8/30/10

Presque Isle

Pretty solid race on Saturday. Swim was chaos...four groups of 100 went off in five minute intervals. The groups of 100 were based on alphabetical order of last names, so Tony and I were in the same group, which never happens. Anyway we exited the 816 meter swim (yes, 816 meters) according to one of the swim course designers, in just over 12 minutes due to mingling in with the group ahead of us and having to navigate through them. Fast run to T-1 and a quick change and Tony's fumbling with his wetsuit...I said come on lets get going cause he's usually faster than me in transition. I couldn't wait all day for him ;-) so I took off and knew he would catch up on the bike and pass me anyway. He did catch me at around mile 3 and was haulin' ass. I jumped as he was passing and was matching his speed for about nine of the 13.5 miles. Just past the photographers he jumped on it and got about a 100 meter gap and that's the way it stayed for the remainder of the bike and we entered T-2 averaging slightly better than 24.5 mph. We transitioned together with Tony leading out and once on the road he opened it up on the run never even looking back to see if the old man was close or if he was laying in the middle of the road having a heart attack, he was gone. I knew I couldn't match the pace so I settled into my race pace and kept thinking I have to keep the pace up because I knew Doug was going to be pushing hard as well. I was on the way back and saw Doug on the way out. He yelled some sort of obscenity at me and was running hard, I said uh oh, if he catches me I'll never live this one down, since he did start five minutes behind me. I couldn't have picked the pace up anymore I don't think since I was red lined as it was so I just kept it steady. I rolled across the finish line of the 3.89 mile run averaging a 6:45 mile even though the results show differently. The run splits were off slightly. Doug finished strong and came in a few minutes behind me, bettering my time by a MERE 16 seconds......... but he did beat me and what a great race he had. It was a very motivating race with Tony and knowing Doug and I were trying to better each others times, if only we could have started in the same wave..it might have been different!

Tony ended up winning his age group and finished 10th overall, Doug won his age group and was 13th overall and I won my age group and was 14th overall a MERE 16 seconds behind Doug.... Mickaylie Park (Kevins 13 year old daughter) won her age group, Nice job Mickaylie, K.P. finished 2nd overall and Brian Stern was 5th overall. There were 400 total in this race with some good competition from the Erie Tri Club and the Buffalo Tri Club along with The Cleveland Tri Team (that would be us).

After the race we went back to Doug's cabin and He and Angela, Lynn, Tony, Nick and I and a couple of other friends all had dinner at the cabin. Doug, Tony and I did a recovery ride on Sunday with a climb up Deep Hollow into Oil City and took it easy on the way back due to the four mile climb up. What another awesome weekend, it just doesn't get any better!

Miller Marut Memorial 5k run this Saturday morning, then transitioning to the cyclocross bikes in the afternoon for the first Team Lake Effect cx race at Camp Manatoc in the Cuyahoga Valley.

Wow.

3 comments:

KPark said...

Nice job Bill. I figured the swim was long:) I still owe you the run finish pic. Can you check into getting the full size version of the picture of the 5 of us from Fairport? The one with Adam sitting down. It ought to be at least 2MB. I think the one I have is only about 80Kb

KPark said...

BTW, Kay's name is spelled only with a 'K', no big deal:)

We've got a tale to tell! said...

What awesome racing - I'm excited just reading about it! Nice.