inauspicio.us

welp, it has been a while, and there hasn’t really…

welp, it has been a while, and there hasn’t really been that much more on racing around here lately – not because i haven’t been racing, of course, but because i haven’t been doing much else. the past few months have had me in:

• Fort Collins, Colorado, for the Horsetooth half-marathon. I was having a mediocre race until the ten mile mark (60:03) when I was ruthlessly struck down by a terrible side stitch. Hobbled through the last three miles in eight minutes apiece to finish 16th. On the plus side, I won an awesome cereal bowl for finishing third in my age range. Photos.
• Phoenix, for the Dannon Duathlon Series race #2 on May 18 (which was also my brother Dan’s birthday, happy birthday Dan!), where I finished second amateur and ninth including professionals. After a brief spell in the medical tent, I left my watch in the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Photos.
• Boston on May 24, for the US Coast Guard Air Station Duathlon, which I ran a guy down to win. Happily, I won a new watch. Also went to the Follen Church Cape Cod weekend for the 21st consecutive year. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
• And speaking of things I wouldn’t miss for the world, I flew to Ohio on May 25 to watch my brother dan graduate from college. I have no fewer than fifty pictures of the occasion – not sure if it’s appropriate to feel proud of him, but I am. Proud of him and happy for him. He’s moving to Chicago this fall to work in a theater.
• Castle Rock, Colorado, on June 1 for the Elephant Rock Century, a final tune-up for the following weekend, where I got caught fifteen miles from home in a hail-and-lightning-storm so horrible it closed stretches of the highway. It wasn’t a race, so no results, but there is a photo, try to ignore the geeky-looking guy behind me.
• Baltimore on June 8 for the Blackwater Eagleman Half-Ironman. I guess I’d call the race a learning experience – I didn’t hit my time or place goals, but I did record a massive PR for the distance. I’d hoped for a sub-4:20 and a top ten amateur placing, but when I pulled a muscle in my butt with twenty miles to go in the bike, things started to go downhill. I managed to hold myself together for second in my age range (the results list me as first, but they have inexplicably taken out the guy who actually won) in 4:28:50, a pr by twenty-three minutes. I’m still holding out hope for a sub-4:20 later this year. Photos.
• Greeley, Colorado on a whim on June 22 for the Greeley Triathlon. I won this race going away, 1:45 over second and 4:20 over third, which was extremely exciting. It was an odd format though – a time-trial start because of the pool swim, with one swimmer going off every ten seconds, and times being corrected afterward. So I didn’t actually know that i had won the race until the next morning. Photos here and here.

So, like I said before, it’s been mostly racing. Now I’m taking a break to train for several weeks – in the meantime I’m also moving to a new apartment and opening brigadoon.