Hammerfest Triathlon

This race is best seen in the bookends.

One bookend- my wife is primarily responsible for setting up the registration materials for the race, assigning numbers and waves, and so on. She went to drop off the registration packs at the race venue at around 10:30 PM the night before the race. She comes back at 11:10 PM- and tells me there's a mouse in her car (it had been living in a friend's shop vacuum used to blow up the buoys). Guess who was on mouse patrol.

Other bookend- Sunday afternoon, after a few hours to recover and a big (for me) lunch, I did my 90 minute run, to try and salvage the day. About 45 minutes in Depeche Mode's Precious was up on the iPod, and that run, in searing sun and heat that brought a thick haze to the shoreline, got good really quick.

http://www.plattsys.com/results/res2008/hammer.htm

I had to wait for Ian to wake up, then get him dressed and ready to go to the race. So I got there a little late, there was no one to watch him as I searched for a rack or racked my stuff. By the time I got in the rough water, it was 7:20, 10 minutes before race-time.

I was not ready to swim in the chop. I needed a good 10-15 minute warmup, and that didn't happen. That's my fault- as a result, I had a slow swim. That's all there is to it- it was slow.

I came out of the water right behind Steve Surprise, who started 3 minutes after me. We had roughly even transitions. I rode him down somewhere around the hill by Tom Girard's house. I then worked my way up on the first loop, then the chaos began. The second loop is full of first-loopers from other waves. Usually, you still pick up plenty of people in the second loop from your wave, but two athletes I know suggested that maybe the large group of people from my wave in front of me were taking advantage of one another's pace. Who knows ? I did not catch enough people on the bike.

I had a good run. I took out about 15 people, but that only worked me up to twentieth place. I ran by Joe Whalen, and he encouraged me to get my ass in gear and catch the people in front of me, some of whom I did.

Bottom line- I raced poorly. It felt like my second race of the season. It looked like the second race of my season.

I had a good run in the afternoon. That made me feel a lot better. Sunday is a half-ironman, and there, I have to race well.