down in smithville

Long way to go for a sprint thats for sure! I left about 11am and drove to downtown DC to pick-up my race packet for Cherry Blossom. Then on to smithfield where I arrived around 6pm. Really missed having sparty along as wingman and fellow triathlete--he is recuperating nicely from wing surgery and should be all set to go come Kona.

I checked into the hotel and went over and picked up my race packet and checked out the scene. One change from 2009 is the location of the transition area--they moved it to immediately outside the ppol exit as oppossed to around the building by the road. This will translate into an extra bit of runn ing as we'll have to run all the way around the T1 area to enter from the farside and head back towards the pool (it's a flow-through or neutral transition). My guess is that this will add 15-20 seconds to T1 and maybe 5-10 to T2. it might make the run 5-10 seconds faster as the exit of T2 is now closer to the road where we start the run.

I'm seeded 117 out of 500 swimmers (or 77 %-tile) vs. 57th out of 434 in 2009 (87 %-tile). I wouldn't read anuything into this as this is self seeding. In 2009 I had the 125th best swim (71.4 %-tile) so i suspect I'm seeded a little better this year. In any event, I start about 9 minutes later than year. Interestingly, one of my 15 AG competitors is seeded 101, so he'll start 4 minutes before me. I like this as i hope to be able to catch him on the ride....good incentive....

Speaking of the ride, it's a lot harier than I remember it. The first 4 miles are quite slow with a lot of nasty little drops into narrow, twisty off-camber stuff. I don't want to overplay this--its not that technical, but you definitely have to back-off and pay attention to driving your bike. Miles 4-6 are less narly but very twisty. the last 4, if the wind is right will be pretty fast.

In any event, I'm good to go. I'm interested to see how my knee and right hamstring hold up to race intensity. I start my knee injections on Monday so help is on the way on the knee front but I'm a little concerned about the nagging tightness I've had in my upper hamstring.....

Time to get some answers....