Well, unlike Brian I was certainly not in top shape for this race. Amazing what having a new baby in the family does! Just to be sure no one misunderstands me I love my new son Jonah to death! Training does tend to suffer, however........

In any event I knew this was going to be a shakedown race more than anything else. I hadn't so much as dipped a toe in a body of water bigger than a bath tub in 6 months. This year's bike odometer sat at a paltry 53 miles. I've logged 25 miles of running. Only bright spot is teaching spinning classes 3 times a week. Yep it was going to be interesting to see how much technique and experience can compensate for lack of training.

[u:d1673cb806]The Swim[/u:d1673cb806]
Well the old experience thing didn't kick in for the swim. For whatever reason I decided to duke it out with the main pack in the "aqua scrum" that occurrs at the beginning. Big mistake! I really exhausted myself fighting in that. If I was in better shape I could have fought through and gotten ahead, but not this year. Luckily the technique took over so I could maintain a steady swim cadence but it was a slow, tired go of it. I ended up dropping 3:05 off of my swim last year. I dragged my tail out of the water at 12:42 (last year was 9:37).

[u:d1673cb806]The Bike[/u:d1673cb806]

Although the splits didn't reflect it I actually improved from last year on the actual biking portion. I averaged 19 mph, which was over 1 mph faster than last year. Thank you spinning classes! My class participants at Newport Fitness underwent a lot of torture for me to squeeze out that extra 1 mph (let's hear it for hills and sprints!). Where I lost more time was in the first transition. I was so stinkin' exhausted from the swim ( I really did mean it when I said I hadn't swam for six months) that I had to take a drink, gather my wits, stretch my shoulders, decide if it was really worth fighting with my wet socks (after some deliberation I decided it wasn't), etc. Let's just say my first transition was at a leisurely pace. Once I finally got going the legs kicked in well and I managed to improve my speed on the bike course as previously mentioned. Saw Brian coming back down Route 10 about 2.5 miles ahead of me. The damage was done, though. I was now about 5 minutes off my time from last year going in to the run.

[u:d1673cb806]The Run[/u:d1673cb806]

The run was uneventful. Brian and I exchanged pleasantries as I was about 3/4 of mile into the run and he was headed towards the finish. I actually knocked about a minute off my time from last year - about 30 minutes this year vs. 31 last year. Not impressive, I know, but all I do is survive the run. A reconstructed knee tends to do that to you.

[u:d1673cb806]Conclusion[/u:d1673cb806]

I crossed the finish line at 1:26:48. Considering the fact that I hardly trained at all for this, dropping 4 minutes from last year isn't too bad. With new baby at home every race this year is going to be a little tougher with training time scarce. Next stop - the Fairlee VT triathlon on July 9. Its approximately Olympic distance so we'll see how that goes. I guess I better get in the water pronto or else the 3/4 mile swim is going seem like swimming the Atlantic.