Oh yeah, 5 Star.

My last race of the '08 Triathlon season was FIRM's 5 star triathlon in Douglas, MA. If this sprint went really well I'd continue on and do Firm-Man the following week in Naragansett. But, I'd have to feel pretty sharp for my plans to change.

Rainy Boog camping the night before didn't offer the best night's sleep. But it was nice to see dry, albeit cloudy, skies when I got up at seven for the very civilized nine o'clock race start. The swim course looked awesomely short, the bike course had a couple steep pitches that took me by surprise, (mainly because I didn't pre-drive the whole course) and the run was up on the way out and down on the way back.
After doing a slew of Olympic distances races I was kind of taken aback at how short the swim and the run was. And with the run being an out and back it was nice to go by people on the home stretch (as opposed to be slogging along by my lonesome).

I hit the swim hard and tried to get out of the water as fast as humanly possible. Which turns out is a minute slower than the lead swimmer... A minute slower over a 5:25 swim course. 20% slower... That's just not a good.
But it turned out that there was only one person ahead of me and I reeled him in on the bike. I could see him on the straight stretches and was scanning transition for him as I made my way to the rack. Just at the last second I saw him....sitting down....tying his shoes. In an effort to heckle I asked a volunteer girl,"Is that guy tying his shoes?"
Needless to say my transition was significantly faster and it was a good thing he gained a minute during the swim because he let that bird fly like a homing pigeon on the eve of the Battle of Valmy.
But I didn't stay ahead of young buck for very long. He and his safety-pinned race number caught up to me just before the end of the first mile, and he stepped it up on the steepest pitch and opened a little gap.
Probably the best part of the day was right before we reached the turn around when a small dog came bombing out of the bushes and proceeded to nip and bark at the buck's sock clad heals. (yeah he was wearing socks too) Oh that made me laugh. The dog, not the socks. The dog was on it for a while. A good 10/15 seconds.
Uh, I finished second.
I got some more HEED (mandarin orange this time)
And I got another medal with the spinney part in the middle.
Tri season is over and it's already time to think about what's going to happen next year.