2009 Council Bluffs Black Squirrel Triathlon - Triathlon

I had a good swim, minus the initial dunking and mouthful of water about 3 strokes into it ;). I started right behind Slickster, and stayed on his feet most of the way out to the turnaround. I lost him just befor the last bouy, and noticed everyone was swimming around a white lake bouy AND the turnaround bouy. I ducked inbetween the two, and avoided the crowd. Also found some clean open swimming for most of the way back in. Overall a really good swim for me.

Maybe start a little closer to the front. Otherwise, it was good.

TOP 10 T1 Time! 9th, is still top 10! Awe Yeah!!!!

Swim cap was tough to get off. My hair was mostly dry under it, and that kinda hurt! I was also kinda shakey. Not sure why, maybe too much caffine that morning (normally don't drink coffee, oops).
I jumped on the bike, got my feet in, but didn't really get going very fast. Again, the shakey feeling I had was throwing me off a bit.

Skip the coffee, and suck down a good fruit juice instead.

Bike went ok. I came out of the water about a minute ahead of Slickster. He caught me at the beginning of lap 2 on the bike. We were togather from here on, until the last mile of the run.

Negative thoughts were going through my mind. No idea why, but I was just in a negative mood about everything. Focusing on the smallest crap. Couldn't shake it.

Ride, don't think.

I came off the bike fine, but my toes were completely numb! I think it was the cool weather and well vented shoes. I also put on socks after the bike. This really held me up. I have not ran farther than 4mi without socks, and didn't want to risk it on race day.

Skip the socks, and run a few longer training runs sockless.

Negative thoughts continued to roll through my mind. Slickster beat my out of transition, but I could see him. I pushed and caught him in the first 1/2mi. He kept me motivated and running until the last mile. I just "had to" walk. I walked for about 5sec, ran and started to catch back up, felt hopeless, walked, ran, walked..... With about 1/2mi left, a guy catches up to me and says something like "come on buddy, let's do this!" I was like "OK!". So we chatted, his encouragement probably cut 30sec off my run, and he even had me at a full on sprint the last 100yds, leaving him in the dust. I gave him a big thank you and a high five at the end. Good experiance!!

Keep running with Slickster that last mile. Not be a baby. Run harder. Eat less. My AG run rank was 20 of 21. I really need to get faster on the run for next year!


Still calling this a good run, since it was pretty darn fast for me.

Walked around catching my breath for a few minutes. The finishing spring kicked my butt! Eventually got some orange slices, a banana and a water. Got a couple pictures with Slickster, and chatted with kklems for a bit. Tried to stretch a little.


The fat around my torso.


With a little work, this could be an awesome race. Get the distances spot on for an Olympic event. Advertise more, and get more volunteers. Maybe even get it USAT sanctioned. The setting is good, the course is good, so the potential is there.