Jason McClure passed me with authority just passed the half way point of the bike. He immediately got a flat on his rear tire, continued racing regardless of the flat tire & put even more time on me with a flat! Amazing performance!
Rob Lovit had a bad crash about a mile into the bike. He ruined his front wheel & had some pretty bad road rash on his hand, back, shoulder, & leg. It took him a bit to put his bike & wheel back together enough to be able to ride again, but as soon as his bike was able to be ridden he was back into the race pushing himself as hard as he could. Even with the crash & the pain from his injuries he was able to ride himself back into a 2nd place Clydesdale finish. Another amazing performance!
John Gardea, one of the most consistent & most improved triathletes in the SW series took 1st place Clydesdale. The clydesdale division is going to be one fierce battle this year & I'm looking forward to watching it as it unfolds.
Brooks Vandivort took 2nd place in the age group 35-39, which is my division. He's ahead in the 35-39 age group in the SW challenge series. He's getting faster with every race. He has absolutely crushed my course PR's at every race he's done this year.
Ross Martinez showed up & raced at the Mesa Valley triathlon after not racing for almost 10 months. His time off from racing sure didn't seem to slow him down any. He took 3rd place in the 35-39 ag.
Valentine Ramirez who has beaten soundly in 2 of the races I've competed in this year took 8th place in the 35-39. Turns out his weakness is swimming. Even though he's far superior to me on the bike & run, he struggles enough in the water I may be able to finish ahead of him in the SW series- as long as he doesn't improve his swimming much.
I had a great run finishing the 5K in 23:42 averaging a 7:38 pace. I had poor bike time of 49:11 in a 25K averaging 19 mph. I had a really poor swim time of 10:19 for a 500 meter swim. I finished in a time of 1:23:10 taking 5th place out of 9 in my age group & 32d male overall out of 133.
The 5th place this weekend gave me another 5 points for the SW challenge series, I now have 23 points total. I'm in 3rd place in the south West Challenge series 35-39 Age Group behind Brooks Vandivort & Val Ramirez. My next race will be the Holloman duathlon. Both Val Ramirez & Brooks Vandivort are registered for this race, and since there's no swim in the Holloman duathlon I'll probably be finishing behind the 2 of them. Hopefully I'll be able to find a race or two this year that the 2 of those beasts aren't going to be at, because the 2 of them keep getting farther & farther ahead in the SW challenge series with every race we do together. Since 2006 I've finished in 2nd place in the SW series twice & 1st place 3 times. This might be the year that I get beaten up & humbled. I'll do my best, but I be honored to be beaten by either one of those guys. They are great people & honorable competitors. Looks like this is turning out to be a challenging season! I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
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