I traveled down with my friend Dan Henry from the CU tri team and we stayed with his family up in Tiffin OH about 90 min NW of Columbus. Plenty of corn out here--it felt great to get back to some humidity and thick delicious oxygen.
Dan's dad Dean (fun to say) cooked up a great pasta dinner and we ended up getting about 10hrs of well needed sleep that night.Too bad we didnt even last through the opening ceremony of the olympics.
The day before the race was a very pleasant overcast day with another hearty breakfast cooked by the pops. Bacon, french toast, eggs over easy <--my favorite! That night we drove down to Columbus to set up our transition areas (it was a point to point race so T1 was 25 miles from T2) and check in to the hotel. Oh, and I at a whole pizza to fuel up properly.
Race morning we were up at 3:30 to eat some peanut butter and banana and Dan and I sat and watched olympic reruns until leaving the hotel at about 5am. It was still super dark and a bit chilly when we got there and I had forgotten how prevalent dew was since everything I had left overnight was soaked. This first picture of me (courtesy of Dan's mom) was when I realized that my left brake lever was coming out of my areobars--I had to convince the bike mechanic dude to let me use his allen wrench to take out the cable so I could tighten it. He was worried we werent going to get it back in but after about 15min it was good to go.
The race was a bit nuts from the start. The swim paralleled the shore which was kinda weird because it was shallow enough to touch. When I race I tend to think very simple thoughts like "oohh, thats a nice shade of green" or "turn left, swim swim, gasp for air" or something with little philosophical depth. Basically when it is the swimming portion of the race, all I think about is swimming, so I wasnt even considering dolphin diving although a number of others did I think. On the second lap, I saw a few out of my right side and tried for a dolphin dive myself which basically just messed me up. So, I went back to what I do best during the swimming portion of the race--swim.
The bike was a net downhill which helped contribute to a fast time but I also lost some time when I took a wrong turn. A police officer was directing traffic and pointed my friend Tom straight through an intersection. I followed realizing on the other side that it was where we had driven the course the wrong way the day before! I flipped it hard but Tom kept riding, poor guy, he ended up not finishing.
It was a quick detour for me but I got back on track and the next shots are of me coming into T2 in downtown Columbus.
I had some trouble unearthing my shoes which I had buried the day before under a bag but got em on and started the run about 10seconds behind Michael Fox--a guy who has beaten me in every race I had done thus far. I felt smooth during the run and held the gap until mile 4ish when I caught him, settled down, and then passed him. (I also made some other dumb comment like "thats a pretty tree" and he didnt respond). After that it started to get painful and I cranked it as best I could across the finish line.
I ended up with a 33:44 which was not too shabby considering the winding and kinda rolling course. 6th overall and only by 20seconds or so. Oohh, and at the finish I saw some of my relatives who had come out to watch; my mom's cousins from the Phillippi family. They are all super nice and it was great to talk to them afterwards. There's just some family you cant get enough of :).
Overall it was a fun weekend, and with all the people I know in the area, I definitely have to come back next year! Now I have a pleasant month of low commitment while everything gears up for the fall semester, whoohoo!
Rudy
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