I can still Tri.

I can still Tri....well I can almost. Today I participated in the Show-Me-State Games triathlon. Today's event was a 1/2 mile swim, 21 mile bike and a 5 k run on the KATY. I did this race about 3 years ago. Heck, that might have been the last triathlon I did....I had only swam twice this year leading up to the event. My group was the second wave of the day - Over 40 Male and Female racers.

After getting kicked in the head and having several other swimmers swim over me, I was ready to get the heck out of Twin Lake. My plan was to start off slowly, but this ended up being a bad idea because it put me back with swimmers who could not swim straight. By the turn around buoy, the pack had thinned out enough to allow me to concentrate solely on my swim. The last 1/4 mile I concentrated on my swim- head straight, pressing the T, steady kick and a good strong finish to my arm stroke followed by gliding.

After the swim it was onto my favorite leg - the bike. Today's course was 21 miles long with some rather steep climbs. Lucky for me the weather was a bit cool which allowed me to keep a good pace. I steadily worked my way up from my poor swim to bridge up toward the leaders. I rode with the eventual winner of my division for about 5 miles until the last 2 miles of the bike. On every climb I would surge trying to drop him, but he always came back on the flatter sections. For what ever reason, I decided to take it easy to rest my legs for the run. This turned out to be a mistake as I lost about 1 min, which is how much I lost 3rd place my. I ended up finished the bike in about 57 min.

The final leg was the 5K run. I really like this run because part of it is on the Katy Trail. I was motivated to run hard and thought I was until the 1/2 point. My time at the turnaround was a little over 11 min, which would make my 5K run about 22 min. A time which is not going to win at this level of competition. My final time was 1:38:35 - good enough for 4th place.