Grand Rapid Tri, US national long course championship

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, never a good sign when you know you'll be racing on the road for hours.  Al and I got ready, sharing part of our misery.  Al's house is 10 min from the transition so this was a treat.  As we got in to transition, it was quite busy as you can imagine with 1800 racers and over 800 for the half iron distance.  My rack was very busy but I was able to set it up.  Now using the bathroom was another issue.  It was extremely busy so I decided to grab my Synergy wetsuit and head to the start where they had some.  Long line meant that I didn't have much time, good thing it's easy to get in my wetsuit.  I was in the second swim wave and I was off at 705.  I thought I was swimming ok but my watch was telling me that either I wasn't swimming straight or the course was longer.  I came out of the water at 39 min, disappointed but my watch was telling me I just swam 2.25 km.  After a good transition I was on the bike.  The rain had stop and I was hoping my knee would hold up as it was feeling much better.  I found myself passing and being pass by the same group of guys but was also gaining on better swimmers.  After the turn around, a vicious head wind was part of the ride for a while, which wasn't fun at all.  As I made my way towards the finish, with  about 12 km to go I heard a breaking sound on my handle bars.  One of my screw on my left elbow pad had broken off, half in the frame half in the pad.  This could have been catastrophic but no crashed ensued, I just had to be very careful.  I closed the bike in 2:27 average of 36.7 km/hr.  After a somewhat slowish transition I was out on the run for the half marathon.  By then the sun was out and I was still feeling good.  The run course was 2 laps and I was please with a 1:44 for the half.  All and all 24 in my age group and 150 overall, not a bad day considering the weather and how deep the field was.  As for Al, he rock his age group and finished 2!  My good friend C2 had a solid performance as well.  Thanks to the Moore's hospitality and cheering me on as well as good friend and Xterra tribe GL for giving some encouragement while running ( GL was on his bike savoring coffee and the fact he wasn't racing). Thanks for Synergy for my awesome wetsuit.  Happy trails!

Carpe Diem