Team Member  Sam Morgan

Race Name  Age Group Nationals

Race Date  8/22/09

Race Placement  4th AG / 7th OA 1:59:39

Earlier this year I got “screwed” by having the swim canceled at St. Anthony’s. . . Yesterday I was rewarded by a strong current in the Black Warrior River. . . I guess it all evens out in the long run.  I had a smart swim knowing to go out easy with the current, swim 15 degrees upstream of the buoys when swimming cross-current, and then book it when swimming upstream.  I hopped out of the water with the fastest swim of the day on got on my bike.  To be honest, my bike was a little uneventful.  My Garmin says 24.5 MPH, race results say 25.5, but the course was a little short.  I think two guys passed me.

The run was an interesting one.  I left transition feeling great, running about 5:40 miles and if the course had stayed flat, I feel like I could have continued that pace had it not been for that brutal first hill.  After that I think I was between 5:55 and 6:05 pace on the flats the rest of the race.

Near the surprisingly early end a guy in my AG passed me… had I known the course was going to be .4 miles short I would have kicked it earlier and most likely beat him to the finish (had the course been 6.2 miles he would have beat me anyway as he was a stronger runner).  I did everything I could to get my legs to turn over to catch up (as well as turning off my metronome and taking “silent steps” to try to be sneaky), but it wasn’t enough… he beat me over the line by a little less than a second.

Regardless, that’s just a little blip on an otherwise great day, and a great AGN for me.  I’ll go back next year knowing the course, and with a better power to weight ratio (and hopefully anaerobic capacity) to tackle those hills.  I don’t want to pigeon hole myself into being a “flatlander only”.  I may not get a strong current next year.

Ohhh yeah, and faster transitions.  It appears that I must have stopped to write a collection of short stories in T1 when you compare my time to the rest of the field.