Saturday, June 24, 2006.

16 out of 72 overall
7 out of 35 in the 30-39 group.

This was a race that I was initially planning on attacking hard. But some last minute tickets to Friday's Red Sox game meant I would not be rested very well, so I had a good excuse if things did not go well. The game ended up being delayed an hour due to rain and we did not get home until 2 AM. My allergies also decided to kick in pretty hard, giving me another nice little excuse.

So I slept as long as possible and showed up at the race 20 minutes before the start. Get everything setup as quickly as possible and it is already time to hit the water, did not want a warm up anyway. I started the swim with my normal poor form trying to overpower the water instead of working with it. After a few minutes I calmed down and started using my best technique, which still leaves much to be desired. I swam straight for the most part and came out the water around 15th.

The start of the bike really hurt, the lack of a warm up crept back into my head. It rained the entire bike leg, but it was warm enough that it really did not bother me. For the most part the bike was pretty boring. I passed a couple guys, and couple passed me. Ended up coming of the bike still around 15th overall.

The run was spent pretty much alone on the way out. Aaron and his children were out on the beach just before half way cheering us on. That was nice because not many folks were out there due to the weather. On the way back I got to see all the runners behind me going the other way, that really helped mentally not feeling alone. Near the end I could hear one person closing in. I picked up the pace to try and hold them off when I notice it was a teenager. The end was very narrow an rough, so instead of risking a crash I backed of and let him go first. If it was for position in my age group things could have been interesting.

My time ending up being just over 1:10, which is exactly what I thought I would do. I would like to say the late night and allergies cost me a couple spots, but the 6th place guy was three minutes ahead. Probably more than I lost with my excuses, oh well. One interesting note, over half the field was in the 30-39 age group, no easy podiums for us thirty somethings.

Other locals spotted were Joe Z sporting the Team Pinnacle colors and Brian Bishop (from Newport) competing in his first ever triathlon.
 
[img:7c60f52a7e]http://www.team-pinnacle.org/albums/bc_personal/120x90.png[/img:7c60f52a7e]

Nice job Brian. You looked pretty strong on the run even with the allergies. It looked like some very good competition in the front of the pack. My kids got a kick out of cheering everyone on, although they were split between doing that and catching tadpoles. I at least got them to concentrate on cheering when we saw Team Pinnacle colors go by.

Aaron