Chick Fil A Sprint triathlon race report

So this Friday I'm driving the 7 hours to Amarillo so I can do the aforementioned tri. Had my kids the night before and I have a 2 day trial starting on Monday so i was a little in a hurry to get going. I felt a little guilty taking off to go do a triathlon when I'm picking a jury on Monday but I worked hard all week getting my case and client together so what the heck right?! HOLY CRAP is that a long drive! Especially by yourself. Especially when you get a speeding ticket in a one building town with decreasing speed limit signs every 50 feet called Elida (warning - if you are anywhere near this town, there WILL be a sawed off little redneck in a 1990 vintage pickup waiting to light you up - I saw him twice). The drive gets even longer when you realize ,oh, about 6 hours into this 7 hour drive that you forgot to bring anything to wear to race in. Oops. If Amarillo didn't have some kind of sporting goods store open late, I was screwed or would have to race naked and nobody would want to see that.

So I get to packet pickup a whole 5 minutes before they shut down and luckily the pickup is at a sporting goods store that actually sells tri gear! Solved that problem. New problem - race starts at 7:00 a.m. Which is good because it's cooler, but bad because it's 7 central time and el paso is mountain. Transition opened at 5 (4), which means I need to get up at 4:30 (3:30) after driving 7 hours. I really enjoyed the race but I'll never do it again unless I go up at least a day earlier. I was exhausted.

That being said, what an excellent race! 1st class all the way. I got lots of emails before the race began, everything was organized well, precious little bad to say about it.

As far as the race itself, Swim was 10 minutes. 400 meter seeded swim start. Not too much mosh pit. Gotta work on my swimming. I was 2 minutes slower than just about everybody in big boy bracket. Bike avg speed was 20.1 and I had fastest bike split of clydes. Big wind for 3 mile so happy about the bike. Got off bike and right calf cramped up hard. Run was 24 mins. 2.9 miles.  Flat, flat course all around.

Felt better on the swim than I ever have. Didn't stop once, stayed consistent. Didn't stop at the wall and let people go past me which is first time that happened. Just slow. Gotta figure out how to pace myself faster without blowing up on the swim.

Ended up 2nd in Clydesdale category again finishing behind a 31 year old "kid" that looked undersized to me.

I wish they would bring a scale to the starts of these events. I've done 8 this year and nobody's been weighed ever. Let's keep everybody honest out there!

Next race isn't til July 9 which is good since I've done 3 races in a row. If I make it through this trial, I'll try to write about something other than boring race reports.

Sickness and Future Plans

Just when I think no one's reading my musings, several people asked me where's my race report on the Dog House Sprint. Well, no race report because I didn't go. I call it the curse of saying "I never get sick." Took my assistants to lunch for administrative assistant's day and commented to one of my girls who gets sick a lot that exercise has helped me stay healthy. Famous last words being "I've never gotten sick since I started training for triathlons." 3 days later I sneezed and my wife, who is closely attuned to my every mannerism, said "are you getting sick?" I never get congested or need to use tissue. Suddenly I did.

Long story short, got double pneumonia and didn't train for week and a half. Started to feel better on May 14 and ran a little bit but didn't think I would be anywhere close to ready to go for an open water swim in 54 degree water so cancelled. Bummer. I learned from my friends Cody, John and Brooks that the weather was windy and cold in Lubbock so it's probably good I skipped it. Although I also found out there were no other Clydesdales entered into the Sprint and I would've taken first place just by showing up and finishing, but oh well.

I was still feeling bad enough that I skipped the Braden Aboud 5K on Sunday even though my wife and 2 of my kids did it.  It is one of my favorite races and the race that I broke through on last year and set a major PR.  I still felt sick enough that I didn't even resent or feel bad seeing all the happy racers around me. My hot ass wife even set a new PR of her own breaking 30 minutes for the first time! My 7 year old son and 10 year old daughter did awesome as well.

Next up for me will be the Milkman Triathlon in Dexter, NM on June 4, followed by the Ruidoso Tri on June 11, and then Chick-Fil-A tri in Amarillo on June 18.  Back to back to back. I should be in shape again by then. My overriding goal is to do well in the El Paso Tri in September. I put in a poor effort last year and want to redeem myself.

My run has held up well. I biked this morning and felt good. So hopefully, I didn't lose too much fitness. We'll see come June 4.