Our days are precious and so few. -rise against
That song was playing as I took the pic of the sun rise below while road tripping to the race with www.holisticguru.blogspot.com and Voodoo as today was the ridgefield tri. I love love love this race. I love Evan a CREW dude who puts on this race and its the best sprint in Connecticut which is why it sells out before the snow melts. I got to the race early and got in a good warm up. After 3 brtual days of training I wanted to get the legs moving. Honestly I could have done 90 minutes of warming up today no problem. No one warms up enough for spints. No one. That means you (and me). Maybe in part because they start pretty freakin early.After my long warm up we got going under perfect conditions. Glassy water and cool air and the first 300 yards were awesome. A college swimmer, Tim, was there and took the swim out fast. I hopped on and tried to hang but the he out classed me. He did however pull me for a bit so I had a gap over everyone else.
T1 was slow for me and I somehow fell over. Normally I crush transitions and was bummed that a few of the people that I put time into on the swim were coming back on me. The bike was fast and has lots of turns with a few that have ended peoples days. I pre road the course which was a very good idea and I did an old mt biking trick: I de-tuned my breaks. By making them not really work it eleminates panic breaking. Sadly it also eliminates breaking pretty much, but after preriding the course I new the one spot that I needed to really break and make sure at that corner to break hard enough to not eat it. I got splits along the way and wasn’t pull time back from Tim the college swimmer. My legs didn’t feel like they were firing but that doesn’t mean much. Sometimes you go fast when you feel slow and sometimes you go slow when you feel like you are going fast.I was about 30 seconds down heading into t2.
I got running and was worried because 30 seconds is a long time when you only got 5k. Thankfully this 5k is evil. Voodoo Phil called the first mile “a wall with a line down the middle.” I felt aweful on the run. No turns over, no power, no speed. But the first mile is all uphill and hard so I tried to not dispair. Also I was catching first. At the base of the big hill I caught first. I thought he would fold, but he attacked me! I have to say that was awesome and Tim will forever have my respect for that. Normally when you pass someone after running them down they kind of give up. Not Tim. That kid (he is 19) is mentally as tough as they come. Tims attack made me pick up the pace which hurt because I had been working hard to catch him. The sick hill created a gap and I found myself alone. Tim found himself out kicked by Cliff who is going to Kona this year and hold the record for Ironman for people who are Type 1, I work with a two type 1 athletes and picked his brain at length and got his email because he has it dialed.This was my first local race in the ct/nyc area this year and and like all local races they turn into a family reunion. I have been racing since 99 and made a ton of friends over the years and hanging out and catching up with just about all of them was great.
Normally the time from finishing to the awards seems to go on forever, today it was a blink of an eye; I love tri for a lot of reasons but the friends I have will keep me doing local races until I die. So watch out, you are looking at the 80-84 ridgefield tri age group champ. Oh and I set a new course record which means I am faster then last year, which means I am faster then ever.Box score: 1/2 mile swim, 20k ride, 5k run: 1:02 1st place over all, new course record.
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