Im still ALIVE!!!!

Well the tri is over now and I feel pretty good. Here is my post race wrap-up!!!!

Winning time for the whole event was 1:02:32 my time was 1:26:51 which gave me a finishing place of 99th overall and 11th in my age group out of roughly 300 participants. So its not too shabby a finish for my first tri in 7 years. Yes 7 years. SO here is the tour in pictures. Also I would suggest clicking on some of the pics for a better view. Enjoy!


Here I am at the start of the swim. If you look close you can see me in the lane on the far left all the way at the top crouching down getting ready to enter the water. Yup thats me with all kinds of ambition and oh guess what I just realized??? I forgot to use my inhaler at all. Yes its at this moment that I realize that breathing is going to be an issue for the next hour and a half. IF you look really closely you can see an expression on my face that basically means "oh crap im an idiot!"


Ok just keep looking for the purple swim cap b/c thats me. They totally botched the swim start and really didnt release people well. This can be seen by the fact that their are 6 swimmers in this shot including me. This is not the way it was supposed to be. And as a result I got pretty beat up in the water.



Here I am a few meters later coming to the wall and getting sandwiched by a couple of other swimmers. The one on the left im trying to pass and the one on my right is trying to pass me. This was just not working.



Here I am basically stuck because their are too many people around me and I cant get under the rope to get to the next lane. However it is a good pic of me treading water waiting for a path to clear. If I look annoyed its b/c I was.


This is a great shot of a guy I just passed trying to swim over me. WOW that was fun.



Ok so the swim is over and here I am coming off the bike. IT was soooo freaking cold that I could not feel my fingers at all. My second transition was awefull almost 4 min in the transition area b/c I couldnt do anything. I had to get sara to unbuckle my helmet b/c I couldnt do it and some random guy saw me struggling to get my shoes on and offered to tie them for me. IF he had not done that I would not have made it out of the transition. To look at the pic you wouldnt know that it was like 28 degrees outside but it was. I just wasnt prepared for the cold.


Ok here I am at roughly mile 3 of the run (a 5k is 3.1 miles) I felt surprisingly good during the run and really cranked it out despite being really tired and thanks sara those gloves totally helped me feel better. I loved the run course it snaked throughout the miami campus and was really fast. SO that was a great way to finish.


Speaking of finishing heres the line. WOOT! I did it!!!! SO thats the tri in pictures. All in all im happy with my finish. It was my first in a long time and a good learning experiance. Also it helped me identify my weak link which is the bike right now and I feel I can improve that quite a bit. like a lot. SO thats cool. Im already pumped for the next event which I have not found yet but am totally looking now. Again thanks to everyone who has supported me in this process through gear help or just a kind word or even those few who came and froze their booties off to watch me. Thanks everyone your great!

Cheers!!!