July 20, 2013

 

My first triathlon in 6 years. 2nd place in Masters Clydesdale (old and fat guys)

Long Story: On July 22, 2007, I started Ironman USA in Lake Placid despite knowing my knee would not allow me to run, I had a good swim (just under 1:14 for the 2.4 miles) and a good bike (6:30 for the 112 miles), putting me near my PR pace, but then proceeded to walk at least 20 of the 26 miles of the marathon (a 7 hour marathon) - Needless to say not a great ending to my triathlon career, but my knee only hurt when running and none of my training partners in NY were doing multisport so it was easy to stop. A couple of years go by, I move back to NC, gain a ton of weight, start riding with Clay and Kay and the desire to get back into triathlon on a very limited basis creeps back into my mind. 

Race Day: (6 years minus 2 days later) I will admit, it is fun, I still hate 4:30am wake ups and the pre-race running around, but I even had time to go for good karma points and at the last minute take a guy back to my truck to change his rear tube (saving his race day)

Swim - I have only been swimming again for about a month, but I felt good, I had forgotten the feeling of swimmers pulling my legs, or hitting me with wide arm recovery, but the swim went fine, 15:30 for the 750 yards  and out of a beautiful rolling bike course. I averaged 20.1 on the bike and was only passed by two people while riding down a bunch from earlier waves. The run. I have to admit, I still hate running and this 5k was my longest run in 6 years, I have been running for a little over a month, but had not gotten up to 3 miles yet in training. (It's OK, right? I mean I never ran 26 miles when marathon training) so who knows what will happen. I ran my goal pace of 10 min miles and was passed by what seemed like hundreds of runners (2 lap course) to finish in 1:30:57.

I missed first in the Master Clydesdale by less than 2 mins (all lost on the run) and finished 86th of the 140 males overall. I am happy with my first triathlon in a long time and glad Deb and Sam came to cheer me on (Sam took all the action pictures) and congrats to Clay and Kay for their age group awards!