Again, sorry for not posting recently and for not returning any e-mails. I guess I've just been letting the real world get in the way of my play. I'll try to stop that in the future. We'll see how that works for me. I will get a few e-mails out tomorrow, but some will have to wait until Thursday evening. Sorry again.
Anyhow, here comes my Tri-ing for Children race report:
First off, how did I wind up doing this race that I was not planning on doing? Well, my wife, Julie, had planned on doing this race since the beginning of the year. I was going to bring the kids and cheer her on. A couple of weeks ago, my cousin volunteered to watch the monsters, err kids, get up really stupidly early in the morning, and allow me to race with Julie. So, onto the race calendar it went.
The morning came around bright and clear. I walked into transition with no real expectations other than to push myself past my comfort zone. I left the heart rate monitor, bike computer, and spare tubes at home. I was just going to go all in and see what the cards had in store. I was going off in wave eight which is not where I usually would want to start, but I had no expectations.
Prerace I saw a bunch of the local fast guys and figured, because they are real athletes, that they would be doing the Olympic distance race. That might just leave us mere mortals to race the sprint distance. As a side note, I saw Scott Bowe's new Trek Speed Concept that he got from Emery's. And, I have some serious bike envy going on. They have one just like his in my size at the shop now. Maybe Santa will find me on his nice list this year. A guy can dream you know.
The swim started and, like I usually don't do, I went out hard. I made no attempt to find anyone's feet. I just swam hard for the first buoy. That actually seemed to work. At the first buoy someone passed me, but for the rest of the swim I was just weaving though the previous wave's members. Whilst I was a weaving one of my competitors shucked when I thought they were going to jive. The result was a right goggle without a rubber gasket. Rather than fight trying to fix it in the water, I just did the last bit of the swim like Popeye. Note to self: sighting with one eye is harder than Popeye makes it look. Sorry to the lifeguard who asked if I needed a floaty thing after getting knocked in the face. I think I just backstroked over her. I really should have said, "No thank you." I don't really know because she approached from my, then, blind side. And, as soon as I felt I was alone in the water, I went back to freestyle.
Sidebar (OJ trial flashback): The guy (Paul) at Sable Water Optics is setting me up with new gaskets for my goggles. If you have not tried these goggles, you are missing it. I have been using this particular pair of 101's for more than three years. They are just the clearest goggles out there. And, as I just learned, their customer service is more than excellent. You can get them right over at Emery's (surprise, surprise). If you don't like them, I'll buy them from you. Really, they are that good. I have two pairs and Julie has a pair too.
T1 was a little slow. My helmet just did not want to go on, but on it went and off I went for a bike ride.
On the bike I usually wait to get my breathing under control before hitting it. This time I just went right from the mount line. Other than the larger than usual volume of snot on my face (haven't seen the pics yet, but they will be good) from the summer cold I seem to have found, I would say it only took another minute to a minute-and-a-half to get my heart rate down to biking levels. I proceeded to pass a lot of people on the bike. I thought I could see the guy in a blue tri top that passed me in the water, but I could not catch him. Overall, the bike was pretty good. The course is not as flat as some would have you believe, and the wind was definitely more than I would have expected standing on the beach. Anyhow, no one passed me on the bike and I only wondered what way to go once while on the course. I only had cadence information while I was riding. No clock, no speed, no average speed. I have to say it is nice to not have a computer sometimes.
T2 went well. Nothing to report other than running is my favorite thing to do, but is not what I do the best. I had run two miles on Saturday morning at 6:36min/mile pace. So, I had an idea what I wanted to feel like while running. The question remained whether I could do it for three miles.
I got on the run course and promised myself to not look at the Garmin until it told me I was at mile number one. I did that and was happy to see it saying that I was going at about a 6:30 pace. By then I was out on the nice flat and fast road. Other than being a little on the warm side, I felt pretty good going the speed I was. One nineteen-year-old passed me on the run, other than that I was just out there on my own. There were a lot of others on the road, but either I was passing them easily or they were going in the other direction. Before I knew it, the finish line was there. Who would have thought that running faster got it over with sooner? That must be science or something.
Swim came in at 6:29, T1 1:04, Bike at 38:14, T2 1:01, and the run at 20:04. Not too bad for an old guy. 2nd overall and 2nd in my age group. Unfortunately, the other old guy that beat me, beat me by 4 minutes. Translation: I need to go a mile-per-hour faster on the bike and a whole minute per mile faster on the run. Not bad goals to set for one's self. Again, we'll see.
After the race I was able to go cheer Julie on as she got off the bike and through her run. I have to say, as much as I liked racing, seeing Julie do her thing was a lot of fun. Cheering on all the triathletes that I don't know was really fun. I hope all those (other than the one crabby guy with some fracture excuse) that I convinced to stop walking and resume running were able to set PR's.
After Julie finished we had a nice lunch with the guy who beat me (maybe crushed my dreams is a better phrase, but he may have set a few dreams too) and his friends and family. Heck, maybe he'll let me tag along on some of his training so I can grow up to be as fast as he is. It turns out we have some mutual friends and our wives actually know each other. We'll see (that seems to be a motif).
While hanging out waiting for the awards (which were so big they don't fit on the shelf dedicated for such things) many new friends were made.
Overall, Julie and I had a great time. If anyone accidentally took a pair of 11.5 neon yellow Nike Lunar Racers, drop me an e-mail. They are mine.
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