I just wanted to do a little write up on this fun sprint tri I did this past weekend.
This was my fourth triathlon and a great one to get me ready for my last one of the season on Oct 2. I ended up finishing 51 out 330 and 4th in my age group with a total time of 1:13:20, a nice 2 minute improvement from my last tri. Mostly due to the fast bike course. But enough about me on to the race.

It was a nice 68 degrees with hazy fog out over the lake at start time. This was my first tri that was not a wave start(which is good and bad). You walked out to the end of a pier and people jumped into the water in pairs with about 5 seconds in between each pair. It was nice not having the mass start pandimonium, but I wish they would have mentioned I was going to hit the bottom when I jumped in the lake. After a decent swim, it was onto the bike. Nice flat fast course. Their was a little head wind on the uphills out on the main highway, but that made for a nice tail wind on the way back. I got a little nerve crossing over the railroad tracks twice, but they laid nice mats down for the rides to go over. (I heard in a earlier triathlon in April in Scottsboro a bad accident happened because they used cardboard over the tracks and the card board blew up as a car passed right as the bikers were approaching. Glad to see they learned from that mistake and used nice heavy mats that wouldn't move.) I had a nice bike, passing quite a few and only getting passed by 5 guys(damn Cervelos and Litespeeds) I'll get them some day. Then off to the run, my favorite. After forgetting to take off my helmet, oops, it was off to the races. Nice rolling course between the lake and main road. Since I only saw the course form the road on the drive in I didn't see the suprise hills in the woods, but they weren't that bad. I made some great time up on the run, no one passed me and still had enough left to pick up the pace at the end and finish with a decent sprint.
No let talk about the best part of the race. The post race jambalaya. Apparently, the race director's borther, who just recently relocated from New Orleans was the chef of perhaps the best post race meal I've had. It was agony having to smell the jambalaya cooking before the race started, but oh so tasty after we all finished.

All in all a fun race that I look forward to doing again.
But time to set my sights on Cohutta Springs on Oct 2nd. Wish me luck.

ubdawg