Mission Man Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Went out incredibly fast. I think almost too fast. They had all 34 and under men starting, so I was fighting a lot of good swimmers at the start and wanted to get some distance out there from the rest of the pack. After about 200m, fatigue set in and I slowed to what seemed a crawl and lost a few spots. Found my groove after about another 100 and just kept that pace for the remainder of the swim.

Massive negative thoughts when I hit that first wave of fatigue - we're talking DNF thoughts. :( Talked myself out of it, but I've gotta eliminate this if I'm gonna step up the swim to the next level.

The last time I had this miserable of a swim was at Wake Forest Tri. In that race I also wore one of these Desoto tri tops with the two pockets on the sides. I swear those damn pockets act like little drag pockets...even though they have holes in them. All my other races except for Wake and this one I didn't wear anything up top.

Me and another guy from Triad Tri team hung with one another for the whole swim. Every now and then we'd slam against one another. I'll bet we did it 10-15 times. We were laughing about it after the race was over.

Just posted my ranks. Didn't think I did as well as I did. Huh.

Lose the top, show off the nips.

Work on the mental game.

Having race number 4 put me right at the bike exit. Sweeeeet! I'm not good enough at jumping on the bike yet or doing that rubber band thing. Something to work on for the offseason.

Keep on getting those low numbers. LOL!

My best event today IMO. There were 3 of us that hung together and kept passing one another. Only lost about 8-10 spots on this section and a bunch of them were not in my AG.

I hammered the hills...especially the last one. Pacing was spot on. I wanted to have something left at the end for this huge hill at the end. Executed that plan perfectly. 5 mile splits: 14:19, 14:52, 13.52.

Almost bit it a couple of times...both times going around corners. I tend to go a bit too fast and try to slingshot out of the turns. On one tight right hand turn, I almost went over someone's hood. Luckily the cops saw this wild eyed crazed guy on an orange Felt and stopped the car about 100ft back. The 2nd time I felt like I was at a 45 degree angle so that I wouldn't go off the road on a left turn. Happy to come out of that one without going down.

Biggest change from prior race to this race was my cadence up the hills. Instead of mashing a big gear at a low cadence, I was much less afraid to drop down into the small chainring and keep the cadence at 90-110.

Just posted rankings....sweet! 13!!!!

Master the cadence thing. Add a bike computer that measures cadence to the Christmas list.

Man...I'd love a set of race wheels. I bet I could get another 1-2 mph if I'd lose my training wheels.

Uneventful. The one thing I could have done to save a sec or two is to put my race number on while running and remember to unsnap the clasp before the race starts.

This was a tough course. Yesterday's heavy rain made footing slippery. Some people like trails, I think I'm not one of them. The terrian never got flat. I was either struggling up a steep incline or slamming on the brakes down the other side. Saw about 3 people throwing up on the course (1 caught back up to me and passed me). Saw one poor girl face plant. The quads are not happy with me now.

Lost a lot of ground during the run.

Just posted rankings....guess it wasn't too bad. Still sucky, but 19/50 and 90/280 makes me a bit happy.

Anaerobic work with hills.

Get my finisher medal, and stand under a misting tent for about 10 mins.


Sucky swim....its either my pacing, or my choice of clothing
Run anaerobic endurance. The hills shut me down.


Met Fred Carter (fcarter389) and his wonderful family. Found out what the 389 stands for, but I'm not telling...you have to pester him about that yourself. What a great guy! He's a trip too. I couldn't believe when I looked at his leg and saw 40 years old...he looks like he's about 28. LOL! Nice race Fred!

Mission Man was special to me in many ways. The reason above all others is that this race was the race that got me into this crazy sport. I remember sitting in my Lazy Boy on a Sunday morning last July and just happened to notice this tri written up in the paper. It was this moment that I realized that there are other tri distances out there other than the ironman distances. I was chubby and out of shape and could drink a whole hell of a lot more beer than I can now. Anyway...happy the direction life has taken after this article. Hell...I know you all now. What could be better????

This is my last planned sprint for 2005. I'm kind of sad that this part of my racing is coming to an end, but now I get to see Denise racing. I've got one more race (a HIM) this year in Sept that I'm doing for the enjoyment of doing it and hope I can survive.