What a morning, 5:30am wake-up in order to be to my parents’ by 6:15am. I was all packed and ready I just had to load the bike. I actually left the house with plenty of time but forgot my wallet. Just a reminder that being early for me doesn’t happen very often.
I was picking up my mom, sister and my niece. To drive to Leavenworth KS for the CGSC Triathlon and Junior Triathlon.
It was the closest I have ever parked to the transition area. The volunteers were awesome. There was a little scare during registration, but everything worked out. There was also a very friendly field: Scott who I had seen at Midwest Mayhem, Monte who is also shooting for Branson 70.3, Tom and Jason who were first timers, are all new friends now. There was plenty of time to get to know people because the 180 athletes got in the water one at a time, 10 seconds apart.
The swim was harder than it should have been. I went out hard, but couldn’t keep it up for 200. Pathetic. I passed at least one person, but I also got passed. It’s the little victories that keep me excited about the sport. Please, don’t judge me.
In the transition area, fellow MTC teammates, reminded me “you have to earn those colors.” I struggled getting my top on.
I felt great on the bike. In fact, the best I have ever felt on the bike. I was cruising. On one of the early hills, my chain came off. I tried to fix it by changing gears, but that wasn’t working because of the hill. I had to get off the bike in order to fix it. At that point I changed my attitude for the race. I got going again, and just tried to pay attention to my race and focus. Along the bike I saw two other people with flats. I stopped for both in order to help just long enough to find I couldn’t help. I was feeling pretty good about the race. On the second half of the bike, I realized that after the swim, I hit the stop button instead of the lap button. Even though I felt great, I have a lot of room for improvement on my average speed in the bike this year.
I had plenty of energy left for the run. I didn’t go very fast, but that was because of horrible training the weeks prior. I had all the energy I needed for this race. For any triathlon, I’m happy to do the run with twelve minute miles.
My Official Results:
200 yards, 14.7 miles, 3.1 miles
1:34:39.3 (4:12, 2:30, 54:17, 1:42, 32:00)
My niece Whitney was there to race too. After the CGSC triathlon was the CGSC Junior TryAthlon.
I tried to get her to wear my Garmin 405 so we could get good times and data. She acted like she was going to wear it, but as soon as I stepped away for a minute, she took it off and gave it to her mother.
Before the race Whitney had her game face on. I was confident that she was ready for the event even though she hadn’t done any extra training. She took it easy on the swim, but did very well on the bike and the run.
In order to get her stats, I started my watch when she got in the water. I also hit lap at the start and end of her transitions. And finally I followed her to the finish line. It was a blast.
