Huntington

Triathlon Sunday. Over 250 racers just in the triathlon alone! Rick from NCN said that was a record for this race and I can believe it. I'm not sure how many were in the duathlon but there were lots in that race too.

Tony and I had a pretty decent week leading up to this event. We tapered a little by just doing a hard bike race at Westlake on Tuesday and a semi hard bike on Saturday for some openers at the Cleveland Triathlon Club training day and one long swim and one easy run during the week.

Tony's group hit the water just shortly after 8 am followed by my group which started 8 minutes later. We both had decent swims. I felt awesome and was out of the water 3rd. in my group, I think Tony said he was 10th. I had actually caught quite a few of the 30 something age groupers that were in the group before me. I exited the water and began the long run through the sand and up the hill that goes under Lake Rd, to transition.

Transition went well and out on the bike for 14 miles. The bike on the way out was a zig zag 7 miles and I didn't care for it at all. It was pretty windy heading west, but all the zig zagging sure did take the rhythm out of the first 7 or so miles. On the way back it was straight and flat with a nice tailwind. On the way out I was going between 22-24 mph occasionally hitting 25, On the way back it was steady 25-26 sometimes hitting 29 mph., that was nice, I wish the whole bike could have been like that.
Got back to transition and Tony was long gone. He did have 8 minutes on me and I didn't expect to see him at all the whole race. Not too many bikes in transition either, especially after seeing over 250 bikes there before the swim.

T-2 was a little slower than I would have liked. I normally pull my feet out of the shoes before transition, but this time I didn't because Brian Stern and I came into transition together and I figured I had a chance to stay with him for a short distance on the run and I didn't want to jepordize catching a shoe strap in the chain and going down on the bike. Anyway I should have pulled my feet out of the shoes because I don't know what I was thinking about trying to stay with Brian anyway, he run's 5:20's off the bike and I run like 6:30's, just caught up in the moment I guess.

I started off on the run and felt pretty good and held a constant pace throughout. I felt pretty good at the finish and ended up sprinting it out sort of with a guy that was trying to catch me on the uphill before the finish. That last surge on the final hill really hurt, the picture explains! Eric, nice job on the run too by the way! I tried to keep your pace for the last bit but my hr was over 175 and I knew I had to save some for the run up the last hill, your running well my friend.

Anyway, Tony had an excellent race to finish 8th overall and 2nd in his age group with a 1:01:47, I on the other hand didn't fare so well with a 4th in my age group and 16th overall with a 1:03:23. Lots of fast old guys showed up. I raced my butt off, I know it was very humid on the run and I don't do very well in the humidity, but everyone raced in the same conditions so no excuses on my part. If I could only run 6:00 minute miles off the bike................

Congratulations to Mike and Christina for both winning their respective age groups in the duathlon and Christina was 2nd woman overall! Western States (Colorado) team mate Steve Heibel showed up and raced the duathlon on only 1 run in the last month and did very well, nice living in that high altitude huh Steve? Great to see you again too.

Congratulations to all that raced, there were ALOT of fast times at this race.