Old post/ never posted. This is from Eastman triathlon, June 19th, 2010. So long ago!
Been a while, so I need to keep up. Had my first race of the year last Saturday. It was most interesting, it's always fun to race. Probably the best part of the day was that my oldest son did the kids version of the tri! It was awesome to see him get ready, prepare transition, and then go through the race. He finished holding his running shoes and flying barefoot through the finish gate. Awesome experience for dad!
I had a most interesting race. 59/181 total, 11/18 AG. The swim was brutal but not for the reason I thought it would be. My time was actually about goal time, so I can't complain much about the swim. There was pretty good pile up at 200 yards, and about 5 of us spent about 50 yards hammering each other quite a bit, not on purpose but it just worked out that way. That went fine, it was actually fun in a way. But then about 50 yards after it broke up, I just lost it. It was like I'd never swam in my life. Couldn't breath, couldn't stroke, total brain cramp. I struggled in and don't really know what happened or why. Oh well, I guess I'll do more long uninterrupted swims and see how that goes.
The bike was very hard but also very fun, pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. The roads were perfect since they were newly paved. It was essentially an out and back, uphill most of the way out and downhill back, with some very steep inclines. I love that kind of ride and did pretty well I thought.
The run was weird. It was a trail run with some parts on the beach. The trail was very rocky and rooty and lots of holes and such. Maybe all trails are like that - I've done no trail running. Due to a previous history of ankle issues and this not being a big race for me and not wanting to cause a problem which would keep me off my feet for a while, I was very cautious, to the point of walking at times especially down some pretty steep inclines. As a result, I wasn't really gassed at the end of the run which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, I finished the run in 28:10, my slowest 5k since I started running and measuring 5k times. There must be a secret to this trail running as some others were cruising fairly quickly running the whole thing. No one went too fast though - I think the top 5k time was 21:04.
All in all, we had a great race and I'm happy to have done it. It was a beautiful location and a well run event.
