"You're Not Finished Yet! Keep Going!"

That's the refrain I heard at the finish line of the Cap-Tex Olympic distance triathlon from spectators yelling. I had just managed two "kills" (passing someone in my age group) in the last mile of the run after kicking up the pace from about a mile out. I saw those guys, one with 46 on his calf and the other with 45, pass me and I resolved to keep them within reach. When I got to where I thought I could sustain a push I caught them too quickly and thought "great, now I'm in their sites and they'll be gunning for me." But I held them off with a good kick and ran the finish stretch, turned the 90 degree right turn under the Finish line arch and crossed the red chip timer pad. I thought, ah, done, oh man, stop running and stretch the arms out…. Then the yells came from the crowd that I WASN'T DONE YET! Apparently, the initial chip pad lets the announcer know who's coming to the finish before you get there. I still had 40 yards to go and I immediately kicked in the longest, fastest strides I could manage and held off any overtakers. It turned out that one dude in my group was 3 seconds back, another was 10 seconds and 4 more were within 1 minute.

My final time was 2:37, 8 minutes off of last year's time and I've never felt as good after a triathlon as at this one. The time came from 3 minutes off the swim and 5 minutes off the bike. I felt that I went real hard on the bike and that may be why I only equaled last year's run, but running is still a challenge. Even though I was faster this year, I dropped 1 place from last year at 25th of 75 in a much faster field.

Our friends at the event did great with Jim Mosely gaining 2nd place in our age group (2 of 75) with an awesome performance. The dude in 1st must be lying about his age with a time almost 5 minutes faster than Jim. Jason Soria took 7th of 147 in class with another awesome run (and he was disappointed about it) and Gary Zimny beat 3 hours.

This was a rather hot race and it was steamy from a pathetic attempt at rain during the bike portion. The swim in Town Lake was uneventful, although the pre-race instruction said keep all the bouys to your right and neglected to say that the last one was to be to your left. I accidentally went too far inshore and was diverted back out to mid-river for the final mark rounding but lost only 30-40 yards.

At T1 I grabbed all my gear and was pretty quick getting out but forgot my Hammer Gel packs. I knew I needed that nutrition for the run so I turned against traffic and went back to my rack to collect 2 packs. Because of that I went hard for all 4 loops around town with rain on loop #3 that dried quickly and didn't slow me at all. By loop#4 the different class's starts were really starting to crowd the lanes and passing other riders was constant.

Going into the run I had enough energy to pass runners taking the steps out of T2 by leaping the wall around them. I felt good and kept a solid pace up to the last mile where I found the kick. All in all, a very fun event and no injuries.

Next up, a light workout June 11th at the Metroplex Sprint Triathlon here at Joe Pool Lake. Then, a big one, the Buffalo Springs Lake Half-Iron Triathlon in Lubbock. This race will determine where I am in my training. My friends got me all worked up about "the hills" but after seeing the profile, its half of what we do on any Saturday workout. I think it'll go well. We will have a very large group heading West, it should be fun!

Mileage for this week:
Swim 6.4 miles (1500+2950+3000+2800) strong
Bike 146 (25+32+19+72) good
Run 17 (3.1+1+3.3+4.5+5) weak, due to knee on Tuesday after race