Race Recap: Graniteman Triathlon.

 First off, I really liked this race a lot!

I originally signed up for Graniteman because I was looking for a race that I could do by myself, Kris does Minneman every year and that is sort of her race so I wanted to find a race for me. Last year I did Lifetime Triathlon one week after Minneman and that was OK, but honestly Lifetime is a lot of hype and the emphasis is on the Elites and the average age groupers don't get much especially considering it is one of the most expensive Tri's I have ever signed up for.

Graniteman had a number of things that attracted me to the race. First and foremost was the swim course, Graniteman has been around for 7 years but this year they moved to an entirely new location in Warner Lake Park and the swim is a straight point to point .46 mile swim, no turns to fight around and as it turned out a nice lake, a little murky with no weeds to speak of.

Heading into this weekend we have not gotten much training in at all due to the new priority of getting Kris moved into my house. Take a moment to read our combined blog A Life More Complete for more details. With our focus on the move and lack of training this past week, skipped Core, no swims at all but we did have a very hard weights on Wednesday night which left us sore for most of the week. So with all of that I was not in the best place for this race and to top it off I we did not get in our pre-race soak.

The race is in Lake Warner Park and it has a bit of an unusual start, there is only transition but it is at the north end of the lake and you have to walk to the swim start at the south end of the lake. I was in wave 8 out of 9, another plus if you ask me, less chance to get run over during the swim. I started the swim and felt pretty good, but my lack of swimming this season came back to bite me again, about a 1/3 of the way across the lake my anxiety got the best of me, call it a combination of dark water, lack of training and the curse of starting off too fast during a race. Whatever it is I had to flip over onto my back and regroup, I keep swimming but with my own personal swim stroke, don't even know what it is called but it keeps me moving forward. Not sure how far I swam that way, maybe another 1/3 but after gathering myself I flipped back over and finished the swim fairly strongly.

Out of the water and into transition, I was trying a new tactic to wash my feet and speed up my T1 time, which I have been historically very slow at. I brought an additional towel and after rinsing my feet from my water bottle I stepped onto that towel to dry and keep dirt out of my bike shoes. It seamed to work since I got out of transition in 1:44 which might just be my fastest T1 time ever.

Out on the bike and this is the area I am hoping to be able to improve the most so I planned to put most of my energy on my bike today. The bike course was 15 miles and it was mostly gentle rollers, not two hard but I was at a slight disadvantage; I did not know then course and somehow I had it in my head that the course was 13 miles. My cycle computer had a dead battery so I honestly did not have any idea of how I was doing during the ride. And I am still having problems with my front derailer, I dropped my chain again that makes  two races in a row. Sigh.....

OK back to transition for T2, which is always pretty fast for me, I don't wear socks during the bike and then can just slip into my running shoes grab my visor and go. Back out on the course. The last mile of the bike you ride on the other side of the road from the runners and you sort of get an feel for what to expect on the run. It is a straight out and back with just one turn before the turn around. Unfortunately, the run course also has several rolling hills, not as bad as Waconia was but enough to make the run that much harder.

Having pushed pretty hard on the bike, I was shooting for a 20mph average or better, I used up a lot of my energy, and strting the run was harder then I was expecting, the weather was not helping , sunny and warm which is always one of my downfalls during a run. But I pushed on and after the first mile or so I was feeling a little better, I think my last gel might have been kicking in so i was able to add a little bit more speed and was able to finish strong. One critique would be that they needed two water stops, not just the one right at the turn around, or put the water spot farther away from the turn around and it can act as two water stops on the course.

I finished with a time of 1:29:18 and with the exception of the swim, I will count this as one of my most successful triathlons. Better then 50% in all categories, overall, division and gender. And one of the best part of the day was having my own personal cheerleader and photographer. Kris did a great job cheering me on during the race.

Mark Kuhn
bib number:	206
age:	40
gender:	M
location:	Robbinsdale, MN
overall place:	114 out of 367
division place:	20 out of 42
gender place:	89 out of 208
time:	1:29:18
swim:	16:40 (2:15/100y)
trn1:	1:44
bike:	45:15 (19.9 mph)
trn2:	0:56
run:	24:45 (7:57 pace)

Next up: Ragnar Relay (unfortunately more then a month away)