Holy ....!!

This morning, again we woke to an early morning (4:30 am) rain. I am starting to see a pattern develop for race weekends. As always I loaded the truck, went to pick up a buddy and head to J Bates' casa to load the VW and head to the Manitou Sprint in White Bear Lake. Last night I was a little unsure of what to expect at the race this season. After last year's disappointing run, a ton of side cramping, I was hoping to perform much better. Also this was my first Elite wave start. In the past racing age group some competitors are a little more serious so it pushes you to be better. Well the elite wave, whole new game of competitiveness. When the gun went off it was chaos for the next 12mins and 25 secs. The swim was the common U shape,keep buoys on your right side. We decided to swim down the center of the course and at the last moment head left to make a right hand turn and head back to the beach. At one point I am pretty sure that I had someone swim perpendicular across my back; that's some great sighting!! I was able to find a set of feet and hang onto them. Swam without a doubt my fastest 1/2 mile time thus far. Mounted the bike and started off on rain soaked roads and a nice head wind to greet us. The bike went well. I played cat and mouse with Mike Waataja, which made me happy. Last year I struggled to stay with him on a few training rides we were both at. Dismounted the bike and I was off on the 5k run course. Now this is the point that I blew up last year. I had to stop a number of different times and try to work the cramping out of my sides and mentally keep going. The entire GW team was there for moral support as well. No it really wasn't as embarrassing as you'd think. Alas, the run went much better this year. I was able to run 6:20's and finish in a time of 1:07.14. That's about 5 minutes faster than last season. I am very happy with my results and am now looking forward to Hy-Vee in 2 weeks with my Iowan buddy Dennis.
Other than my highlights for the day....84 year old Bob Powers won the Zipp 808 wheel set. This guy is great. He shows up to just about every race I'm at and has a smile on his face every time he crosses the finish line. If my health is half is good as his at that age I will consider myself lucky, let alone still be healthy enough to race. And fellow SCS team member Jen "Psycho Sally" Lenarz, won a brand spanking new QR Lucero carbon frame!!!! I would blog more tonight, but Ice Road Truckers new season is starting on the History Channel...gotta run.