Race Report- 2015 Escape from Ft. DeSoto Triathlon

Race local people!  I love being able to participate in local races that are of top quality.  Escape from Fort DeSoto fits this category and is a special triathlon for me.  This is pretty much where my multisport life began back in 2008 or so.  But, oddly enough not from a participant perspective, but rather as a photographer.  I was already running around this time; not a very serious runner at all- as in a 35 mins 5K type of runner- with zero training of course.  This race was one of the first races I shot as a photographer and it was extremely motivating to watch people accomplish such feats of endurance, or at least that was my mindset at the time.  Even back then I hated the idea of the swim, so I quickly found that I could get into duathlons.  And this is how it all started.  Either way, the rest is history…

On to the race!  This race was exactly 13 days after the HITS race, so not too much time to really make a big difference in terms of training, but I would beg to differ- mainly based on my swim time.  Even though this wasn’t my season opener it certainly felt like it.  Since this was a home town race it was the first of the season that my team (OutSpokin Multisport Team) was out in full force!  OutSpokin is also a huge sponsor for the race, so it was good to represent.

This race was the typical sprint distance of 1/4 mile swim, 10 mile bike, & 5K run.  I had a finish time of 1:26:01.

The Swim – 0.25 mile: 19:00.  The water temp was just cold enough to be wetsuit legal and of course I took advantage of that.  Not only to help me out with the swim, but this is valuable training for the upcoming IM 70.3 that will definitely be colder.  Living in Florida there aren’t very many opportunities to train in a wetsuit. Of course I let nearly the entire swim wave go ahead of me as I very calmly started the swim.  There really were no struggles, just nice and slow!  I finished the swim in 19 mins flat and was 23/29 out of the water in my age group.

The Bike – 10 miles: 26:57.  I had a great bike split and stuck to my plan.  I wanted to average out 22mph to conserve some energy for the run- I ended up averaging 22.3mph.  Racing in Ft. Desoto pretty much guarantees you will face head wind.  The perfectly measured 10 mile road within the park is “L” shaped; so you eventually head all directions and wherever the wind is coming from you’ll get at some point.  Today’s race wasn’t that bad.  I finished the bike split in 11th place out of the 29 in the Men 30-34 age group.

The Run – 5K: 29:55.  I have a love/hate relationship with the typical 5K route that generally takes place at Ft. Desoto.  A good portion of it will always be on the beach and a lot of the trail is sand.  So, depending on how much rain and other factors will determine how soft the sand and beach sections are.  I hate running on the beach, especially for a race!  Oddly enough, I have never ran this race- I’ve photographed it many times and spectated it, but never raced it!  The most unique thing about this race is the fact you have to run up and over the fort in the park.  Which is cool, but not very fun!  Either way, I had a decent run.  My Garmin at the end of the race came out to 3.6 miles, which is crazy!  The race route was definitely not measured correctly.  The 920xt will always have a margin of error, but never a 1/2 mile margin.  I talked to about 5 other people and they also had a similar experience.  I finished the run split in 29:55, which was 12th place out of the 29 in my age group.

Overall this race was a good experience!  It was the first race where OMT had a great turnout!  I look forward to racing this again next year!

Escape

 

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