St Anthonys weekend

St Anthonys Triathlon kicked me in the face and stole my lunch money on Sunday morning. It was a good time nonetheless. The conditions were windy, warm and humid. The swim had a mild chop to it but nothing too terrible. I had a good start and felt like I swam well, coming out in 20:31. This put me first in my wave and onto the bike. There were not many people around and I passed a few men from the M3034 age group. Only one rider from that group passed me. It was very windy and we had a terrible headwind for the first 2/3 of the race. I opted to grind out a big gear and thought my fitness would allow me to do that and still run well. It was a calculated risk that did not work well this time around.

I finished the bike in 1:03.33, still in front of my wave, and started the run. The legs were heavy and controlled breathing was difficult. The first mile held together, but my form and ability to lift my legs in any fashion resembling running was out the window by about 2.5 miles. I turned around at 22 minutes and would have liked to stop there. I am in good shape…for a sprint triathlon, but not a windy, hot Olympic distance race.

The 2nd 5k was an exercise in pain management. I gasped my way to the finish with a 48:35 10k split. Not my best day. 3 or 4 guys from my age group passed me in the last 1.5 mile of the run. The preliminary results placed me 11th with a 2:16 flat.

We hung around for awards and social time as Bri raced pretty well and scored a 10th in the elite amateur women, which is great. After that we took off and later found out that I had moved to 10th in my age-group. So not a bad day when you put it all together.

It was great to see a lot of our Floridian friends and family. We finished the weekend with a few drinks at the post-race festivities on the water.

I drove to Miami on Monday morning to spend some quality time with my dad. We played poker on Monday night (and lost), and then went fishing this morning (Tuesday). We did not have a bite but we had a good lunch afterwards.

I’m now making my way back to NC via a pitstop in Ormond Beach with an old college buddy of mine. Tomorrow night I’ll be back to grinding the grindstone with Kung Fu and Masters swim practice.

That is all.