2008 Bolder Boulder

Memorial day dawned grey and dreary; it promised to be a good day for racing in the streets. The rain that woke me at 3 am had stopped leaving the streets wet and the sun hidden behind clouds.

I made good time getting ready and left with plenty of time to make the trip to Boulder. During the walk to the start line I saw the T-T group and saw Bob wearing his AG champ jersey from 2007. He went on to win his AG again this year.

I had plenty of time to get a good position in AA and lined up only a few people off the front. The wheelchairs started, A started and then I was off and running. You have to watch the pace the first kilometer since it's a slight downhill which combined with the enthusiasm of the start puts too many people out too fast. I held back a little letting the crowd settle down. The triathlete I met at the start left me behind even though he was trying for a time a minute slower than mine. I caught him around 4k and never saw him again.

I caught my friend Scott around 4k just like last year. Strange how I caught him both years around the same place. The rest of the race went pretty much according to plan, nice even splits, keeping focused on good form and good pacing. I finished in 39:09 which was good enough for 6th out of 388 in my AG and 429th of 48387 finishers overall.

After finishing the race, it started to drizzle a little which meant the trip to the post-race expo was quite short this year. No sense standing in the rain cooling down and catching a cold.

Perspectives

My first triathlon of the season was supposed to be this Saturday and I was wondering how everything would go. I raced Pelican Fest last year so I have an idea of the course and I think my training has been going as well as last year. We had a few warm days so the lake shouldn’t be too cold and it’s only a sprint.

Should I take a couple easy training days or just maintain my training. I still had to change the tires on the Cervelo from the trainer tires to the race tires. When would I get the time? And then there’s the graduation parties the night before the race and the race is an hour from my house so it’s going to be an early morning. I haven’t checked my race gear for a year so I should pull everything out and make sure I have body glide and everything else I need.

That was the thoughts Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Around noon a massive tornado hit the town hosting the race. The tornado was traveling around 50 mile per hour and was reported to be a mile wide. The hail was reported as baseball size. The damage to cars, homes and businesses was devastating. Hundreds of people are homeless without power and utilities.

It puts my case of nerves in perspective.

USAT All American

A few weeks ago, I found out that I was ranked 158th in my age group and I was pretty excited. Well imagine my surprise when I received a mailing from USAT stating that I earned All American status for 2007. I've never been All American at anything. Needless to say, I was very excited. I guess all that basement time paid off.