whew!

Whew. That sums up how I'm feeling tonight after all of our antics over the weekend. Had a nice swim on a gorgeous Saturday morning in Wrightsville Beach for the Pier 2 Pier swim. I got out with the lead pack and hung on...for about three minutes. :P then realized that I needed to slow down or roll over and go belly up. Found a nice rhythm and finished in about 40 minutes flat, which put me 6.5 minutes behind the men's winner, a fella named Chas Peterson, who swims for UNC Chapel Hill and apparently was 13th at the Olympic trials for the 10k open water swim. So, OK.

To translate that into running terms, you could say that the winner is a guy who can run a 28 minute 10k, so as a training race he might run 29 or 30 - being 6 minutes behind that time is still a respectable 35 or 36 minute 10k run. Not bad, right? I will optionally neglect to mention the dozens of teenage girls who also soundly whipped me out there. It was fun either way, saw a bunch of folks we know, and I got 3rd in the M35-39 age group.

Drove home, packed up, picked up Bri, and then we headed off to VA Beach. Visited the Final Kick Sports shop to pick up our packets for the Sandman Triathlon; it is a nice tri-shop with shoes, wetsuits, bikes, and all the other stuff.

Had dinner with one of my athletes and then we headed to Sis-in-law's house to crash.

Back up early, off to the beach to do the Sandman Tri. I wound up having a good race - 3rd in the swim, moved to the front on the bike and held the lead until the end when Brad Pigage caught me; held 2nd until mile 2 when another fella passed me - almost finished 3rd but a strong runner came from way down and put 30 seconds into me in the last half-mile. My swim was good, bike was better than expected - run was about where I thought (painful, uncomfortable, belly flab flabbing about) but the heat really zapped me. Also think the run was a little long. Wound up being 5th overall (an ager beat me by 3 secs) which makes me happy after having a less than competitive 2008 season.

And more importantly, I beat Bri in the 1st annual showdown or throwdown competition. She was 1.5 minutes faster on the run, and won the women's division, but she didn't beat me. :) Just kidding honey, great job.

That's it - coach tomorrow AM, swim tomorrow PM. I may look into doing one more local tri since I feel good.