Lake Minnetonka Tri (A newbie Clydesdale's Perspective)

Well, my first tri is under my belt. (Lake Minnetonka Triathlon 1/2 m swim, 15m Bike and a 3m run)

Race Morning: I'm pretty excited and I didn't really know what to expect so I showed up to the transition area way too early. I looked around at a few set ups and got an Idea or two how to proceed. Well that's done. Now what am I going to do with the next two hours, It helped that I only live a block from the transition. I was able to go home and kill an hour and a half (like I said way too early) drinking coffee and watching some TV. After I was good and jacked up on caffeine I walked down for the pre-race meeting and then off to the beach. I saw a lot of people going for a warm up swim so I decided it was a good Idea and headed out. As it turns out, the warm up was a good idea for actually two reasons, one...it was nice to get use to the water before I had to go in (65 degrees), and two... while I was out there all that coffee I had earlier suddenly needed to be taken care of. I'm not proud of it but it needed to be done. Moving on...3rd wave was called to the start and I'm off and swimming. The swim went surprisingly well. I felt a little uncomfortable the first 100 yrds. but soon found a rhythm and kept churning away. About 3/4s the way through I actually passed a couple of swimmers from the previous wave. I have to admit, it felt pretty good. I make it to the end and check my watch 14 min and change not stellar but I'm satisfied. Off to the transition...on the advice of a friend (Tridonkey1) I took my time to put socks on. Except for the fact that it took forever to put socks on wet feet (maybe next time i"ll bring a small towel) the transition went well... 2:28 is that good? I don't know.



Off on the bike...The bike was pretty uneventful. It was a little demoralizing to watch some of these guys zip by you as if you were standing still. It was an out and back so about 1/3rd the way through the leaders started passing me on their way in. I could not believe how fast these guys were moving. The race was primairly in my neighborhood, so it was nice to see so much support along the way. I get to the end of the bike and jump off...Wow! my legs hurt. Check my watch 46 min and change, avg. just under 19 mph. I'm relatively satisfied and proceed to switch shoes. I had done a few bricks for my training but I never expected my legs to hurt like this. I struggle to bend over and tie my shoes and off I go.



The run starts off terrible. I thought the wheels were about to fall off. My legs are really hurting and I'm struggling to maintain a 10 min pace. I don't know if I looked like I was going to die, but some guy came by and asked if I wanted an energy packet. I jumped at it, anything to take my mind off my legs. Surprisingly, after about 1/2 mile the legs were feeling much better. I picked up the pace and was able to sustain 8s and better for the remainder of the race. All in all a great experience. Finished in 91 mins. I have to say I feel like I'm hooked. I can't wait for my next race. Which is actually this Sat. (Croixathlon) I know Tridonkey1 will be there. I'll let you know how it goes.