Anchor Bay Triathlon : Official Thread

I'll be racing this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it.

I did this race in 2000 and 2001 -- my first two triathlons. In 2000, I was the second to last person out of the water and spent a few miles in dead last on the bike. But I was hooked. Fun race, good people and good atmosphere.

On the email, it said this is the 30th year of the race. It has to be among the oldest, if not the oldest, triathlon in Michigan.

Good race today .. perfect weather. I was cursing that 7 a.m. start time, but when my run was over, I was very glad I didn't have an hour to go. It was warming up quickly out there.

This was a sprint: 1/2 mile swim, 11 mile bike, 5k run

Prerace: Met some great people at packet pickup as we all looked longingly at the buoys, convincing ourselves that it was right, even though it looked long. Prerace nerves were getting the best of me, and I had trouble eating anything, and just tried to sip water, but my butterflies were making it tough. Not sure what happened there. But I got set up pretty quickly and was the second one in the water to warm up. The water was great (probably 70 degrees). Almost perfect.

Swim: Really terrible time out there. Water was calm, but I had a lot of trouble getting into a rhythm. I even had a bit of panic attack out there, which is something I thought I overcame. Long run up the beach and across the street to T1, added time, but still bad regardless. 21:02

T1: Quick and easy T1 and I was out.

Bike: I was planning on using my Gu at the end of the bike, but given I hadn't eaten, etc. I wanted to grab it right away. I looked down in my box right after the bike mount, and it was gone. It fell out somewhere. So I just started mashing the bike ... I rode angry which was great (excellent bike split time), but terrible too (my legs were shot when I started running).

One plus side of my slower swim time was that I was passing a lot of people on the bike. Bike split: 35:47

T2: Quick and easy again. I think the transitions is really where I shine.

Run: Felt like garbage, but the result wasn't bad. There was a ton of water on the course and a resident was even out watering the athletes. Very thankful for him and the volunteers. Run split: 27:55

Final: 1:28:51. 5th in the age group (of 9); and 80th of 179 overall.

I wanted to hit 1:25, but overall, it was a success. A few hours later, and I'm still not feeling great. Sipping Gatorade and nibbling on whatever I can eat.