Fort Richie Olympic Triathlon

Sunday morning, my alarm goes off at 3am. I force down a bowl of Cheerios and my friend picks me up at 3:30am to head down to MD for the Tri. We stop at Sheetz to grab a cup of coffee and there are about six drunken people ordering their 4th mean. Bastards.

My eyes hurt so bad I had to keep them closed the 1:15 it took us to get to Cascade, MD. We parked, went inside to get our numbers and get body marked. My eyes were starting to feel a little better. I was set up in transition before the sun even came up. It was cold outside. I took about a mile warm-up run and finished setting up my transition.

The swim, a 1500m (.9 miles) was a two loop course in a small lake. In the pre-race meeting the race director told us there was some undergrowth but as long as you didn't freak out and continue swimming you would be fine. That was a joke. There was so much undergrowth I felt like I could have put my feet down and it would have held me up, or pulled me down. It was in my mouth, around my goggles, arms, legs, and it kind of freaked me out once or twice. I managed to start passing people though, and finally got into a rhythm and finished in 32:25 (58/156).

The bike course was just stupid. We came out of the complex and started climbing, then it got really steep and climbed some more, for about the first two miles. Then we hit the downhill. That was a lot of fun. I was going 40mph without even pedaling. It's too bad I don't have that extra 60+lbs on me because this dude FLEW by me doing at least 45mph. At least I know his fat-ass would have a hell of a time going back UP that hill. (on a side note, so did I) 1:23:56 avg 17.0mph (62/156)

They told us the run was flat in the pre-race meeting. BULLSHIT! We basically snaked around the old army base twice. The hills were not long by any means, but there were 3 of them. Times 2 laps equals one every mile! My friend that I went with passed me at mile 3. I tried to keep up for as long as I could but he's a runner. So am I, but he's a faster runner! He averaged 1 min per mile faster than me. 52:57 8:32/mile (41/156)

My final time was 2:52:56. Not too bad considering the lake monster trying to eat me and all the hills on the course. Needless to say we will NOT be going back to this race next year. Two girl finished in front of me. Not TOO bad.

On a totally unrelated subject, I built a set of corn hole boards on Saturday and sewed the bags and filled them with corn yesterday. That was my arts and craft project for the weekend! I also finally hung my flat screen on the wall last night! Living room is DONE!

I finally remember to take pictures!