Saturday, June 10, 2006

Double your pleasure, Double your triathlon distance

So I must admit after both biking and running the Liberty tri course this week for the first time, I began to think that my goal of 3 hours, 10 minutes was a bit unrealistic, and I decided that I should simply concentrate on finishing this new, longer distance.

I had a mediocre swim. The water was a bit choppy, and I ended up hitting some people early on, and I'm still a novice at openwater sighting, so I did get offtrack a couple times.

I had a phenomenal bike. The crowds yelling everywhere pumped me up bigtime. I wasn't wearing my 20lb backpack, so I felt very fast.....and was. I looked down at my speedometer to see 30 mph very often. One small hitch: I have an aerodrink, which is basically a waterbottle with a straw that fits between your handlebars. I hit a bump, and it catapulted the sponge that covers the bottle's refilling hole off my bike and sent a shower of sticky sports drink all over my body and bike.

The run was tough, especially at the beginning. It started with a trail run, then a monster hill on woodchips, which had me running barely above a walking pace. Once I got into my pace around mile 2, it felt pretty decent. I pushed hard & fast at the end.

And I finished in 2 hours, 35 minutes....according to my watch. I'm still trying to wipe this smirk off my face 7 hours after the fact. I feel really good.

And I think I deserve a big ass burrito from Baja Sol. Salsa bar, beware!

On a side note, one thing that added fuel to my fire(other than goo) during the bike was passing people with absurdly expensive bikes. I beat the guy next to me in the transition who had a pimped-out Madone by over half hour, and I passed numerous Cervelo P2's, and even a few titanium Litespeeds. Just goes to show that in the amateur world, talent is more important than the bike you ride.

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