Another Wedding, Another Triathlon

Wow, what a weekend this has been.

On Saturday Sarah was invited to sing and play music at our friends, Erika and Tyler, wedding. It was such an honor to accompany her on mandolin.  The wedding was at their place out on the tundra outside of Nome and I wish I had pictures to post.  It was an incredibly beautiful wedding.  I'm sure I'll find some pics to post later.  A few hours after that I rushed home and hopped on the late flight to Anchorage to race in the Alaska triathlon championships the next morning at Knik Lake.  The flight was delayed and eventually arrived by midnight.  My friend Mike picked me up and then I had to sort all my gear together for the race.  Mike was able to find a road bike for me a really cool looking old Lotus (thanks Dave!).  I switched out the seat, added some aero bars, put my bag together and finally crashed at 2 am.  6 am came way too early and a friend who was doing the race too, picked me up and off we went.
(top) coming in for the finish, maybe a little too much lycra
(above) awesome retro Lotus bike


It was super cool to see Knik Lake in the summer, I just couldn't believe we would be swimming in it.  Someone had cleaned a bunch of salmon right at the ramp into the water, it was a little nasty.  Overall, the race went fine. I was super impressed how well it was organized; how competitive (and fast!) but nice everyone was during and after the event.  I didn't exactly perform as well as I thought but technically it was my first olympic distance triathlon so have nothing to compare.

The swim 1.5 km: Having never worn a wetsuit to race before, I didn't know what to expect.  I was told if fit properly it can make your time faster but all I felt was constricted.  I just couldn't find a rhythm and was already drained when I stumbled out of the swim in 19.36 minutes. Maybe it was the cold but I was a little disoriented and took a couple of minutes at the transition. Lesson #1: don't swim in a wetsuit for the first time in a race.
Knik Lake parking lot
The Bike, 25 miles: My bike started off OK till my seat loosened, it barely hung on for the 25 miles- in a way it was kind of comical.  Lesson #2: don't touch the bike the day before the race and just maybe... get my own bike.  I finished that in 1 hr 7 minutes.

The run, 6.2 miles:  I'd rather call this the plod. I feel like I plod along, my feet are so flat and wide it sounds like someone is smacking their sneaker on the pavement or something.  Anyway, that took a little under 48 minutes. I came in 12th overall and 2nd in my age group.   It was a really great course and brought back some memories once I past the Point Mac area from the ITI.  Lesson#3:  I will most definitely return to race it again next year.

Comments

Jim said…
Congrats on a great race, despite the difficulties! Would have been fun to have you at the wedding reception too - but priorities!
cheers, jd
Phil said…
Yeah felt bad for leaving, it was hard to go after the wedding. Definitely spread myself thin this weekend.