Swim
Comments: Totally average swim for me. Passed a number of guys near the beginning, settled in and tried not to go too horribly off course. Today's mission was to sight frequently. My form isn't very good and I'm slow, so the best thing I could do would be to stay on course and not do more work than necessary. Did mostly ok with this. When I breathed to the left I was turning heavily to the right, much more so than usual. This got me a little off once when I waited 10 strokes to site but otherwise navigation was ok. After the turnaround my goggles were partially fogged up. Not good under any conditions but being nearsighted it ruined my ability to see the shore so I stopped to clear them. Put them back on, started swimming and they leaked. Reseated them and this time they were ok. Found myself smiling in the water. Yeah, I'm slow and technically a really bad swimmer, but I was remembering my first few swims at at the Y a few years ago when I first thought I'd maybe do something totally crazy and ridiculously hard like a Sprint triathlon. There I was doing another .9 mile swim in open water with hundreds of other people in wetsuits. Anthony from downstate introduced himself while we were in the corral. Really nice guy. It's funny being at a race and being asked "are you marmadaddy?". It's like having a secret identity or something. What would you do differently?: Travel back in time and join a swim team as a teenager? Buy Microsoft in 1989? Not date that insane chick in 1993? Given my current ability level this was ok. No regrets. Transition 1
Comments: Ran to the TA ok. Stepped out of the wetsuit ok. Had a hard time getting into the shoes. Mostly due to the cold. It was pretty chilly still. OA - 65 AG - 11 What would you do differently?: Not being able to get into the shoes on the bike is costing me Bike
Comments: Not too good. I haven't come close to putting in the saddle time I wanted to since mid-July and this is where it showed. Just didn't have the power overall I'd hoped for. On the plus side, I'm glad I wore my toe covers. About a mile after the Oly course merged with the Sprint I saw Julie on the side of the road. I stopped and she had a flat. No tube. She said she didn't want help, just my tube and bag and yes, she was sure so I dropped it and started up again. That messed with my head. I hated the idea of her sitting there. The rest of the bike I was distracted. And it sucks having to pass large numbers of people all over again. Managed to get my feet out of the shoes and dismount ok. And to the guy in the rust colored Explorer who was buzzing cyclists: we had a great time. Sorry you were so miserable at the sight of our joy. Transition 2
Comments: Racked the bike too quick and put it in the spot next to mine. Would have been rude to leave it that way so I moved it. Then getting into socks was a freaking hassle and a half. Did one Carb-boom. Tropical something flavor. Pretty good. OA- 109 AG - 17 Run
Comments: Still distracted because I was worried about Julie. Passed her on the other side of the course about 2.5 miles in so that helped and I was able to focus. Kept an ok pace for loop 1, brought it up once the 2nd loop started, picked it up gradually from the turnaround. Finished ok. What would you do differently?: Gone harder earlier. I had more in me. Post race
Warm down: Saw my MIL, found Julie and BT'ers. Chatted, gabbed, mingled. Had a great time just checking in with everyone. Took pictures. What limited your ability to perform faster: Mostly my lack of ability. Otherwise: erratic training, little to no training in the 2 weeks prior to the race, being mentally distracted by Julie having a flat on the bike. I felt really bad for Julie, she was having a really good bike. She figures she was on the side of the road for about 45 minutes which means she would have been in contention for an AG medal. I'm incredibly proud of her for finishing the race. For my own performance I'm not crazy about it, but to put things in perspective it was a really fun day, it was only 3 minutes off last years time and um, I finished an Olympic distance triathlon while my wife finished a Sprint triathlon, then took my kids out to play mini-golf. That's a good day no matter how you slice it. Event comments: I really like this race. It's the end of the season race in the Rochester area so it has a nice vibe. The venue is great. The bike course is good, the run course gets changed every year for the better (this year it was really nice) and the swim is ideal for beginners. Clear water, you can walk the sprint course if needed because the lake is so shallow at this end. Takes the panic factor away. A bit chaotic at the swim start, they have to get the whole corral thing down a bit better. Great coverage on the bike course, fun volunteers on the run course. Good food afterwards. There's kids tri too. Recommended. Last updated: 2006-06-06 12:00 AM
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United States
Mary M Gooley Hemophilia Center
65F / 18C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 81/167
Age Group = M40-44
Age Group Rank = 16/26
Night Before
We had a group of BTers over for dinner : Dexter, Yoshi and their son Willie; rstocks3 and his son Matt; Chad; Ridgelake and his boys Payton and Ryan. Good company all, a really nice way to spend the night before a race. I waited too long to start cooking things on the grill so everyone had to wait too long for dinner but they were really gracious about it. My routine all day didn't bring me near the one Krispy Kreme in this area so I hit Dunkin for a dozen. Sometimes you gotta improvise. No one refused a donut. :)
Later on we got our stuff packed and ready, put the van in the garage and loaded the bikes on it to minimize stuff in the morning. I stayed up way too late answering messages from Ron about BT stuff. So my poor bike performance was his fault. ;)
Day Of
Up at 5, had a banana, searched fruitlessly for my warm up pants, loaded our stuff in the car and worried about the weather. It was in the 50's and cloudy.
At the site we parked and I gave Julie some cash because we were short on tubes and she didn't have one. She was to use the cash to by a tube from the bike support tent. In the chaos of getting ready to race, she forgot. This became relevant later. Walked to the race site, ran into Dudley, Bob, Rob, Chad, Jeremy and other folks. One of my favorite things about racing now is meeting up with people who I've become friends with. Makes the day that much more fun and meaningful.
Not much. I had maybe 2 minutes in the water before they called us out to get ready to start. Anthony introduced himself in the corral.