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!

Lorain Triathlon

Sorry everyone about not updating my blog lately. I promise it will be updated more now that cyclocross season is almost here. But, today was the Lorain Triathlon. Uncle Scott, Dad and I drove down together and arrived there 2 hours early. After a short bathroom break, we drove to the local Convenient Food Mart store and bought some coffee and Joe Palmer's Half & Half iced tea/ lemonade. When we came back, there were already people starting to put their things in transition. So we took all of our bikes and gear out of Scott's truck and set up our transition.

The water was pretty cold when you first walked into it. But, the further you swam away from shore, the warmer it got. Shouldn't be the opposite way around? The waves were pretty powerful during the swim and I ended up 5th or 6th out of the water. After the swim, we had to run up a hill to get to transition and Eric Gibb was telling me that I need to make up quite a bit of time on my bike because there were quite a few racers ahead of me. I had a fast transition and jumped on my tricked out Scott TT bike and took off. Right away, I was passing the racers that were ahead of me on the swim. About 2 miles into the bike, I passed the racers that were ahead of me and I thought that I was in the lead. But, I found that I was in second by seeing the lead police car quite a ways ahead of me. I ended the bike in second place and avg. around 25 mph. After the bike, I had another fast transition and I took off on my run. Doug and Nate from the Bike Authority tent said the guy that was ahead of me had about a minute gap on me. Crap. About a half a mile into my run, I was feeling great. I felt like I was sprinting. When I turned a corner, I saw the leader about 30-45 seconds ahead. I kept him insight the whole half of the run. At the halfway point, I was only about 5 seconds behind him. A half a mile or so later, I caught the leader and we ran together for about two football lengths. I picked up my pace and it was fast enough to pop the racer I just passed. I was finally in the lead and I came across the finish line with a time of 1:03:43 and a victory. I put about 10 seconds on the racer I passed too; I felt great on the run.

Dad soon came across the finish line with a time of 1:06:39. The racer that finished seconds ahead of him ended up getting 3rd overall which meant Dad placed 4th overall. He probably had the fastest bike split I'm guessing because Doug told me that it wasn't long after I finished my bike, Dad came in. So he must have been motorin'. We both said that we will probably be having upset stomachs now because we swallowed lots of water today because it was so wavy and dirty. Plus we didn't race with our wetsuits either for the purpose of the swim being pretty short. Scott had the best race he ever had in my opinion. He finished the swim with a great time. He wasn't really used to the beach starts yet but he managed to escape the school racers that kick u in the face every time you try to take a breath. Scott said he felt great on the bike and he ended up getting stuck by a train for a couple seconds. He had a smokin' run as well and finished with a time around 1hr 09min and some odd seconds. He finished 1st in his age group as well and had the 1st place spot by over 6 minutes. Most likely in the top ten also. Awesome job Uncle Scott!

Great day today and this weekend is the Presque Isle Triathlon, which will be the last one of the season. We are leaving Friday afternoon with Uncle Scott and his family and camping out in Presque Isle, racing the next morning, then going to Doug Sedivy's cabin to fish and spend the night. So hopefully the weather will be good next weekend.

Peace

GCT..........

or I should say GCD (Greater Cleveland Duathlon) for the second year in a row. When I woke up this morning, I could hear the howling wind. After loading up the truck, it started raining. I was very upset because now, the swim is going to be cancelled because of the dang wind. So when we got to the race, it was still raining; very hard, and windy. About 15 minutes after we put all of our gear in transition, they called the swim off. Instead, we were change the triathlon into a duathlon. For the international distance, it was going to be a 5k run, 40k bike and a 5k run. For the sprint, it was a 2 mile run, 12 mile bike and another 2 mile run. Dad, Scott and I did the international distance. My first run was around 18 minutes. My first mile was around a 5:30 something, and when I saw that time, I tried to tell myself to slow down a little bit because the bike course is pretty tough. Dad and I train on parts of the bike course, so we have a little bit of advantage. The bike was hard, as I was expecting. Windy and of course, hilly. I averaged around 23.2 mph for a hilly 40k course. My transition from my bike to my last run was very fast. For my second run, I felt the fatigue in my legs and my torso area. Also I was starting to get a stomach cramp so I had to control my breathing better. Every water station (there was two), I grabbed water and poured it over my head and down my one piece. It started to get really hot and it was difficult to get a good breath. I ended up finishing in 6th overall and 1st in my age group with a time of 1:44:36.

Dad raced awesome as well. He had a very fast first run. His bike was also great averaging around 22 mph. He ended up finishing second in his AG. The guy who came in first, finished one place ahead of me in the overall standings. Dad looked great today and there are some pretty funny pictures that were taken by my Mom. But we are just saving those. Uncle Scott and Aunt Carrie raced great as well. They were both really competitive in their classes and for Aunt Carrie's second race, she did awesome. Scott is getting better every race he does and he will be in the top spots in his class next race for sure. Great job to everyone who raced today. Thanks goes out to Mickey for another great year. He puts on this race and does great. Thanks again Mickey.

Late.