Another awesome result for Woodsy:
I have firm belief that being in the middle is the worst place you can ever be. That's what this whole week/ weekend was for me, being "middle of the road". For the last 3 weeks I have noticed the race Stissing Sprint Tri on the local race schedule and have been tempted to sign up, but never able to pull the trigger and sign up. With the 4th of July weekend approaching I had to make a quick decision to either train and go to parties or race/ recover and try and still go to some 4th of july parties. I went for the latter of the two and on wednesday night I pre entered for the race an hour and a half after the cut off time for entry, I was the 150th entry out of a maximum of 150 entrants. Talk about being lucky. So I had a full week of training and work scheduled that I had to finish up and with a saturday morning race(which I dread) meant I was going to be coming into this race not rested(a.k.a. -tired). Which was fine, it was my little way of telling myself I wasn't taking this race too serious!
The morning of the race came too early, as I went out to dinner the night before with some friends, turned out a bit too late. Never waking up from my alarm I was starting the morning 45 minutes behind schedule. I pulled into the parking lot 15 minutes before the start, while I was doing packet pick up they were attempting to empty transition to get the racers to the water, not a good sign! They had assigned racks and of course mine was full, so I had to find an open spot elsewhere. Then off to the water, while they were doing there announcements I was in the water warming up and then i was ready to go, I was the third (last) wave.
The swim went cleanly, some swim traffic and some fatigue, but nothing to serious. Got out of the water and ran up the beach to transition. Typically my transitions are a big rush for me but today I just wanted to take my time and get on the bike cleanly and get into the main portion of the race, the bike. That was where I was able to do some damage on the field. Not knowing the bike course I was unable to push too hard on the climbs due to not knowing the lengths and what was coming next, my plan was to just hammer the flats and gradual climbs and that's exactly what I did. My bike split was the fastest by 2 minutes, which gave me a cushion going into the run.
The run was great, probably 2/3 of the way was in the shade and fairly flat. Unfortunately, this was my first race trying the orthotics that I have been training and walking in for the last month, but I had never attempted to try them in my race flats, not exactly a good fit. So about a mile and a half into the run I was seriously contemplating finishing the run barefoot due to heel slippage and major blisters. I opted not to do that and just finish the run in pain. I crossed the finish line with both feet a bloody mess, and a few fellow competitors saying that I had won the overall. After cooling down in the shade, I hobbled over to the EMS and got my feet cleaned up and bandaged and got ready to relax and enjoy my weekend.
As it turns out, I won the overall, by a minute, and this was the first race I have ever attended that actually paid out for top 3 overall finishers. So to my surprise I won a $150 check for my efforts. I had to leave before BBQ and awards ceremony, so luckily my friend Peter was able to pick up my check. It looked like they were preparing a pretty nice spread of food.
For an inaugural race, there was pretty good competition and it was sold out. I highly recommend this race, I rate the bike course the best I have ever raced on! And there were just as many volunteers as racers, it was amazing.
Next race is Tri n Du Putnam, and you can expect me to be on my game for this race, usually there's some good competition and I am looking for another win!!
Woodsy
Nice job Woodsy!
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