Done and Done

The time on the clock is from the Olympic distance start which was 30 min. earlier than me.

Well one of my life goals has finally been accomplished. I completed a sprint triathlon in just under two hours, officially 01:59:35.09. I am pretty pleased because I was honestly thinking I would be about two and a half hours. I really had no idea what was going on when I got to the park and I set up all of my crap as good as I could in the transition area by the water. As it got closer to the time for my group to start though I overheard someone talking about another transition area. I was like "what? there is a different transition area?". So I got to grab all of my running stuff and run three blocks, drop it off and then run back in sandals. By the time I got back to put my wetsuit on the announcer was giving the five minute warning for my start. So that was kind of scary. The water was really warm so it wasn't bad at all. I was able to swim the whole 750 meters without stopping which was nice. I guess I actually probably swam more like 820 meters though because the current kept pushing me off course and so I think I was zigzagging all over the place between the three buoys ( I don't know if that is spelled right). And the wetsuit wasn't real flattering but there were a lot of people there with some extra white fluffiness about them so I didn't feel too bad. Getting on the bike only took about three minutes but that is when I realized how much of a difference having a road bike makes. People were flying by me like crazy and I was peddling just about as fast as I could. The bike took me 52 minutes, another three in transition and then I started the run. At first my calves were all tight and I was kind of stumbling/jogging and then there was the hill. I ended up walking for quite a ways until my calves loosened up. Then after jogging for only a couple of minutes I got a killer side ache and slowed down again. I figure I probably walked about half of the 5k but oh well. I did it. I still have a lot of room to improve but I am just glad I got started. I think I am going to work on my running speed for the next little while before I try to another triathlon and I am definitely going to rent a road bike for the next one. I really think we should all try to run a half marathon together next year. Maybe Eric and Laura could pick one out for us. I am thinking that for my next triathlon I should be able to shoot for an hour and a half with a road bike and being able to actually run the whole 5k.

I was just looking at the results and trying to figure out my actual placing and as far as I can tell its something like this: 182 overall out of about 339, 99/200 for men, and last place for my division. The web site that has the results breaks stuff down kind of odd so that might not be super accurate. Because the overall numbers include Olympic distance people. There were 220 sprint distance participants total but I don't know exactly where I was in that group.

Here are some more pictures.

The swim course. There were three buoys in a triangle about 250 meters apart.
Pasty white goodness, in tighter than skin wetsuit. Yeah I know I look good.
Swim start.
Coming out of the water, attempting to remove the wetsuit.
Finishing the bike.