Well gang, I had my first tri this season, a sprint, and it did not go quite as well as I'd hoped. In my defense, my training has been way off this season so I have no one to blame but myself. I went into this thinking my bike time would not be great as I've not had the time in the saddle this year, and my run would be iffy as I hadn't really bricked yet. But my swim, well I thought I had that licked. I've been open water swimming since May 2nd (44f) and just really felt comfortable with it, and had already swam the course once this year. So.. race day May 31st, temps in the mid 60s, water temps supposedly the same. We headed down to the swim start for the 1/3 mile swim at 7:45am where I had a little time to get a short swim in pre-race. My wave started at 8:12am. Mistake number 1. Calling out my projected swim time of 8 minutes. I positioned myself right out at the front of the pack, next to a buddy of mine ( 3 time ironman finisher ). When the gun went off....Mistake number 2...I took off like a bat out of hell. Result? Totally gassed before the first buoy! I could not get my stroke back to save my life. So I breast stroked, and side stroked, and treaded water alll the while cursing myself for doing this to myself. I looked over and saw my buddy next to me swimming perfectly. I tried keeping up with him but just floundered. My only saving grace here was that my buddy took the time in the water to get out of his wetsuit while I kept mine on til T1, so we both kind of left the water about the same time. Finished with a 11:16

T1- Took a little longer than I hoped ( 2:46  ) but like I said, totally gassed from swim. Jumped on the bike for the 12.5 mile course and went right into the first big hill. There were a few walkers already but I HTFU'd and got up and over. By mile 3 I was starting to get my wind back and started reeling bikes in. I did let a couple bikes by me me but felt pretty good with my ride. Got into T2 and when I set my bike on the rack ...it dominoed! the whole rack fell over to the right laying everything over on it's side! No time to deal with it gotta keep moving! Left T2 in 1:25 and headed out for the 3.8 mile mixed asphalt/ trail run. First mile was all pavement and felt pretty good and relatively fast for me. Then we banged a right and headed in to gravel roads then it turned over to actual in the woods trails fo a bit before it dumped into a field and turned back to gravel. All in all, not too bad, some hills but nothing major, and by mile 3 we were back on paved roads for the push to the finish. 35:07 here for me, fairly satisfied with that for a total finish time of 1:30:45. I don't care what anybody says.....Sprints are tough. There's no time to really settle into a groove. Anyways, next race is this Saturday, international distance Tri, .9mile swim, 27 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run. We'll see how this one goes.

Yesterday, a group of us were going to hook up and ride the bike course, ( known for it's hills ). Two of us were going to ride from our town to the bike start to add 30 miles to our training. The other one got tied up at  work so I went solo. Not racing or pushing too hard I covered the 30 miles in 2 hours and the others met me there. 4of us headed off for the 27 miler and after the first big hill I was starting to feel my legs. I fell back to kind of take it easy and to be there should anyone have trouble. At mile 12 we picked up a late arrival and continued on. At mile 16 I came across one of our troupe down on the side of the road. She was trying to steer clear of traffic when her pedal hit the curb and she went down...Breaking her collar bone in the process! I stayed with her until another from our group came back and we decided that he'd go back for the truck. The last two ended up completing the course and we got her back and to the hospital. This may be it for her season.

I'll post again after Saturday's race, take care!