Blue Lake Olympic Triathlon

This morning was the kickoff of my tri season, which so far consists of three events: two warmup triathlons, and IMCdA.

I drove down yesterday afternoon, and met up with Jennifer and her husband Duncan, and some other triathletes Jen knows because they are all working with Coach Cal of Critical Speed. We met at an Olive Garden, and the waiters came in pushing bottles of wine... but a group of triathletes, most of whom were racing the next morning, is a tough crowd to sell alcohol to! We settled on our dinners and eventually left stuffed.

The morning was overcast, drizzly and chilly (mid 50's), so not the greatest weather. But, all I wanted out of this event was to shake the rust off from the long winter of training, and get some practice participating in a tri again. I'm not quite so amazing as Francesca to open my season with an Ironman. ;)

The race went pretty well - I knew before going in that I was going to take it easy. These last few weeks are the so-called "taper" phase for me, where I still workout but mostly rest up for the main event. So I paced myself conservatively and had a pretty good time. I feel fortunate I didn't have any bike issues, because I was working on mine off and on for a few hours yesterday: putting my race wheels together and making various tweaks and adjustments. Plus, the spectre of the dreaded flat tire - they are more common in rainy weather because junk sticks to a wet tire better, and then sometimes it will work through and eventually cause a puncture. I passed at least a dozen others who were on the side of the road fixing flats.

I'm a bit on the cold side, so I bundled up with a long sleeve jersey, jackets, and full-fingered bike gloves, for the bike ride. Just seeing some others in short sleeve jerseys made me cold. I even wore my skull-cap (the orange thing on my head in the pic) which helps keep me warm.

Blue Lake Oly 2005

A photo of me after the event, with my race bike. I finally got around to putting on my race wheels, and now I think my race bike looks really cool. ;)

Total time was 3:05:52. Not the fastest effort I've done on this course, but it was a solid training day for me, which was my goal. I have a little more detail on the event over on my training blog.