Hey, hey, it’s my birthday – let’s do a race! 

Those were my thoughts as I planned my summer race schedule. My birthday was a Sunday – August 7 – a prime day for triathlons with multiple options available to me. There was Iron Girl Columbia, which I fully intended on doing since I love that Race and do it every year as a celebration of my first ever triathlon (Iron Girl Rocky Gap in 2013). However, due to several factors, I ended up changing my plans at the last minute and driving north for the Fort Ritchie Triathlon.

The Fort Ritchie Triathlon is in Cascade, Maryland and is organized by Racine Multisports. It’s held on an old military base called Fort Ritchie, which was controlled by the Maryland National Guard for many years, and then the US Army as a military intelligence training ground. There’s a nice Lake called Lake Royer, and the run is in a totally enclosed environment around the base.

The race has something for everyone. There is a Sprint and Olympic Duathlon, a Sprint and Olympic Triathlon, and even Aqua Velo options. So many choices! I went with the Olympic Triathlon.

Because why not.

I did the Fort Ritchie Triathlon Olympic distance last year and it was my first ever stint on a podium (3rd place age group!). I never did a race recap of that race, but let’s just say it was… hot and hilly. But despite the heat and hills, as soon as I finished I said “I’d do that race again!”.

So I did.

But whoa…. I forgot how tough this course is! Here’s how it went down.

Before every race, Ken Racine gives a pre-race briefing that is always pretty helpful.

Then they started the Duathlons and the triathletes went down to the lake. I was able to watch the Sprint Triathlon take off before the Olympic started. That was pretty cool.

Then there was the opportunity to get in the lake for a warm up after the Sprint swimmers were off.

I decided to wear a wetsuit – it was wetsuit legal but pretty warm so I didn’t need to wear it, but I wanted to test out my new sleeveless XTerra Wetsuit and figured why not wear it if it’s legal. So I wiggled into that and then it was go time.

SWIM: 0.93 miles. Time = 31:43. Pace = 1:56/100 yards

The swim is in a pretty lake that I’ve swam in many times. For the Olympic Triathlon, you swim a loop of the lake, then get out of the water…

Run down a chute….

Head to the dock…

Jump back in the lake…

…and swim another loop.

I kind of like having the break in the middle to catch my breath before the second loop and start fresh.

I’m not a fast swimmer, but got into my groove as it went along. I hate having so many people passing me right in the first stretch of the swim – it makes stresses me out. So for this race, I tried to just do my best and focus on myself. Swim my own race.

The end of the swim is a little blinding – the sun was right in my eyes – but otherwise it’s a nice lake swim.

T1 = 2:32

It had been a while since I had stripped a wetsuit off. It took me too long.

BIKE: 23.5 miles. Time = 1:29:40. Pace = 15.4 mph

I saw my dad right when I left the bike – I was so happy to have him there taking pics and cheering me on during my birthday race! No smiles in this pic since I knew what was coming and was a little worried about it!

The bike course is a toughie but really pretty and very enjoyable once you get out into the country. The tough parts are:

1. Immediately coming out of transition there is a monster hill. It is a real doozie – very steep and lasts a long time. There were people cheering on the sides, which helped immensely.
2. The end of the bike course is a slow and steady uphill for about 4 miles. I don’t mind long steady climbs so this was fine with me, but it does bring down the average pace and is hard work right before a run.

My dad can always see me coming with my pink helmet – but these are the official bike photos from the race photographer!

You finish back in Fort Ritchie so they have pretty cool photo opps.

This is the way to spend your birthday!

Did I mention free photos for this race?

My Garmin says my splits were:

• Miles 0-5 = 16.3 mph
• Miles 6-10 = 21.0 mph (oh yeah!)
• Miles 11-15 = 15.6 mph
• Miles 16-20 = 12.0 mph (hello, uphills!)
• Miles 20-23 = 14.2 mph

T2 = 2:09

This was not my best T2 time. I’ve been biking sockless and then putting them on in T2, so I probably need to practice that bike shoes-socks-run shoes transition more.

RUN: 10K/6.1 miles. Time = 54:45. Pace = 8:50/mile

The run is within the “Fort” area of Fort Ritchie. It’s not my favorite run, honestly. It has some hills, including one big uphill (but there were volunteers lining the hill cheering you up that motivated me!). You do the loop twice so you get that uphill twice. And there’s also a gravel section and a grassy section, which I don’t love.

But it’s fine overall and there are ample opportunities for my cheering dad to watch me and then cheer me into the finish! And of course he made a big deal that it was my birthday, which made me smile while running.

I was running hard in the last mile – sub-8 minute/mile pace. I was determined to finish strong.

Another woman and I had a little race to the finish and we both kicked it into high gear in that last quarter mile!

OVERALL: 3:00:48. Rank = 2nd in age group.

Birthday podium time, baby!

When registering, I had debated between the Sprint and the Olympic distance, but remembered from last year that the Oly had the really nice rolling hills through the country that I would have missed if I had done the Sprint. There were a few times during the race where I wished I had chosen the Sprint, but in the end I was glad to compare my progress from last year.

My finish time last year was 3:13:22, and this year was 3:00:48, so I took 13 minutes off my time from last year!

To compare, here are the splits:

• Swim 2016: 31:43 / Swim 2015: 33:24
• Bike 2016: 1:29:40 / Bike 2015: 1:35:32
• Run 2016: 54:45 / Run 2015: 1:00:15

So there was improvement in all three sports. Happy birthday to me!

A few great things about the Fort Ritchie Triathlon and Racine races in general –

• Live timing results on the website and a mobile version make it easy to track people and find out your results right away. They have a tent with computers by the finish and results are immediately searchable.
• Free race photos! They don’t organize them by bib number so you have to hunt through all the pics in each section, but it’s worth it for free pics.
• Great race organization – everything is always very smooth! I’ve done many races organized by this race director, as well as practice swims and a Swim Fest in June, and it’s always totally smooth.
• It’s a great low-key atmosphere and really awesome volunteers.

Have you done the same race two years in a row to compare your progress?

The post Fort Ritchie Triathlon Race Recap 2016 appeared first on You Signed Up For WHAT?!.