Mass State Tri Race Report

Oh man. I so want to take a couple of weeks off from racing. But at the same time. I walked down my stairs yesterday, saw my Tri bike with the race number still on it and thought,"Oh that was fun, I so want to get out there and rock again."
Reality being, if I don't give it a rest for a couple of weeks the only thing I'll be rocking is the outer core of this hole I'm in.... as in past the mantel, core, earth, rock....nevermind


I'm pretty glad the rain subsided right as I was waking up at 5. Held off all morning until the skies opened back up in the afternoon. Wasn't even as humid as I was expecting it to get. I have to say that so far I haven't had a race with bad weather. (Well Putney was really rainy, but it was a mountain bike race after all)
As i was setting up my transition area, and putting my bike in the very cool white wheel holders Max Performance supplies, I chuckled to my self as the two people next to me had garbage bags covering their transition layout. I mean seriously? If it's going to rain your crap's gonna get wet any way... Keep it simple

Another week, another late Tri start. Plus another heart stopping rendition of the National Anthem sung by a vocally challenged 7 year old girl. Plus this time we had to watch all the sprint race waves head out ahead of us. Thirty minutes after the scheduled race start we were in the water, off and away.
Going out and pushing it harder through the swim seemed to feel pretty good this time around. Things were going well in the water (I was tracking much better this week) until I ran into backstroke guy again. Frickin' Ass. He wasn't as annoying when he was going straight doing the crawl. But then he'd flip over (I could tell because I caught glimpses of his feet and was thinking,"man that is such a weird movement. not a natural looking kick, oh, wait, is he...who the hell backstrokes? Oh man it's this jerk again...how'd I end up near him two weeks in a row....I need to start swimming faster...") he'd flip over and start backstroking right across my newly aligned straight as an arrow path. But after a couple minutes of that he'd roll back over and swim straight. Straight toward the same buoy I was headed to. Ending up swimming way too close to me. Oh, but then he'd flip back over and swim into me...Dude, seriously?

Any way, out of the water. On to the bike (past the transition setups still covered with G-bags). Over the bumpy pavement for the first few miles. Past Pat Cronin (Wheelworks Swim coordinator). Up the mile long hill. Down and around the weird side road turn around (which was actually kind of cool, because you could see how many goobs were ahead of you. And I'm taking fast goobs that could beat you. Not the innumerable goobs that were doing the sprint race and not the ones that I lapped my second time around, those are a different bread of goob.) Past Nick Normandain. Past speedo boy (yeah he was wearing soccer shorts again, someone buy him a Tri kit). Along the down hill. Passed by Nick, kind of. Around the right hand turn that I didn't think Nick was going to take so I hit the breaks in anticipation of him going straight through the interesection. (he turned right) Saw mom. Hauling along the awesome flat section. Past third place. Up the hill. Weird turn around with a look at the leaders. Downhill. Ripping fast into T-2. I always half ask my self if I really am going too fast into transition and I'm gonna jump off the bike into some funky half stumble/fall/run thing. But come on, seriously? that's not gonna happen.

Way too long of a run with the bike in transition as we had to run the length of transition area twice to make the entries/exits even. It was really fun whipping my bike around and tossing the rear wheel into the white bike racks. Def different than just hooking the brakes on the rack.

I saw the parents on my way out of T-2 and gave a little wave. I didn't want a repeat of the running disaster at Old Colony, and so tried to hold it back for the first mile. Which more or less worked. But I quickly settled into the chasm of the 6-minute mile curse. (or slightly under: 5:58ish) Yeah, that's okay, but we all know it's no 5:30. Stupid running legs. I did pass a TeamPsycho member, and that's always fun. I was closing in on the guy up in the lead too (Murry McCutcheon)....until we reached the first (of two) little turn arounds. Guess I was too close for comfort and he kicked it up. I had no response and was pretty happy to hold on for second. Sure would feel nice if those legs felt like they could pop and be snappy. Of course if your legs feel good you're not going hard enough right?

Overall it did feel like a really good effort. I couldn't have left a whole lot more out on the course. I might of been able to push out some seconds on the run if I was fighting for it. But I'm pretty happy with the times. Fastest bike split, second fastest run behind old Murry, and not insanely far behind out of the water, which is all I can ask for there.

Results are: Here

Hardware: None (they opt not to give medals and award shwag instead)
Shwag: Fuel belt for first place in the Elite division (this is my third fuel belt won as well as my third fuel belt that will go unused. Sweet. At least this time it's not a size small, that one was way too small for any normal sized athlete. And athletes don't run big)
I also won a big bottle of Hammer Gel (apple cinnamon) and a water bottle during their pre-selected raffle. Add the water bottle in the registration packet and it's a two bottle day, which is totally awesome because my overall laziness bites hard when I forget to washout and dry my waterbottles. The results being a fresh lining of nasty black spots in each sun baked nutrient rich mold breading heaven aka the inside of my waterbottles. And you know that crap is not only pretty gross it's wicked hard to clean off. I must have ten bottles from this season alone that are on the 'Do Not Use' shelf. Any one got any good method of cleaning them?

Shirt: Boring. Undoubtedly destined for the rag pile.