Cannon's 7 and Sarah's 10 and they're already better swimmers than I am. Ruidoso was a hard course for a kids tri (it killed me) and they rocked it! Couldn't be prouder.
Nora and I and the kids spent the night at the host hotel the Holiday Inn Express. Sarah wanted to know if they had a train there (I think she equates Ruidoso with snow, Polar Express the movie, you can see her logic, right?). Took this pic and couldn't resist posting as well. I know there's some kind of law that nobody ever thinks your kids are as cute as you think they are, but my blog, my kids, my posts.
Anyway, the race weather was perfect. No wind, no clouds, moderate temps. I don't think there's a flat area anywhere in the village of Ruidoso. The only thing flat about the course was the swimming pool. I did the same race last year and apparently I have a very selective memory. Bobby Gonzalez, Gretchen McElroy and Brooks Vandivort are all much better triathletes than me but were all asking me how the run route was. Due to my selective memory and fact that I had averaged an 8:30 pace last year, I told them it wasn't bad at all. I was wrong.
They reversed the route this year to make it USAT compliant and twisted the end of the run around and it was tough, very tough. It was basically a trail run on a trail on which most people wouldn't even think of trying to run. I was satisfied with my effort though and due to the fact that they started us Clydesdales with the ladies, I was able to judge pretty well where I was. I tried to keep Gretchen in sight for as long as I could and after that I got passed by only 2 Clydes.
Smoked transition to my bike and hit the road. Nora said I looked like a completely different athlete from last year at this event - maybe because this year I didn't clip into my pedals at the start of the bike and immediately fall over! One lady did (sorry ma'am, I was there, know how it feels). Flying down the hill towards the road that runs to Inn of the Mountain Gods. Long, steady hill climb for 2-3 miles past the lake by the Inn and then the turnaround. I was looking for my main man John Gardea because I knew I was ahead of him but didn't know by how far.
I saw John hauling butt about 1-2 minutes after I made the turn. By this time I was going back down that long, long hill with the wind at my back and was flying. I was going so fast that when I hit a little pothole, my brand new aero bottle went flying (again!). For those of you keeping track, that's two races in two weeks and two aero bottles lost. Expensive hobby.
Anyway, I kept going as hard as I could. There were two Clydes in front of me that I knew and i passed one on the long climb heading back into the transition area. He was walking his bike up the hill. As far as I knew, there was only one clyde in front of me. I knew I probably couldn't catch him since my swim sucks but I figured I could stay ahead of John b/c his swim isn't any better than mine. I figured 2nd place would be awesome because they give out actual carved bears to the winners in the groups.
I got in the pool after a long ass run from the transition area to the pool across a side hill parking lot and street and across what can only be described as dorm-room carpet scraps laid end-to-end and into the pool. The pool swim requires you to swim up and down each lane 4 times, get out of the pool and be magic markered by a lady standing there, and then back into the pool for a repeat of the same. Then you take your happy self out of the pool and run across the aformentioned carpet samples to the finish line.
I was about 2 laps in when I saw John come in. I managed to keep those two lanes in between us the whole way and ran to the finish. I was happy with my effort and waited for the results. After a while, I found out that I got 3rd in the Clydesdales. I knew about the one guy that was ahead of me but had no idea who else it could be because only two guys passed me during the run and I caught one of them. Nobody and I mean nobody at all passed me on the bike so I was perplexed. But I was happy because I figured, I'm top 3, I get a cool bear!
Wrong! Epic fail on the race's part. Apparently, the race decided that since they were giving out such cool finisher prizes, they would only give them to the top 2, instead of normal top 3. That means yours truly got a nice pat on the back from his friends and no stinking bear. To top that off, Gretchen and Bobby rocked the course and up until the moment they called out awards (and even a little after in Gretchen's case) they didn't even show that either Bobby or Gretchen had even finished the race.
Oh, and I finally saw the guy that finished first in Clydesdale in 1:07. Looked about 19 and Nora said (and I agree) no way is that kid over 200 pounds. So for the record, those are Nora's sour grapes and not mine (but again I agree with her, as a good husband should). 2nd place was 1:17 and I was 1:20. 3rd out of 15 Clydes. I'm happy with that.
All in all a good race, a great weekend with my wife and kids and life is good. Bonus is that it should have been good training for my 3rd race in a row this weekend, the Chick-Fil-A tri in scenic Amarillo. I'm actually looking forward to this one as I've gotten emails this week from the run coordinator, the swim coordinator, the bike coordinator, and even the transition coordinator (didn't even know there was such a thing) telling me in exquisite detail everything about their respective realms. They must put on one hell of a show. I'll let you know.
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