Tri-ing My Best

My colleague Bob Warren took this picture of me gutting out the finish of the Community Center Triathlon held on Saturday morning. I was hoping for a nicer day; it was cool enough, but the wind was more than necessary.

The event went well, and I got a little more experience on the whole triathlon gig. The swim was different, with a "serpentine" method of doing the six laps moving from one lane to another, all the swimmers in one line. I had the joy of tagging someone in the pool to pass them, though the same guy, in my age group, went on to smoke out of the transition area on his bike while I was still lacing my shoes on. Gotta work on that transition. I finished second in my age group to him, Mark Stearns. He was excellent on the bike, where the ride north was into the wind, so the return trip was a quick one. The run alwas starts a little stiff after 35 minutes on the bike, but I got the kinks out and enjoyed passing some folks along the way. I was 27th overall, with about 124 finishers, 65 men and 59 women. My overall time was 58:59. First overall was Jason Crisp, who finished in 43:01, over three minutes ahead of the second-place guy, Eric Olson of Sioux Falls.

My times: Swim (6 laps)--6:23, Transition to bike--2:11, Bike (9 miles)--33:46, Transition to run--0:27 (no bike shoes to change), and Run (2.25 miles)--16:14. For the run, that figures to a 7:12 pace, not bad for this old-timer.

I didn't do the race last year, but I did the year before that, and the previous year as well. Dunno what my times were then.

At the end of the day, it was time to lay down the gauntlet and enter the Twin Cities Marathon once again. So I'm now in training for that little joyful experience. Enter soon if you're planning to run it; it fills quickly.