Another great weekend is now 'on the books'...

On Saturday, we were all fired up about going to the RTW 5k. It has been 2 weeks since the last one, right? Ahh, but something failed to register. The race is the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month. Doh. So when Tessie and I showed up, we were disappointed to be the only ones there. Tess was looking around the starting area, wondering why we were alone. I was going to bag the run, then thought, "we're here, we're gonna RUN IT!" So we did. Tessie came in 1st place dog, and I finally got my 1st place finish.

Sunday brought the Tejas Triathlon. Having signed up for it only 6 days prior, I had ZERO training going into the event. But I DID show up well ahead of time to get set up. You might recall what happened last year when I sped to the event at over 100 mph. Here's the funny topic from last year: Tejas Triathlon 2008

So this year, I was punctual. "Hmm, I wonder if I can just stuff the bike into the convertible?" Wheels in the trunk. Yeah, it's doable:


Horrible mess, big pile of stuff in my transition area (last year)? No way baby, my little piece of real estate was tidy and organized! Yea:



Nice venue, super triathlon weather:


The swim was really no big deal. Hmm, that's a first. I didn't inhale a quart of water right at the beginning of the swim (last year), and it seemed that there were very few people kicking me and very few being kicked by me. What's up with that? Swim was good. I didn't get passed by anyone, but I passed a bunch of people.

The biking was good. I got passed by a BUNCH of folks! My bike is prolly 25 years old and my body much older than that. I have no idea how much the fast riders are benefited by riding the ultra-modern (read very expensive) TRICK bikes. It's probably a mix of modern equipment AND training. Imagine that. It was funny, I was pedaling along thinking, "this is a 19-20 mph ride". I came upon one of those automatic speed displays on the side of the road to make drivers conscious of their speed. There was a car coming past on my left. The sign read "32 mph", then "19 mph". "Ahh YES, I'm doing just fine". Funny.

The run totally SUCKED! That's unusual for me. I just couldn't find my 'land legs' after ditching the bike. It was bad from the start. I was walking at times. I was spent and just couldn't get the job done. Perhaps if I had trained. Mental note to self.

My swim was 12:37 for 600m (6 seconds slower that 2008), the bike was 21.7 mph (19.1 for 2008, YEA), and the run pace was 8:33 (7:32 in 2008, BOO!). Total time was 1:15 Pretty cool being done with this before most people open their eyes!

In all, I saw about 5-6 people I know. I wanted to get a group picture of 4 of us, but people didn't want to be photographed. Whatever. But Cassie was OK with it:


Cassie JAMMED with a 10 minute PR (personal record for you non-runners)! Great job on that! Overall, I'm pleased and had a great weekend! Now I need a work week to recover! Whew.

Tejas Triathlon Report....

Disorganized! Terribly disorganized. That pretty much sums up my tri outing last Sunday. Somehow, I didn't leave for the event early enough. Having left home at 5:30, I drove to Sugarland. En route, I recalled that the race starts at 7am and the 'transition area' closes at 6:45am. So I'm realizing that I'm going to be late and that I'm about to get shut out of the transition area due to my tardiness. I drove pretty fast and luckily didn't get lost or have a run in with the coppers.

I flew into the parking space, whipped the bike out of the trunk, tossed the wheels on (of COURSE the chain was all wadded up around the front sprockets and required my clean hands to intervene...chain is filthy greasy, needing maintenance). You've never seen anyone pump up tires as quickly as I did....NASCAR teams would scramble to hire me!! I crammed as much of my stuff into my little tri bag as I could and draped other items around my neck and HAULED over there (vagabond triathlete!)....into the transition area with 1 minute 'til closing! It was quite the site! Most people have an organized area beneath their bike that has their gear logically spread out, as you can see in the random tri photo that I swiped from the internet. My stuff was just dumped in a big pile in a very crowded transition area. I lacked safety pins to secure my racing number to my shirt. I scored some and the "transition police" would not allow me to re-enter to pin my number to my shirt... (where's my rolling eyes emoticon?).








There were a LOT of people and I was almost anonymous, but did see my friend Katy and her husband. The lake was nice, the venue was nice. My swim didn't quite go as planned. Of course there was no shortage of me kicking people behind me and being kicked by people in front of me. I inhaled a huge chunk of lake water very early in the swim, not good! That kinda set the stage for the rest of the swim. I again found myself breathing to the left every rotation of the arm, 'single-stroking'. I was just kind of 'clawing along' in the lake. After the turn around at the end of the lake, I began to regain composure. The 600 meter swim took me about 12 1/2 minutes...not too bad, not too good.

The first transition (switching from swimming to biking) had me digging thru the big pile of stuff that I had tossed on the ground. Of course I had to pin my number on my shirt and search out one lost sock....very poor transition time, 3 1/2 minutes, most did it in under 2 minutes.

The bike was good, I thundered pretty well, averaging 19.1 mph for the 11 mile course. The run felt pretty good, although really tough, not for the timid! I don't know if the run course was short, or timing is in error, as I don't think I ran as fast as the results indicate. But I'll take it anyway!! (Bowing to the crowds, "thank you, thank you") Run: 22:36 at a 7:32 min/mile pace. Overall finish, 22nd out of 44 in my age group, 1:08:18.

[BEGIN RANT] One quick RANT, while I'm at it. I'm 44, NOT 45! Apparently, USAT (the triathlon sanctioning body) NOW lists your age that you'll be on December 31st of the year! Good grief, don't be giving me an extra year that I haven't yet earned, or deserve!! AND they drew 45 on my arm and back of my leg! THEN they stuck me in the '45 and older' class. I'm only 44!![END RANT]

Great event, great venue! I'll do this one again!