Race for the Border: Race Report

by | Jul 29, 2014 | Race Report, Triathlon, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Race for the Border was held on Belle Isle on July 27th.  Since this one was close to home and there was a Super Sprint, Melissa (my 12 year old daughter) decided to race, too.  She trained a little bit, but she is much more interested in race day than practicing 🙂

 I have done a few races at Belle Isle, so I knew there would be weeds in the water that could cause her to panic, so we went out on Saturday to swim in the Detroit River a bit to make sure she was ready.  She took this on our way home after the swim practice, she was fine.

I don’t normally have spectators, but with Melissa racing too, Mark and Tyler came.  It was nice to have them there to cheer me on and take pics 🙂  Before the race started, I looked over and saw one of my former students prepping for her first race.  She had been training and fundraising as a project for school.  I knew she was racing, but she was originally going to be at a different race.  It was so cool to run into her before the race started and even cooler to be there to see her take first place in her age group!  I think she may be hooked 😉

Swim – 750 m…  13:43 – 2/10 AG – This swim course had us start at the far end of the beach and swim with the current back to the south end of the beach.  Very fast!  This time includes a pretty long run back to transition.    

Bike 20 km – 36:41 – 20.5 mph 2/10 AG – I was looking forward to the flat and fast course that is typical of Belle Isle races.  It was flat, but lacked the typical speed because of the crazy turns they had us taking on the south end of the island.  I was still happy with my pace overall, but it could have been faster with less turns.  

Run – 3.1 miles – 25:42 – 8:15 min/mi – 3/10 AG – Run was good – a little hot and humid.  The course was set up nicely for the Super Sprint athletes.  There is plenty of room on Belle Isle to have a complete 3.1 loop, so it was a little disappointing to have to do this out and back (T-shaped) twice.

My transitions looked better  T1 = 1:54 and T2 = 1:19.

Results =1:19:18 – 2nd Age Group (35-39), 8/51 overall women, and 36/121 overall men and women. 
Melissa’s Results –

This race was effective in helping me determine what I need to tweak before Nationals in 2 weeks.  I mostly just loved sharing the experience with Melissa!!

Age Group Results: http://raceservices.com/14/border/sprint.html 

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *