Stealth duathlon 2008

At today's Stealth duathlon there were 6 Outlaws. Carl, Mark, Naomi, Karen, Greg S., & myself. Mark was the fastest Outlaw of the day taking 2nd place overall. Mark, Naomi, Carl, & Karen took 1st place in their divisions. Greg took 2nd. And I took 3rd in my first ever race as an AG (more on that later). My cousin Chris took 2nd in his AG & 4th overall in a field of 64. He had the 2nd fastest bike split of the day. I wanted to give a shout out to Jason McClure. He took 2nd place Clyd in the SW challenge series last year. This season he showed up having lost a ton of weight. He's taken 1st place in both of the races he's done as a skinny, 6 foot 6 inch Clyd. He finished today in a time I'm guessing was around 1;22. His bike split was screaming fast. No one deserves it more than him.

The day was a little chilly, probably low 60's. But it felt much colder because of the wind. The wind was blowing a good 20 miles an hour. At the run start I was looking at Jason McClure wondering if I'd be able to hang w/ him today since he'd lost so much weight. I wasn't racing today as a Clyd for the first time in my tri career. I'm racing in the 30-34 ag, but once I start a revelry like Jason & I have I'll always compare myself to him. I was also looking for a fellow blogger Juan Braino. He's currently 1st place in the South West challenge series 30-34 Age Group, the age group I'm competing in now. I have competed against him one other time at the Sully's Super Sprint in 2007 & it was a battle. He & I kept passing each other on the bike over & over again. I ended up coming into T-2 half a bike length before him & pulling away for the win in the pool. But that was his 1st race, he's more experienced & faster now. I never did end up seeing him today. I'm not sure if he raced or not. At the start of the run I took off fast. You see, I've always been a faster runner than most Clydes (excluding the 2 regional clyd legends Brian Pilgrim & Arnold Ciniceros) so I try to get far enough ahead on the run so that I can not give up enough on the swim & bike to stay in the lead. I felt a little slow on the run. I finished the 5K in 24;45, that's slightly under an 8 min mile. Last year I did just under a 7;30 per mile. I was ahead of Justin, but unsure of how much. At T-1 I had an average transition & started off on the bike. I saw Justin coming into T-1 about 2 minutes behind me. That's not as large of a lead as I would usually need to finish the race ahead of him. Once I started on the bike I noticed immediately that I was powerful & fast. Much better than I ever had before. For the first time I was passing people left & right! I couldn't count how many people I passed, but I can tell you only 1 passed me the entire race. That was a shock. I've never been much of a cyclist before. I figure my speed increase was from dropping almost 50 lbs since Nov. I ended up finishing the bike in 55 minutes & change averaging over 20 miles an hour on the bike for the first time ever. My previous bike PR was on a duathlon that had a bike course of only 9 miles long. This race was 30K & still with double the distance & w/ very windy conditions I kept up an ave that was .7 miles an hour faster than my previous PR. Not to shabby. I can't wait to see how my times increase when I get to my ultimate goal of 190 (approximately 25 lbs lighter than today, yes, I did gain about 10 lbs during my 2 week taper & 3 days of carb building). I finished with a total time of 1:19 taking 3rd place at my first race as an AG. Even better was that I finished 13 overall! I ended up keeping my 2 minute lead on Jason that I had built up on the run.

This race has always been one of my favorite races, next only to the Atomic Man Duathlon & the Buffman & Squeakey Oly distance tri. I've always loved this race because its one of the flattest courses in the South West. On flat courses I can utilize my Clydesdale power without being hampered by my weight. I usually finish well at this race. As a matter of a fact this was the 1st race I had ever taken top 3 in the clyd div back in 2006. The RD's at this race has always been the wink link. They've always struggled doing things like starting on time, getting the race results out often 4 hrs after the last racer finishes or not at all, not having the course marked, etc. Today everything was handled impeccably. There was even an amazing pasta dinner served at the awards ceremony. I'll definitely be back to race again at the next Stealth.

Thanks for tuning in, I'm out!

Oh, if anyone knows if Juan Braino completed this race, & what his placing was I'd be very grateful if you'd tell me. He's going to be very tough competition. I'm looking foreword to it.