sure where my breaking point is going to be located, so why not push the upper end of it for this race and find out!  I hope to bike the course in around 1:10

Run:
After last weekends performance at the Siouxperman Triathlon and my first sub 20-minute 5k, I am finally feeling confident about my run.  I know a 10k is twice as long, but I hope to hold a pretty similar pace.  I have done 6:45 pace following one of the 1:30 rides at 240, so I think that is a realistic goal. I am aiming to hit 42 minutes on the run.  Do not go out too fast, make sure to spray down the Avia Bolt IIs with some Tri-Slide, and then at some point hold on for dear life on the run! 

Overall: 
I am shooting to go 2:20 for this race.  I think it is an aggressive goal seeing as my times above add up to 2:22, but I know I am capable of doing this time.  This is another race where seconds are going to add up over the event.  I am now finding as I set goals that I am getting more and more conscious of the little things that eat up a couple of seconds here or there.  Those could make or break the goal!  I am really looking forward to hanging out with Team Trakkers at the race and cheering others on!  Weather is looking 50/50 right now, hopefully it holds off on Sunday and makes for a great race.

Since this is my first race at the Olympic distance, I am looking to test my body and see what to expect down the road.  I am out to have some fun, and enjoy a long weekend in the company of some pretty cool people!