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 Swim
Comments: As we sterted I positioned myself at the back and to the outside as is usually suggested for the beginners, however, I realized, that I was faster than most in my wave, so started bumping into people. This made me swim back to the inside. Very quickly I started catching pepole from the previous wave which made me feel great. On the flip side - my navigation was bad, so I wasted some tome on zig-zagging. At one point I actually crossed to the oncoming swimmers and had a 'soft' collision with some girl swimming the opposite direction. With moderate effort I ended up next to the bouy and started swimming back to the shore. On the way I hit another swimmer, who just stopped in the middle, probably tired or needed to pee... Anoter few swimmers past and I am on dry land where my wife takes a pic of me getting out of the water. I am happy at this point, quick look at my watch and seems everything is under control. What would you do differently?: Practice sighting more!!!  Transition 1
Comments: Not bad for the first time, in spite of the rain, everything seemed to work as planned, didn't have problems with finding things, put socks on to be more comfy. Just forgot to put the HR monitor on - no big deal. What would you do differently?: Practice to strip the wetsuit more.  Bike
Comments: After mounting the bike we proceeded slowly to the highway and started going uphill on the first overpass. Kept the cadence to 90approx and tried to take it easy. Still managed to pass quite a few slower people uphill. Then going down was fun , about 30mph+, on the brakes for the first real corner and gradually got used to the conditions. I loved the ride, stopped noticing the rain, only when a faster guy passed me I got a shower from his wheel - so what! Not often do you have the whole highway to play with! For the rest of the ride I kept the effort to medium, ate 1 gel, took few sips from my bottle (it was not hot at all, so there was no need to drink as much as I'm used to - 1 bottle was plenty). This was the most enjoyable part of the race in spite of the rain and slippery roads - I passed many people and got past by many as well - specially on really expensive bikes, but overall - it waas fun and I could go much longer at that pace. Many riders got a flat tire... lots of glass around apparently. I was drenched and happy again when the ride finished. What would you do differently?: Nothing! Transition 2
Comments: This one was quick - didn't have to change the shoes! And again I forgot to put the HR thing on... What would you do differently?: Nada.  Run
Comments: Contrary to what I thought before the race, this ended up being the hardest part of all. I didn't think I was tired, but my legs thought otherwise. Serious stitch on both sides, painful calves - I just culdn't run any faster if my life depended on it. Many runners passed me, I managed to pass few limping ones so I was no too bad. It seemed longer than 3,1 miles for sure... The finish line never looked so good and I AM A TRIATHLETE - hell yeah. What would you do differently?: More real bricks, no time in between the bike and run. Post race
Warm down: My wife, sweetheart, was there to take a pic as I was crossing the finish line and we talked for a while, said 'thank you for volunteering' to two nice people at the finish line, grabbed 1 Gatorade, finisher's medal and started looking around for some BT'rs - no luck. What limited your ability to perform faster: Being tired. Event comments: I was really happy with my overall time - 1:30 would have been great for a first race. Profile Album Last updated: 2007-08-01 12:00 AM
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United States
Precipitation
Overall Rank = 197/521
Age Group = 40-49
Age Group Rank = 0/
Well... I got up at 4:30am after not sleeping at all (strong storms with thunder/ lightning made sleeping impossible), ate 2 pieces of bread w/ hummus, 1 banana and drank some milk w/ Ovaltine. Got dressed, put transition bags in the car and off we went (my wife Janneth and myself) to the race. IT WAS RAINING ALL THE TIME - everything was saturated w/ water. We stayed overnight in a nice little log cabin on Happy Acres Kamping ground in Bristol, about 5 miles from Pleasant Prairie. On the way to the race we of course stopped to get some strong coffee! Got to the designated parking finally (muddy vacant lot in an industrial ares), parked the car, walked 10 min with all the bags (I must say - we had more gear than most people trying to bring some dry clothes for post race ), took the shuttle bus to the RacPlex and set up the transition. Since I've never done it before - it was kind of a guessing game... AND IT IS RAINING. Saw some folks taking their bags and going home since the RD was thinking about calling the race off....I decided to stick with it no mater what - too much time and effort went into this to just quit.
No real warm-up after that, trip to the porta loo and waiting for my wave. Looked for some BT'rs who were there, but couldn't find anyone. And the excitement is building up! Finally, with 30 min delay because of the rain my wave is ready to go. The gun goes off and we're in the water.
Just a bit of jumping up and down...