Saturday, June 14, 2008

Tri It In Spanish Sprint

Wow... My sprint today was like every race I have done this year....HOT! However the run was a grass trail with some shade....spotty but covered about 30% of the course. It was really nice. The bike was 15 miles of rolling hills...big wind today too - I didn't really notice it until the turnaround when the about four miles it was right on the nose and hard.

The swim was open water in a water ski lake that several people had seen a couple of snakes in this morning.....those people included my wife. I convinced myself they were harmless water snakes and since I was number 33 into the water, 32 people would have chased them away before I got in the water. Near the end of the swim there was some tall grass in the water that kind of grabbed at you. That was interesting.

The half mile ride out to the main road was on a very bumpy patched asphalt surface that was pretty rough. Once out on the road, the ride was very nice. The drive was uphill on the way out which obviously means downhill coming back in....doing 20+ bouncing around was pretty cool....and a bit nerve racking.

I hit T2 very close to a couple of other guys in my age group and I knew I needed to get after the run (my weakest event) to stay ahead of them. They were on my tail the whole way and ended up finishing within about 30 seconds and a minute. I was pretty jazzed that I didn't get run down. I thought I had done pretty well in my AG but there were some added this morning that didn't go in the swim with us. As soon as I have final placing and times I will post them

This was the first race for Tri-sition Area, a new tri shop in San Antonio and they did a marvelous job. The course was great, the race started on time (big deal with me), and they had plenty to eat and drink post race. If you ever are in Texas and have a chance to do one of their races I highly recommend it. For a small event they had great stuff. The t-shirt was a technical, dry fit shirt and the goodie bag included a latex swim cap, a pair of Yankz! and some Hammer gel (apple cinnamon - which IS the greatest gel flavor ever). This was a great first race.

1 comment:

Simeon of Kent said...

Great job on keeping those guys behind you. The old half-iron countdown is ticking away - mine too!