The First Tri of 2009!

This weekend was brutally cold and rainy not the most motivating environment to race. However if you race long enough you are going to have to race in tough conditions, it's inevitable. I hope this was our "bad weather weekend" for the year because I was in complete resistance to racing the day before until Duncan, a fellow triathlete and one of the happiest guys I've met came biking up to our house, back from a two hour ride all excited about the race the next day. Did he not know what the weather was going to be like tomorrow? Of course he did, he is just one of those guys that can put a smile on your face with his enthusiasm and excitement. That seemed to knock me out of my funk and I all the sudden became excited to race too (thanks Duncan).

I needed that kick in the ass because the next day there was a cold, cold rain with a high of 2 degrees. It took everything in me to drive to the race site but once Amber and I were there the excitement of the race took over. All of these first timers were so excited! It was definitely contagious and I started to plan ways to keep myself as warm as possible out there. I wanted to keep my transitions short but I knew I was going to freeze my butt off if I didn't do a little planning. I had a long sleeve jersey I was going to put on coming out of the pool and I was definitely wearing socks and gloves. I'm glad I did because the gloves seemed to keep my core temperature just above hypothermic, a lot of other people out there were shivering as they were riding.

I had a fairly good swim (for me) coming out of the water in 10th in a time of 8:02 for 500m. I must have made up quite a bit of time because I don't remember anyone passing me on the bike, I just wanted to be done as quickly as possible and get out of the cold. I finished the 17kms in 30:37 (including transitions) and had the fastest bike of the day. I jumped off the bike and ran as fast as I could but I couldn't feel my lower legs for the first kilometer and it was difficult to tell how fast or slow I was running. I saw a few fast guys out there but I wasn't thinking about racing I was just trying to get through the 4kms and get back in the warm leisure centre. I finished the race in 52:26, 1st overall and the second win in two weeks! Great start to the season and all the hard training over the winter is really paying off now.

Big congrats to my beautiful wife as well, she sucked it up and battled the cold and won with a time of 1:01.56! Great job babe!! We both won another pair of running shoes, a triathlete can never have enough of those.