Since the triathlon was not USAT sanctioned, they had decided to allow wetsuits no matter what the water temperature was. So on the morning of the race I had a difficult decision to make, wetsuit or no wetsuit? I decided to go with the wetsuit despite the relatively warm water temperatures, around 84 degrees.
After an uneventful start, I settled in to the swim. It seemed as if I was swimming fast and yet the swim seemed to drag on and on. When I finally got out, my watch said 26:10, my best Olympic swim time ever
I’m a little upset at myself for waiting so long to write some of these race reports, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. I don’t remember if I heard John Beyers name called out by the announcer as he exited the water or I just happened to see him, but as I left the transition with my bike I knew he was right behind me. Rodney Adkison had beaten me out of the water but I made it out on the bike ahead of him. But it wasn’t long before both John and Rodney had passed me on the bike.
After getting passed by John and Rodney, I tried to keep them both in site. But they just slowly pulled away and I didn’t want to go anaerobic trying to stay with them. The bike course had an out and back section with a turn around that we did twice, so I was able to judge how far back I was at two different points. I had stopped losing any significant time to either of them. I would end up biking a minute slower than John and twenty three seconds slower than Rodney.
I mentioned the cape in my NEMO race report, Lake St. Louis was actually the race where the cape made its debut. As I flew into the second transition, I heard Diana Adkison tell me that Rodney was just ahead of me. After as quick a transition as I could do with the only wasted time being the second it took me to grab the cape, I was out on the run. Once running it took me a second or two to get the cape in place and then I settled into my stride. I felt really good on the run, especially since I had held back a little on the bike. After several miles I had passed a few people and figured I had to have worked my way up to at least the top 10. With probably around 2 miles to go, I saw Tim Sandfort a little ways ahead of me. He seemed to be struggling a little, so while it felt good to pass him,
I knew he wasn’t running his best. Even further ahead, probably around 20 seconds or so, I could see John Beyer. With probably only a mile or less to go, I wasn’t to sure that I could catch him, but I knew he was in my age group so I decided to give it everything I had. Finally, less than a quarter of a mile to go I passed him.
I ended up 7th overall and first in my age group with a total time of 2:15:34… Not my best time for an Olympic distance race, I really think the bike course might have been a little long. But I did have my fastest Olympic distance swim and averaged 5:59 per mile on the run, a great run for me.