Racing like a rookie at the 2010 Santa Fe triathlon & it's race report

Today I had decent times, made a few rookie mistakes, & was blessed by God.

It was a run 1st, & my goal was to keep up with triathlete extrordinair Jamie Despenza... I failed. Dang he's fast! But the effort I put into trying to hang with him had me finish the 5K run in 22 minutes & change. Rookie mistake #1 of the day, I realized half way through the run I didn't have a good pre-race BM, yes, you read that right, & yes I'm putting this up on my blog. I post all my good & bad racing & training here. Perhaps someone else can learn from my mistakes, or have a good laugh.

I hopped on the bike feeling pretty good about my performance so far. I did a flying squirrel mount, clipped in, & tried peddling. My bike was was still in the biggest gear, I almost fell as I was trying to peddle & down shift! That was rookie mistake #2.

I had a good bike ride considering I'm a horrid hill climber & this course had a lot of long energy sapping hills. I finished the 20K bike in 40 minutes, knocking off 2 minutes from last years time. I did a pretty decent rolling dismount going into T-2. 3 steps into T-2 my rear tire popped. & that's where God was so gracious to me today, flatting just a few minutes earlier would have ruined my race! Thank you Lord!!!

Rookie mistake #3, I ran into the wrong bike rack lane. After I finally found where to rack my bike I ran to the pool through the longest transition area I've ever seen! It was as big as IMAZ's transition area!

Rookie mistake #4 was I tried diving into the pool with my goggles on. Apparently this is something a person needs to practice because my goggles were down around my lips when I resurfaced. After readjusting my goggles to protect my eyes rather than my tonsils I started swimming....hard! There was a triathlete 3 body lengths in front of me who was a better swimmer than I , & I've been getting pretty good at catching peoples slip stream & drafting off of them. I was able to catch him, it just about killed me, but I caught him. I was able to draft off him the entire swim, on the last 50 meters I tried passing him, once I got even with him I ran out of gas so I tried drifting into his lane & doing a little bump & grind. A little physical contact while swimming usually freaks people out enough that they slow down. Not this guy, without missing a stroke he thew a well placed elbow to my face. Wow, this guy was strong & poised. I was impressed. He not only pulled me along the entire 400 meters, but he also was a good full contact swimmer. We both hopped out of the pool & sprinted to the finish, he beat me by half a foot. While they were taking off our chips I saw on his leg that he was 61 years old. Wow again! I was schooled by a member of AARP!