Here is my race report uncensored for background reasons
Jaime= my wife
Don= my mom's BF
Rob= brother in law who has lived with us because of issues form his dad (don't ask)

It all started 2 weeks ago with a constant nagging in my ear. I should be used to this since I am normally the one doing it but it was Rob this time. The nagging was about the Yorktown Sprint in Yorktown on June 10th. I talked with Jaime about this before and we decided that it was just too much of a drive for one day. However after days and days of nagging and not wanting to be like every one that punked out on me I agreed. Of course by default this means that I was going to make Don agree and he was to come as well. I started getting everything ready on friday because it was to be a packed weekend ahead. I was missing a few things but oh well life goes on.

There is only one sticking point (other then not being trained for this distance) there is only one motel open so we book Yorktown Motor Lodge despite all of it's bad reviews. Rob and I go for a nice short ride on saturday morning just to loosen up. I should have known there was gonna be a problem when he all of a sudden was just like me no effort on the bike at a good speed. Well after a long day working Rob's graduation party we head out at 630 PM to Yorktown. The drive wasn't too bad except the people at Yorktown motor lodge don't seem to understand how to give directions on their website. We arrive at just before 9 and unpack our stuff. We had come to find out why it was exactly that they got low reviews. Mom and Don's room smelled so bad of smoke that I started caughing walking in. Our room had no smoke but a different scent entirely "Urine" this time, and not a little bit either it was BAD. I was sure that some college kids or drunk rednecks must have had a fun time before us writing their names on the wall and everything. Well Don in his typical Don manner forgets why it was that he trained. He thought it would be good to spend the evening drinking beer and eating at this little dive right outside of the motel. We finally get out of the restaurant at 1045 and come back to find Rob bed with our dog Charlie in bed awww so cute :/... Lights out at 11.

Well 545 rolls up the next morning and we all get outta bed. I eat my previously melted Snickers Marathon Bar whom I am sponsored by. Let me take the time right now to say even melted, the snickers marathon bar was nutrious and properly fueled me through my Triathlon better then anything else on the market. Thank you Snickers Marathon with out you I don't know how I could acheive my goals. Anyways now that the shameless plug is over we get dressed and head out at 620. We have to stop on the way because of Princess Rob's traditions is to only drink water before a race and not gatorade.

We get to the race site at 630. After unloading our bikes and walking to the start it's now about 645 with plenty of time before race start (8am.) Everybody is friendly and easy to get along with except one person the USAT head referee. This old lady that looks like she got hit numerous times by the ugly, fat, old and bitter stick. Man she was tough to deal with, despite making it through every other bike inspection including the Ironman she failes me because my aero bars have no end caps. Of course they have no damn caps because the lever comes through the top and it ends a 1/4 inch below the "opening". When I put the caps on my brakes weren't returning correctly. What this meant is once I braked the brakes stayed on... Not a fun time but oh well to start the race I had to install them. Luckily there was the local bike mechanic and he gave me some otherwise she wouldn't let me race.

Anyways after multiple photo ops we made it down to the start to hop in the salty huge wave 'river'. For being a 'river' (more likely a bay but who cares) I have never seen 2 foot swells but oh well. The gun goes off for Rob and I in the second wave. Let me just say this was a violent swim. I have never in my life done a tri where people we closed fist punching and kicking. I took a couple of good shots to the face as did Rob. Don didn't have the same luck because when the gun went off he stood there and made up his mind when Don was ready to start the race. There was this one guy swimming at around my knee/waist level who was just trying to litterally grab and hold onto my legs the whole time. My response was to sprint for a second in the water to get him around by my feet level. At that point I cock back and kick back as hard as I could. I could feel the impact and knew the problem was over from there on. I didn't feel the grabbing anymore after that... Well after fighting the waves and the people I make it out of the water beaten but feeling great.

Onto T1 area now in order for me to have a shot at beating Rob I spared no luxury or time wasting. All I did from here is put on my Sidi's (with no socks), my helmet, glasses and watch and left T1 in what I think to be a record time for me. I hop on the bike and get going. Now the course was different from last year the roads were thinner and less room to manuver. Unfortutaely this lead to that ref I hate writing a whole lot of penalities like drafting and blocking. Anyways as the bike continued forward so did my average speed. I kept expecting it to get difficult and it never did. As the race went on and on I got faster and faster. I got off of the bike averaging over 24mph which is a record for me. Previously my best was only 21.

Into T2 again no luxury here just what I need and get going. I lace up the Asics (again no socks) snap in my race belt and hit the trail. The more and more I run the better I feel because I don't see Rob coming in anywhere off of the bike. As I get to 5 minutes I was like damn I have this locked he won't catch me. Well the reason I didn't see him was because he was too close behind me the whole time. He ended up sliding right past at 1.25 miles or so. I kinda see his face as he passes but my dispare is cemented when I saw the snickers marathon stuff I let him borrow and the tattoo. It was confirmed at that point, it was definately him. As he leaves I see my chances of winning spiraling down... Could I catch him on the bike or on the swim definately, on the run hell no. I still finish the run in a pretty decent time averaging each mile in the 6's. This is the best I have ran since November (Thats when I lost my speed for endurance and the Ironman.) I cross the finish line in 1hr and 9 minutes. Suprisingly this is almost 20 min's faster then last year. A good race for me... Rob grabs a 1:08:59 ONE FREAKING SECOND SHORT OF BEATING HIM!!!

Well I go back relax for a few and talk to a few other racers. The overwhelming opinion was "damn that was a fast course." After about 2-3 minutes or so don comes in off of the bike. Now I have NEVER seen this before not even in the Ironman where people were taking their sweet time in transistion areas. Don stops in T2 and starts having a conversation with me. Now I mean stopped, not doing anything but having a casual conversation with me. I remind him repeatedly to get his @55 in gear and finish the race before he finally WALKS away. Now remember how I wrote that I didn't have shoes the whole time. This is when I paid for that, I had a huge bilster on my feet from that little stunt. Oh well life goes on.

They post the results and everything looked good, Rob got hit for blocking which knocked him from 1st to 2nd place in his age group 16-19. Luckily they didn't tag me for anything which is suprising seeing as how Fatty McRef was writing random penalities. Don came in at a good PR for him and his swim went well. The funny thing is he thinks the opposite of every other racer out there which is a bit strange. He though the bike was mostly uphill which would not account for the wicked speed we held. Oh well whatever... We hang out for awards and Rob receives the ultra cool gift of ummm... a bag of coffee :/ for winning second in his age group. The sad thing is that was the first place price for the overall winner as well. Man what a prize purse to win on that one :( Really sad. We grab some lunch at sonic and head home. Luckily I had Jaime drive because Rob and I feel asleep.

From this race I may have gotten Jaime and perhaps Mom talked into more Tri's later which is cool. I think we all had fun and I learned a few things.
1. Follow the reviews online when you book a hotel or motel
2. It's not a good idea to run in shoes with no socks for Josh
3. If you want to beat Rob in a race don't give him pointers on how to go faster
4. When racing in Yorktown where brass nuckles or carry a trident for the swim
5. You can not give Don advice that he will follow, so stop trying...

Well that's the story...

Josh Burgess
Racer Number #67

All in all great splits for me 750M SWIM 12MILE BIKE AND 5K RUN:

5th out of 24 racers in my ag (25-29)

AG PLACE \ TIME
15th place in my ag on the swim \ 13:34 Swim which is a PR for me on that distance in a race (I have done faster in practice but not in a race)
9th place in my ag on my t1 \ 2:16 This is definately a PR it knocks it in half compared to what I did last year
1st fastest f'in bike in my age group \ 29:53 damn that is pretty quick at 24mph PR (I felt like Red5 for a second shhh bryan let me have my happy time )
21st not so hot but oh well it's only t2 \ 1:43 not a PR and I dunno what happened maybe if I woulda knocked off one second here I wouldn't have lost but i'm not bitter...
10th which is better then half of my ag \ 21:36 not a bad 5k it is by far the fastest I have ran all year long since the IM killed all of my speed!

1:09:00 5th in my ag out of 24 people and only loosing to Rob by one second. Did I say one second enough???

This is his results which were pretty impressive for only having swam 5 times this year and biked 3...

ROB BELL
2nd in his AG of 16-19 out of 7
18years old
AG Place \ Time
7 \ 14:50 SWIM
2 \ 1:55 T1
2 \ 32:22 BIKE
4 \ 1:13 T2
1 \ 16:41 RUN (this was the fastest run of the day PERIOD)
2:00 PENALTY (Blocking it was a BS penalty the refs were over anxious)
Total time 1:08:59