Griskus Sprint: The Need for Speed!

This was my lucky 13th time racing the Wednesday night Sprint distance World Championships. My fitness was still below my normal July numbers. However, I knew I would give everything I had. I always look at sprint distance triathlons as an all out (well almost) effort from start to finish. My game plan was to take the swim out as fast as I could without redlining then really hit the bike hard and try to hold on to some speed on the run. Swim: 11:27 13th Swim times can vary from year to year at any venue so I always just try to see how I stack up against the competition. I was fairly happy with my swim. I was able to come out of the water with a small group of athletes that had bunched up following a few faster swimmers. This was the best I could hope for, realistically. Bike: 27:45 1st I was able to move through T1 relatively quickly and jumped out onto the bike course in 5th place. I managed to move up enough to catch sight of Dom G. (1st OA) by the half way point. However, my forward race progress ended there. When I looked at my numbers after the race, I realized that I had really pushed the first 5 miles in some hot temps and I must have just hit my limit. I continued to go as hard as I could, but ended up only getting 11 seconds back from Dom for the entire bike segment. This put me 30 seconds down heading into T2. I lost another 9 seconds in T2, which pretty much solidified the day as Dom. is a consistently faster runner. Run: 17:53 3rd I really tried to run fast off of the bike, but the legs did not want to comply. The heat, humidity, and bike effort had taken a toll. I focused on running to a decent rhythm and tried to keep some form. My combined bike/run time (45:38) was my slowest since my first time racing the sprint in 2001. While that was frustrating, I believe it was due mostly to the high heat/humidity. I crossed the line pretty flogged and happy to have finished another Wednesday night sprint World Championship! Finish: 58:58 2nd Overall