Trukey Tri

Spend the last few days laying around and eating turkey. I could not ask for more ;-O

Back at the Bonelli park and we were all set for our last triathlon of the season and the first ever Turkey Tri!! The Bonelli park felt like home and although the group that runs the race picked up a few more sponsors this year it is a very low-key/family type environment. Perfect for a push into the holidays.


Monique and I did a few bricks around the park a little over a week ago and I got to feel out the climbs on my seven. Now that I sold my tri bike my seven would be my all road machine. I think that it was a bit better for the climbs but it is just so comfortable that I know I could push harder on it. My bike was solid and the race was now in focus.

I try not to watch Monique too much in races(makes me crazy) but her swim wave started just in front of me. She is so cute. I saw her get clear water and then just disappear into a mess of arms and bobbing heads... I took a deep breath and started my watch and I was off. That ten seconds before felt like it was forever in past races but I guess I was not to stressed for this?

Monique hammering on the bike!

My swim felt so good. I was just enjoying the water and held a good pace throughout. I continue to shrink in my upper body so the last 200 yards or so I got really cold. Water filling my suit everywhere and I just wanted to get out. Time to hammer on the bike and get warm but my feet were numb until the first half mile on the run. Maybe my shoes were to tight in addition to the cold water?

C O L D

The bike was awesome! I felt at home and it was easy to push like I was on the trainer for my Q Ring testing. The second lap was even better knowing that I didn't have to hold back. Hammer time! My powertap shows some good 300+ watts across the flat sections. Expectations exceeded but did I push to hard for the run?

The run. All that I can say is my last two tri's (pacific coast) I passed more people on the run than I ever have in the past. My pace was good but it was hard to hold it. Looking back I should have ran further on the bricks that we did and continued to run longer up to the race. I did not run more than a mile for over a week and our bricks were just a sub 10min run off of the bike. Maybe too much rest going into it?

About half way through the run I passed one guy and they Mike paces right along side me. "relax your ankles and fall Slater". Agghh.. Can you pull me I thought? We ran up the last hill together and then I just could not hold it but it help so much just running with Collins for a bit. Good thing he started a wave or two back or I may never have had the chance to run with him during a race.

If there is one thing you don't do in the last few yards of a run/tri/race is get run down! I knew I had someone sneaking up on me so the last few corners I gave it a big deep-digging this is my last race push. My thought was go get out of sight and out of mind. At the last turn I looked back only to realize it was going to be too close to let up. SPRINT... I got passed in the shoot... In the last few feet!! Ahhh. That sucks. What sucks more is some dude yelling "you guys are racing for top three overall" as we ran around the last turn. I guess that made it more exciting ;-) The results Posted and show how I got dropped by :01 seconds!!

Getting run down is no fun

I finished just in time to get some grub and take some pics of Monique finishing in glory. We got to hang out for a bit with the crew and then we were back to the Brisley's for some more turkey time. I was done.