Sunday, August 30, 2009

Best Weekend Ever




We woke up bright and early (or I should say cloudy/raining and early) to drive down to Presque Isle for the annually huge Triathlon. It was pretty crappy weather while we were driving down, raining and pretty cold I thought. When we arrived at the Park, there were so many people already in transition. After signing up and the body markings, we set up our transition. Two things started bad for me. One, I grabbed the wrong pair of swimming goggles. Two, I forgot my race belt at home. Luckily, Kevin Park had an extra race belt and I raced with that. But, I had to deal with the goggles that always let water in. It wasn't that bad though.

Before the race, everyone had their wetsuits on and everyone was ready to go. It was raining and cold. Instead of the race directors to hurry up and get the race going, they sat there and talked forever about the course and every turn there was. So instead of my race starting at 8:00, it started at 8:20. My wave was huge. There had to be over 200 people. The start of the swim was chaos. I thought I was going to drown. Every time I tried to take a breath, I was kicked in the face or slapped by someone else's hand. After all the chaos, I found a groove and started to pass other racers. I didn't feel the best on my swim but I managed to get out of the water in top 15. The bike was great. I had so much adrenaline from the swim. I started passing quite a bit of racers during the start and middle. In the 12.6 mile bike loop, I averaged around 25 mph. I was about 5th in off the bike. During my transition, I probably had the fastest I have ever had. I was out of transition before the current fourth place racer, which put me into fourth place. Right out of transition, I knew I was going to have a great run. I soon caught and passed the racer in front of me, and I moved up to 3rd. At the turn-around cone, I was close to 30 seconds behind the second place runner. Unfortunately, I was unable to catch him, but I closed the gap to 15 seconds behind at the finish, and I ended my run with just a hair over 22 minutes for 3.5 miles. I ended up finishing 3rd in the 39 and under wave with a time of 1:06:42. Kevin Park soon came in the finishing shoot with the fastest time. So in the end, I finished 4th overall and 1st in my AG. out of around 350 people.

Dad, Uncle Scott, and Aunt Carrie all had fantastic races as well. Dad finished his race in 1:10:10. He said he had one of the fastest runs after the bike portion that he ever had, avg. around 6:45 miles for 3.5 miles. He ended up finishing second in his AG and 14th overall. Doug Sedivy finished 3rd in their AG. It's always really fun to watch my Dad and Doug race because they are such good friends, in yet, they are so competitive with each other; in a good way. Great racing to watch! Uncle Scott raced phenomenal again. Not really sure what his finishing time was, but finished 3rd in his AG and 24th overall. Awesome job!!! Aunt Carrie looked great as always in her race. It must have been very chaotic for her in the beginning because the women's group had to start with the 39 and under wave, which was huge! She blasted through that and had a fantastic race. Anyone who ever raced the Presque Isle Triathlon has seen how many people come to race, rain or shine. Even though it was raining pretty hard, everyone came to race and their was alot of competition. I can't wait to race it again next year.

After the Triathlon, my family and Uncle Scott's family all drove back to Doug's cabin to eat, fish, and spend the night. I love staying there because it is in the middle of nowhere and it's so peaceful. After a huge meal........Nick, my cousin Jake, and I took the canoe and paddled down river to try and catch some river fish. After a couple miles down, Nick casted out and caught a good size smallmouth bass, but Nicks drag was too tight and unfortunately the bass snapped Nick's line. After that, we didn't catch anything. But, it was a blast trying to paddle back upriver and trying to make it back up the rapids (which we totally failed to do). When we came back, we all took a trip to downtown Franklin. There, we ordered two huge pizzas. When we came back to the cabin, everyone had pizza. I ate so much during that day, but it was worth it. Afterwards, the whole family, Doug (who is our second family) and his two friends; we all sat around the fire, until it was late enough for all of us to hit the sack.

This morning, we had breakfast over the fire and it was the biggest breakfast I probably have ever ate. French Toast, Bacon, Ham, Sausage, Eggs, Toast, it was huge. Hey we have to treat ourselves right? All and all, this had to be one of the greatest weekends I have had in a long time. This was our last Triathlon of the season and now.......................Bring on cyclocross!

2 comments:

Dad S said...

Perfect ending to a great weekend.
Congrats to all of you!

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