Manitou Tri

5:30am...buzz.  @#$&%.  Cant say I was too happy to get up this morning after sleeping 5 hours on the floor.  And then I looked outside to see gloomy, rainy weather.  Eric and I took awhile to actually get on the road, and to make it worse, I didn't get any coffee.  So I guess you could say I didn't start the day on a good note.  We arrived in White Bear Lake a few minutes before 7 (race starts at 8) and we still needed to check in.  There is always alot to do before a triathlon starts and I like to do a bike warmup an hour before the race.  Luckily they have specific bike racks based on wave number, but the elite wave racks were already overflowing.  I got a spot at the end of the row and Eric stuck his bike in the wave 2 rack.  The rain stopped by about 7 and the air  temperature was great!  After a quick bike warmup and a few running strides, they closed the transition area for race start.  

The swim start included some water running due to 1-2 foot water depth.  Today's swim felt much colder than at Buffalo, and I heard it was 58 degrees!  I could tell that I was swimming next to Eric since we are about the only people in our wave with a shortsleeve wetsuit.  It was another frustrating swim as I did not feel like I was pushing myself aerobically, yet I couldn't seem to go faster or find my form.  Based on the two triathlons I have done so far, I do not appear to be any faster than last year in the swim, but I can probably swim about a minute faster 800 in the pool.  Its gotta be the cold water or adjusting to open water swimming again.  And I think I better just get a full-sleeve wetsuit.  

After ditching the wetsuit, I headed out on the bike.  It is a good thing I have these next two weekends off racing because I can tell my body is tired from racing three weeks in a row.  I couldn't push the pedals that well compared to Buffalo tri; fortunately, the bike was only 13.5 miles.  I made up some ground on a few guys, but the top three guys put even more distance on me.  The transition to the run was very slow.  I again got beat out of transition, and Dennis Dane put 10 seconds on me in the transition alone.  My running legs didn't feel like going, but I pushed it to stay on Dennis's pace.  I passed 3 guys within the first few minutes of the run and was about 5 seconds back from Dennis at the turnaround (1.5 miles).  At this point, I was in 6th place, and there is prize money for the top 5.  We were about 45 seconds behind Rhett at this point, and I figured we could probably catch him.  I passed Dennis with a mile to go but he held on and then we caught Rhett in the last 800 meters.  Dennis put on a hard surge with 400 to go and I couldn't match it.  All in all, it wasn't that great of a day, except for getting some prize money.  I didn't swim, bike, or run well and racing three weekends in a row is probably a bad idea for me.  Early season racing is now done, and I have a few weeks before starting the more important races of the season.