Loveland Lake to Lake Olympic Distance tri

greetings race fans,
Lake to Lake. The water was warm even @ 6:30am. This was the big TnT race and there was purple everywhere. And lots of RMTC jerseys too. Rockin'. It seems odd. ! passed Charley 2 or 3 times. Never saw him pass me and yet there he was. ! think he was cutting the course. Actually he was up there taking pictures and cheering us all on. ! know ! was up @ 3 this morning. Charley couldn't have gotten much more sleep. There he was. What a guy. For his efforts he did get to see the 2 best entrances to T2. Me of course, doing my 'cross dismount, over the curb and up the grass. ! heard him yelling, but ! was too blown to look around. !'ve seen him before. The best one was the lovable Iron Denny. The bike finished in the parking lot. The dismount line wasn't painted on the blacktop. It was a curb with a short grass run-up. It's important to get unclipped before the line. Denny didn't and from what ! hear spent a few seconds upside down. Don't tell him ! told you. Luke got the best time overall for the whole team and 5th in his age group. Luke...5th? What's up w/ that? ! was too hungry and confused to listen to the results too closely. ! did hear Jenna got 4th in her group. Good job. Jonathon Nixon only placed 3 ahead of me. That was about 6 minutes faster. ! did 2:48. ! would have won the Athena class. My swim went fairly well. ! saw a few red caps pass after the last buoy. Those were girls who started 4 minutes behind me. There's a long run from the beach to T1. Through transition fast then ! baubbled my bike mount. ! couldn't get my feet into my shoes. !'ll have to practice that. ! got a few miles out and decided it was time for a gel. ! had taped it a little too high so it didn't open. ! had to bite down on it and yank it through my teeth. Brute force gets the job done. It's just not pretty. ! tore a big hole in the pack and spewed half of it on my arm and elbow pad. That stuff is sticky. ! wiped as much as ! could on my shorts. Post race they were all crusty and stuck to the hair on my butt. Ouch. That was one hilly ride. ! averaged 21.4 mph and maxed 45.2. Another fast transition and ! was on the run. 6.2 miles. ! felt fast. Well, faster than usual. It was probably a good thing ! lost my HRM last week. The legs actually felt good from the start. ! could sense they wanted to cramp up a couple miles in so ! had to monitor that. Sunny Gilbert got by me on mile 4. She's so slow it took her that long to take 20 minutes out of me. ! ran the whole way. ! even subtracted the 4 minutes from the official time while wobbling after the finish. Those finish line volunteers sure are nice. Two of them held me up while they repossessed my chip. After a drink ! crossed the street to quietly watch the rest of the finishers. Just the ones who started in waves behind me and didn't catch up. The popsicle girls came around. They all had braces and colorful rubber bands. ! had to chastise one for alternating clashing colors. Off to feed. Yon looked @ my age on my calf and asked if that was my IQ. Yon, Yon, Yon. My IQ is @ least twice my age. Just ask my Mom. That's what ! always do if ! don't have a calculator handy. There must have been 30 or 40 RMTC and TnT people there. If you weren't there. Why not? Trish Downing was there. Roberta was there helping her out. Don't know Trish Downing? Click here http://www.trishdowning.com/index.html to see why she rocks. There are a couple bits 'o' wisdom ! thought of today. !'ll share them with you now. Don't pee when you are swimming w/ the current. That's not one ! learned from experience thank you very much. The other one is LIVE w/ passion. You are not going to live forever. You're not even going to live long enough to waste any of it. !'ve got a friend who likes to remind people that you aren't going to get out of here alive. Any one of us could be done tomorrow. Take a lesson from all those people that TnT is racing for. They know life is way too short. Today is the day you are alive. Have a great day.
Doug!!

Not Broken

Last weekend (6.11.5) was Big Sky Du. Tanner got to race this time in the Elite division of course. It seems he's still having calf trouble since he ended up walking part of the second run because of it. The way ! like to think of it is that ! reminded him ! would be only 30 seconds behind him and he got scared and pushed a little too hard. He looked good on the ride when ! saw him though. My wave included our Steven Wright and about 30 other guys who all ran faster then me. Actually, ! did a 7:30 pace so !'m not the slowest. The slowest runners where weighed down w/ their walkers. The bike was fun. ! had decent speed on the way out even into the wind then haulin' ass all the way back. 2nd run was a 7:40 pace. ! got 20th overall on the bike and 45th overall. Poor Steven was enjoying the headwind so much he decided to ride 2 miles past the turnaround before coming back. A couple minutes after ! finished and got over the gasping for breath leg Steve Kovisto trotted across the line to win his age group again. That would have been a serious stomping if he hadn't started 10 minutes behind me. http://www.racingunderground.com/bigsky.html
Yesterday (6.18.5) ! completed my first full length Xterra race w/out a stretcher. Dave Farmer and ! were the only RMTC members there in Bailey. Dave broke 3 hours as he had hoped. ! didn't break anything as ! had hoped. ! did bring home the 2nd place medal for the 55-59 age group. !'ve done 3 MTB rides since Keystone last year so my bike handling skills were not what they should have been. Switching the semi-slicks for real knobbies would have helped some. One of the girls thought ! was a great climber. ! thought she was delusional. The trail run was a beating. ! tried to run more than half of it. ! made it down the steps by the waterfall ok then managed to twist my ankle and fall down. In front of a girl too. ! got up and started again and twisted it again. Not long after that ! managed to trip over my own foot and hit the trail again. The run needs work. The 1 mile swim in 60* water was not bad. ! got out seconds after the fastest girl. They started 5 minutes back. ! didn't think ! was working that hard until ! got on the bike and discovered my lats were toasted. Dave got 41 male and ! got 69th. Results should be available at http://www.youtriit.com/exec/youtri/buff_creek.cfm?publicationID=197 The medal is for Al Marvin since he had to leave early. He got 4th @ Alcatraz and was planning to race 5430 today. Don't forget to read Yon's Florida 1/2 race report that ! posted w/ his permission. and my latest blog http://2001abikeodyssey.blogspot.com/ Doug!!