Monday, July 16, 2007

Clear Lake Race Report

We had planned on getting up early to go watch some of the Tour de France down at The Mount Bakery - a local Belgian bakery, but skipped it for a little extra sleep before we headed south. I loaded up and then got the kids fed and loaded and we were off.

Clear Lake is about 30-40 minutes south of Bellingham, just east of Mount Vernon and I thought we were late, but as it turns out the race started at 9:00 instead of the 8:30 I had thought, so we had plenty of time to get setup and relax and play a bit.

My parents same up from Seattle to watch Jacob do the kids race which starts after the adults race. They arrived early enough to watch me race too, very nice! The lake has a very nice small park with a great play structure for the kids, some slides to slide into the water, nice sandy beach and it was turning out to be a beautiful day.

The race got underway a bout 5 minutes late to allow cleaning up some of the road construction. The swim is basically a 1/3 mile triangle and the start in between the swim docks was a little tight. I think I hit and got hit just as much as my Ironman swim. Once around the two turns and coming back into shore, it did clear up a bit. I got out of the water in just under 12 minutes, right where I was hoping.

I decided to try to race with no socks to see if I could save some time, so my swim to bike transition was very fast, just sunglasses, helmet and shoes and was off, no drying , no stopping to put on socks. I was able to bike without socks without any pain or blisters. This is a short sprint race and was only a 15 mile ride, out and back so you get to see all the leaders and who is coming up behind you. Pretty flat too, one hill and I really didn't even notice how big the hill was until I was coming back down. I passed 14 people on the bike and had two pass me, I know one very well as I ride with him most weekends, the other was wearing the new Bellingham Tri Club gear but I did not recognize him. Even though it was so short I was happy to finish as I was going VERY hard the whole way, finishing in 42:17 (or 21.3 MPH and averaged 154 HR which is a lot higher than I train at).

My bike to run transition was very fast too, I had transitioned to bare feet on top of my bike shoes on the last 200 yards of the bike so just needed to run to my spot, set bike and helmet down and put on my running shoes, this was a little harder than I expected as my feet were still a little damp, but got them on, grabbed my race number and hat and was headed out.

I could feel that I wished I had socks on, it was rubbing me the wrong way, but I made it through with only a couple cuts on one foot, no blisters, so no complaints. I checked my watch at the mile marker and saw 6:45 so I was moving along pretty good. Kept picking off people too, one at a time here and there and hit the turn around at 13:13 still moving fast. Finally got passed by one faster runner just after the turn around, but I kept on trucking along and pretty soon I saw the 1 mile to go sign. The first part of the last mile was a bit tough, but after a couple turns you can see how close you are getting and before I knew it was around the last turn and turned it up a bit more and then the final 150 yard dash was a nice sprint to finish it off. I passed 6 on the run and had 1 pass me. not bad at all! 26:39 run or 6:40 per mile 160 HR!

Final time of 1:22:20 and 13th overall position!

Relaxed a bit and then got Jacobs transition all set, He wanted me to swim/bike/run with him so I did a second triathlon and it was just as much fun as the first. Jacob used a kick board and I swam along side, his swim was about 100 yards and he did great, ran quickly up and out of the water and I helped rinse off his feet. He was going sock less as well, got on his shoes and helmet and I set him off while I got my shoes and helmet on too. I quickly caught up and we rode the 1.5 mile ride having a nice conversation. Back at transition, we ran to drop off our bikes and I told him just to set it down and I would catch up after I set the bikes in place. He ran most all the .6 mile course with only one walk section this year. He really wanted to improve on his time from last year and was about 3-4 minutes faster. He was very happy!

After his race I found out that I actually finished my race in first place for my age group (Male 35-39) so that was a nice surprise. They do a great raffle for all sorts of stuff, but Jacob was a little disappointed again this year, two years in a row and our names were not called (75 or more prizes on the table to choose from).

After, my parents took us all out for lunch and treats at Dairy Queen, so I think Jacob's disappointment did not last long! Great day and very happy to have my parents come watch Jacob and I race. Alex had fun playing and I was able to swim and catch him coming down the slide. Great Day!

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