Force 5 Team Race

The annual Force 5 Sports sprint triathlon was this morning at 10:00AM.

At 9:50, I checked my iPhone because it was move in day at UNH for the college students. Long story short, after making great use of new features in the mail app with the iPhone 3.0 software I realised that I sent my staff in at 10AM, and they were supposed to be there at 9AM.

I was already worried. Move-in day is already one of the super-high stress days at UNH. Absolutely stratospheric stress, everyone is moved to alternate locations to do there jobs so it can be one stop shopping for the students.

For me getting in the water when I'm already stressed out is about the only thing I can do that is actually physically dangerous. I wanted to take off my wetsuit and bolt. The race was starting late, things at work might be a disaster. I'd run 2:15 yesterday in the soaring heat. I was asking for all sorts of trouble.

Then again, my phone hadn't rung. Everyone has my number, my staff is great (maybe late, but great).

I got in. I swam. Maybe a tad slow, but not so bad.

I got out just ahead of Henry Brown- a super athlete. The race is a 'handicapped' race, meaning we start in waves based on ability. I was in the seventh wave. He was in the ninth two minutes behind me. I preceded to give up 20 seconds by inexplicably going the wrong way on the first turn.

Always the gentleman, Henry made getting into his shoes an ordeal. We traded places on the bike three times, then he finally pulled away, but he was my rabbit the whole ride and of course it made me have a faster split.

I saw him head out with Dave Ellis, the other guy in my wave, starting their run as I dropped my bike in the grass. I started running hard, knowing I needed to catch Dave as quickly as possible. Other teammates also started to come back to me and I actually had a great run.

Of course, I missed the post-race party, because I did ride straight home, shower and drive into work, and judging from the pictures, it was a great time.

Oh well, I had a great time too.

I put together another solid, low-stress swim today and I climbed the ladder up out of the water with the mission accomplished. Regardless of how I rode or ran, I was going to be happy.

Kudos to Steve and Scott Casper for making the party and race a big success.

Mossman Triathlon

I'm not much of a race spectator. I usually save my spectating for really big races like the Ironman (I've been on the sidelines at both Placid and Florida), or the Pfizer triathlon. And I'll be honest.

I don't like it. I'm like most athletes, I think. I want to race. As the bikes go whizzing by you it's hard not to think 'there, but for the grace of a babysitter, go I.'

It's only harder when your thought process is 'How can we see Mommy the most times on the course ?' and your son's thought process is 'there's a playground, there's a playground, THERE'S A PLAYGROUND DADDY.'

The Mossman course is set up for good spectating. The point to point swim can be walked faster than people swim it so we were able to see Mommy both go in and then come out of the water. We also saw her head out on the bike and go out for the second lap. Finally, we saw her twice on the run, once going out and once more at the finish line.

Clearly though, the two-loop bike course is a challenge on the second loop in the park where the lanes are tight- bikes are everywhere and clearly staying left and other concepts of safe racing are lost on quite a few riders.

Given that I was chasing my Ian around, it was hard to really know how the race was going. I assumed the Ian (Ray) had straight-up won the race, but I later found out that while he did have a great race and notch a win, he was actually second finisher. Margit seemed to be having a good race but when you start in the fifth wave it's hard to tell.

I got a chance to talk to Don Gustavson after the race- he had a great race, by the way, as far as I could tell- and all I can say is good luck on that mountain bike race. Sounds like a great opportunity and a lot of fun.

I talked to several other triathletes that will be up at Lake Placid either to do the race or spectate and that's where I'm headed.

I'm excited to be headed up there, even if it is just to watch...

Also- a shout out to all the Force 5 athletes that had great races- Dave, @poycc, Margit, and Scott Casper.