Captextri – Austin, TX May 25, 2008

The Captextri was going to be the race with the largest field of athletes that I had done. I signed up for the sprint since I wasn’t completely sure what kind of shape I was going to be in. I talked my roommate into signing up for it, he chose the Olympic.

It turned out that me, my roommate Ian, friends Keith and Noel all went down together and stayed with my parents, and my girlfriend flew down on Saturday. I was the only one doing the sprint.

Austin is so much fun, I grew up there, and my parents still live there, but I don’t go back all too often.

Packet pickup was a mad house, parking was a lot easier than we made it out to be, but for whatever reason the packet line for the sprint was the longest, even with half the number of competitors. After packet pickup we went outside to get our bikes ready so we could leave them in transition. It was about 98 degrees and 1000% humidity as we aired up our tires and then walked over to transition. I was fortunate and got a spot at the end of a rack.

Race morning was nice for me. The sprint was supposed to start 2 hours later than the Oly, so I just woke up at 530 and drove the rest of the crew as close as I could get them to the race, then went home, made a cappuccino and walked over to watch the start. I elected to not wear my wetsuit, Keith wore his, and Ian took my advice to not bring it. Well, EVERYONE had their wetsuits and Ian was pissed he didn’t bring his.

While we were waiting for the race to start Ian ran into Desiree Ficker who is an old friend from his days as a pro triathlete living at the Olympic Training center. She wanted to know why he wasn’t in the invitational wave. It’s because he is too lazy to apply for it.

By 7:00 it was getting HOT and HUMID, and I was glad I didn’t have to stand around in my wetsuit, but I was going to miss the extra floatation since I had not swum in about a month. I watched my friends start and then I went to transition to drop off my gear, and get ready to go.

The Swim:
Before I started my swim, I could hear the announcers saying that Andrea Fisher had won the women’s event and that Ficker dropped out on the 2nd run lap.

The sprint started about 10 minutes late, which isn’t too bad, and I was in the 5th or 6th wave. The water was 74 or 75 and it felt great to swim in, no overheating in a wetsuit. I exited the water 7th in my wave. The swim exit was crazy, there were about 16 volunteers there to “help” you out of the water, but as I clamored up the ramp on all fours a little, they would reach for my arms to “help” me and I would fall on my face since I was balancing on them. This happened twice, and then I was off to the bike.

The Bike:
I opted to run in my shoes to the mount line because there was a lot of bare dirt and rocks in transition and about 100yd of not smooth sidewalk to run across before the mount. I guess it was an OK idea. The sprint was two 6.25 mile loops around a super crowded course of Olympic athletes! It was fun and fast however, and I did manage to average over 23mph. After the fact Keith told me I could have used his disc rear and tri spoke front if I wanted, but I didn’t ask. But with all the turns, I don’t know how much difference it would have made.

The Run:
The weather was now, HOT, HUMID and Windy. Fortunately the first aid station was about 100yd down the course, where I poured ice down the front of my singlet. I took a nice easy pace out on the run course hoping I wouldn’t die in the heat. By the time I was about 8 minutes into the run, I started getting my legs back, and picked it up a little. The run was uneventful, and I poured tons of ice water on myself, and drank very little. The run back down Congress Ave was nice and shaded for a bit, and the wind felt good since I was soaked from visor to socks. (my new Oakley Radar’s work great by the way! No water/sweat on the lenses) I finished strong, with plenty of gas in the tank… I probably could have gone a minute or two faster on the run, but in the end, it didn’t matter because the next fastest Clydesdale was 3 minutes back, and even for my AG (25-29) I was 4 minutes faster than 1st place. I think all the competition was in the Oly race!

It was a ton of fun, and we all got our fill of pizza and Michelob Ultra. Keith went to Medical to get a handful of Band-Aids for his blisters (not enough baby powder) His shoes were starting to turn red.

Results:
Ian – 5th in AG OLY
Keith – somewhere in AG
Noel – 25th in AG OLY (about)
Me – 1st Clydesdale Sprint
Ashley – Best spectator with a bum knee who cant run any more.
My parents – Hostests with the mostest. They MADE the weekend great with 4 triathletes camped out in their townhouse. They even moved a car out of the garage so we could fill it with bikes and gear.