Tinfoilman Photo Finish

Simply put, my best tri ever. I felt strong throughout and finished with my best bike, run and overall time. Some pictures (link), my Garmin data (link it is kinda goofy because I forgot to start it until I was down the road a bit and didn't stop it until a while after I finished) and the overall results (link).

My historical data:

Date	Swim	Bike (Transition)	Run	Total
10/02	19:00	50:22	32:51	1:42:13
10/03	18:43	45:31	32:50	1:37:04
3/04	18:03	47:25	33:10	1:38:38
10/07	18:25	42:12	28:03	1:28:41

Collier and I carpooled as he is the guy with the dual bike rack on his car and Tina and the kids were coming down alot later. We racked the bikes and laid out our gear which is a whole process in itself. Most people put down a towel and then spend about 20 minutes obsessing over exactly how to lay out their gear for the quickest transition. Next comes the body marking. Unfortunate volunteers write your race number on each shoulder, the thigh just above the knee and put your age on the back of your right calf. I can only assume that the age thing is there to motivate you as you go around chasing people older than you. I saw an 80 (!!!!!) year old women getting out of the pool and paced my bike for a lap off a 72 year old man who damn near dropped me on the speedway climb from euclid to campbell. The should make anyone over 65 wear an eyepatch and carry a parrot.

The swim is first and we were in the 3rd wave of swimmers to start around 7:20. The idea is that they group you by your projected swim time so that each wave will finish roughly on a predictable schedule. The wave before ours was mostly the relay groups which featured several little kids that were swimming super fast. The lady in my lane in the prior wave was the last one to finish from that wave so I didn't get to do much warm up and was in the water about 90 seconds before the start. Collier who was all amped for a good swim time must not have heard the starter say that we had 15 seconds before start and decided to do a 50m warmup. Our lap counter and I screamed at him but to no avail. They started the race about the time he was at the far wall 25 m away. Obviously he caught up to and passed most of us but I don't think got the swim time he was capable of. I swam fine, felt strong throughout I'm just not very fast. I also constantly lose count of how many laps I've done. I popped up and asked 2x and was off by 2 laps each time. Getting out of the pool was not too bad even though the ledge is very high and the arms are kinda burning. I got to the the transition area and was just putting on my socks when Collier left on the bike. I put on shirt, socks, HRM, sunglasses, helmet and bike shoes pretty quickly and was on the road about 1:30 behind him.

I never did even see Collier on the road and I think we were both riding a really good pace (for us of course). Lap 1 was fine, it only takes a few hundred yards before you settle in, feel dry and find your pace. It's slightly downhill for the first bit which is nice to shake everything loose. Euclid going north was horrible, they seem to have patched over the potholes with series of Mexican topes. I rode behind the old man on that lap and he set a good pace. Looking at the garmin data I kept my average speed over 20 mph on the descent parts Campbell and Broadway and over 18 mph on the ascent parts Euclid and Speedway. I think in the future I can do better on the bike, I would love to get it under 40 minutes which would only be about 10 seconds faster per mile. Very doable. I also need to remember to not give Jackson '5' when I ride by at 25 mph. I can't believe his hand didn't break.

Back into the transition area and I was racking my back as Collier was heading out on the run. This transition is pretty quick as you just have to drop the helmet and change shoes, a quick drink from the bottle and off you go. The first 1/2 mile is literal hell, legs feel like lead and its sooooo hard to get a pace going. Most people look like some form of duck when they get off the bike to run. Collier forgot his belt that had the race number they pull at the end to mark your time so I threw it in my shirt pocket and hoped to catch him later. We basically ran from the pool area over to Cherry, up to the mall and then did 2 laps around the mall from Cambpell around Old Main. Tina and the kids were out at the Campbell end kicking the soccer ball. Its crazy how much it helps seeing freindly faces out on the course, it really gives some kind of adrenaline boost. I was only 20 yards behind Collier at this point and starting to close. Jackson was jogging with me so I had him take the belt up to Collier. Sophia even ran with me which really made me think I could kick up the pace. I think I passed Collier about 3/4 of a mile into the 3 mile run. I didn't see him again until the end and looking back I should have looked back more to see where he was. I ran a comfortable pace but never even looked at the watch to see how fast I was going. The course wasn't marked for distance at all or I never noticed where it was but the visual of going around the mall twice was plenty to roughly guess where you were. I passed alot of people from earlier wave that were doing the run/walk thing. A couple of them were huge and frankly props for getting out there. Coming up to the right turn to Cherry to finish a lady passed me and said 'lets kick this' or something that is lame but sounded inspiring at the time so I sped up a little. About 10 seconds later Collier comes by saying something about 'footsteps' so I try to push a little harder to keep up with him. We chased the lady to the finish and he had a great kick in the last 100 yards to get past her. I didn't have anything left and we finished each 1 second apart.

For the overall this put me 3 seconds behind Collier but he lost at least 30 seconds with his goof at the swim start.

I felt better after this race than ever before. Partly I'm in much better shape and partly being able to have someone to chase really helped.