Race Report

Got to bed around 11:00 on Saturday night. Slept pretty good until around 4:15 am. Woke up to go to the bathroom and could not go to sleep after that. Tossed and turned until my alarm went off at 5:30. Got up and got dressed. Sneaked out the back door since my son was sleeping in the room with us. The wife would have been super ticked if I would have woken him up at 5:40 in the morning. Jammed on the way to the race. Even caught some "Crank Dat"(Soulja Boy) in honor of my boy Kevin. Of course, I didn't get to rock it in the parking lot of the race like him and his sister...

Got to the race around 6:15 and unloaded my stuff. Got the tires pumped up and headed over to transition. On the way, I spot Kevin at the Mavic bike trailer. He had a flat rear tire, luckily before the race. He ended up having another flat during the race also. That sucked. Found my spot in transition and set up my gear. Talked to a couple guys around me. The guy directly next to me was doing his first race. Three other buddies of his were supposed to be doing it, but they bailed. He was the only one to stick it out. He asked for a few pointers. I told him all I knew and not to put too much faith in any of it since this was only my 4th race and my longest one so far. Was one row over from Chris Boggs (Slim 210), who is a member of BRTri. We had never formally met since I am not actually a member of BRTri, just hang out on the forum. Chris is a super nice guy and is making great strides in his weight loss goals. He is doing an awesome job and has an awesome attitude. One of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. Dude rode a 21.5 mph average in the Quarter, that kicks butt! Talked with Chris for a minute or two and then put my stuff away in my truck. Made my way down to the half IM start to catch some BRTri peeps before they hit the water. Wished Sean, Luke and Cullen good luck before it was time for them to get ready. Stood around an watched the half starts with Kevin and family. Realized I was only one of a handful of people without a wetsuit.

The Quarter start was around 8:30 and since I was in the first wave, I made my way down to the water to get a little practice swim in and get over the shock of the 70 degree water. Wasn't really that bad. I also had to try out some new goggles since my goggles did some serious fogging during the practice swim on Friday. The goggles worked out perfectly, so all was well. Coming out of the water from the practice swim, I spotted my Dad. They had made it in time, but ended up it was just him. My wife, kids and mom were at the swim finish and couldn't make it over in time before I had to head to the dock for the start. They sang the national anthem and it was time to go.

Got in the water and floated out to the start line. Treaded water for about a minute, not too bad, and they counted us down. The swim was pretty uneventful. Didn't get kicked, swam over, punched or swam under and I stayed pretty much on course. Ended up swimming the 1000 meters in 22:30 which was a little better than I was hoping (25 min). One advantage of no wetsuit was not having to take it off, although they had wetsuit strippers which made the process way quicker. Dropped my goggles up the ramp and had to stop and pick them up. The family was waiting right at the end of the ramp, so I high-fived my wife and the kids. Got in and out of T1 okay. A little slower than normal since I decided to wear socks this time. I normally don't but since I hadn't been training sockless, I didn't want to risk the blisters. That added about 45 seconds to a minute since I had to semi-dry my feet and legs. Got out of transition in just over 2 minutes and jumped on my bike.

I'll post the rest tomorrow. Need to knock out 5 miles at 8:55 pace. No rest for the weary. Doing two 5k races the next two weekends and then an off road Tri on May 3.