Nantucket Hero Tri report

So clearly I did not drown during the swim. In fact, it turns out that the water was so shallow that I could have stood up at any point. I'm not making this up, we had gotten word from the Sprint racers the day before that it was really shallow and they had basically walked it the whole way. This picture is a good indicator:

Baywatch Nantucket?

 Ok, now stop checking out her butt and look way off into the distance. Notice how no one is swimming? Yeah, it's that shallow.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Wednesday before the race I picked up my bike from Fast Splits where they gave it a great tune-up, fixed my loose head gear and put on my brand new racing tires. Now I was ready to race! By the time I got home from Newton though, my truck was less than enthusiastic about the upcoming trip to the Cape. Actually, my truck was smoking from the rear wheel. Not a good sign. It looked like it was some axle grease coming from a leak so I brought it to the shop where they told me it would be done on Friday. Yeah! And then they called me on Friday and said it was much worse and wouldn't be done until next week. Which left me with no ride to Hyannis the next day. Long story short, thanks for the extra stress! But I found a ride.

Naturally the night before the race I was all sorts of manic. Unlike other races though, this time I had a house full of people as an audience to watch as I obsessively went over every detail of my race prep and needlessly stressed out over the fact that my bike was in a tennis court 3 miles away and I couldn't do any last minute checks on it. Aargh. Somehow I accepted this fact and went to bed around 10PM. And fell asleep around, oh, never, pretty much. I hate that.

6:30AM and it was time to race. Everything was laid out in transition and I began to put on my wetsuit, which I managed to rip twice while doing so. We walked down to the water and started wading out when my wave was up. I had no idea what to expect at this time but I felt like I was ready for it.

That's me third from the left, ready to dodge the sharks

As I said earlier it was shallow. At first we walked for a bit until it was finally deep enough to swim, then we all just dove in and swam. Not much to say about the swim except that I found it hard to get in a rhythm so I kept breathing every second stroke and that I was way too far outside. Otherwise the buoy came up surprisingly quickly and I eventually made it back to shallow water. Once my hand hit the bottom I got up and ran/waddled and started pulling off my wetsuit, which was sort of a mistake because it was like 100 yards from shore and it got deeper in the middle there. But I bounded out of the water in 23:24 and passed Mel and Michelle on the long way back to transition.

Now about that transition; I'll just leave you with my T1 time, 4:23. You could say I was being cautious about making sure I had everything.

Off to the bike and I was determined to do well. And did I ever! I got out there and started passing people like it was my job. The roads were quite good and there were only rolling hills at worst. After the first out portion I got into a pace with another guy and we kept trading positions. It was great because it helped me keep up my pace and spurred me on to stay focused and quick. The bike portion was by far the best part of my race and I think I did a good job of making it fast enough to move me up in the rankings without killing my legs for the run. Total time for 25 miles was 1:37 which was the 16th best bike of the race!

Here I come into the turn around, looking good

The one part on the bike I did not plan well was hydration. I drank way too much in preparation for the run. T2 went much faster and I ran out of it preparing to kill the run. All that fluid in my stomach though was sloshing around and man was it uncomfortable. But I soldiered on and set a nice pace that I thought would give me a good time. Actually, I found that besides the stomach issues I was feeling pretty good going into the run. At this point I knew I was doing well and being that running was my strong point I was confident in a good performance. Of course it then promptly started to rain which turned into a deluge which left some great rivers and lakes all over the road. I'd already been wet once that morning though so why not twice?

Other than the forming cramps in my legs, which thankfully held off, tho only part of the run that worried me was the second half of the first loop. It was different from the bike route and I found myself all alone running down an unfamiliar road. The volunteers had told me to go this way so I just kept running, getting more and more worried that I had made a mistake. Finally I came up to a water stop so i knew I was on the right path. I grabbed some water and kept running when I heard her call out to me "Go left! Sorry!". I quickly veered left and was back on track. An uneventful second lap ensued and after 48:10 I was crossing the finish line and had completed my first triathlon! My run time was a bit disappointing but I felt that I had done well overall.

Turns out that I did better than I had expected.The official times came in and I had placed 18th overall and 2nd in my age group. Shocking to be sure, but pretty awesome too.

 With the work done it was time to enjoy a week on Nantucket. Nothing but beaches and the Cisco brewery.