NCN Lorain Triathlon

Pretty decent race this morning. Got to the venue at about 6:30 for the 8:00 start. Got everything into transition, signed in, donned the wetsuits and jumped in the lake for a good warm-up swim. We were going to swim a few openers yesterday, but we got pretty busy doing other stuff and couldn't make it to Headlands for an open water swim. Fairport has the Mardis Gras going on this weekend so we couldn't make it there either. The water this morning was quite a bit colder than it has been lately, maybe due to some north winds and the rain that we got last Thursday. We were contemplating bringing our wetsuits because it's such a short swim, but now we're glad we did. Anyway, we got a good warm-up in and it was time for the wave starts to go off.

Tony was in the 1st wave, 34 and under. The group went off and Tony fell flat on his face into the water before he even had a chance to swim a stroke, said he tripped over the sand....How the heck do you do that I ask? Kinda funny actually :-) He had a pretty good swim though and made up for the miscalculation and came out of the water 12th, so he made up pretty good time. T-1 went smooth and he made up time on the bike and entered T-2 in 3rd. spot. Got out of transition fast and about 1.3 miles into the run, he and some others took a wrong turn and ran off course. Don't ask me how, he tried to tell me but I was very confused, obviously he was too at the time. Seems some others made the same error as well, so I can't pick on him for that one as much as falling down in the water......hehehe. He said that the adrenaline really kicked in after he found his way back onto the course and dug deep all the way to the finish. He finished 8th overall out of 120 and 1st in the 16-19 yo age group.

After Tony's wave went off, 4 minutes later the old timer guys went off, that would be the 35+ and me. I had a good 1/4 mile swim, 3rd out of the water, ran up the hill to transition, peeled the wetsuit off and took off on the 15 mile bike. Pretty decent course with some rollers, but mainly flat. Legs were totally filled with lactic acid by mile 2, by mile 3 I felt much better and settled into a good rhythm and pretty fast pace. Came back into transition with my feet out of the shoes, did a cyclocross dismount before the timing mats, racked the bike, slid the flats on and ran a 19:15 5k, good for 7th overall and 2nd in the 40-44 ag.

My time was 1:06:20
Tony's time was 1:08:18

If my coordinately AND directionally challenged son had not made a couple crucial mistakes in this race I'm "ASSUMING" that his time would have been better than mine, or close to it anyway, but I have been known to be wrong on occasions, we were both feeling pretty good today. Don't worry Tone, you'll get another crack at me soon enough.

Here's a picture of us laughing at you know who.