North Shore Report

Well, it's been a couple days since the race at North Shore. I meant to write this sooner, but have been busy with Ulti, etc and this is the first time I have been at the computer for more than 5 minutes.

My plan for the race was to go easy, and to not hurt myself for my race next weekend. Going easy also seemed to be in order as I woke up race morning with stiff/sore legs. All the same the race started off very well. I was feeling great in the water, which for me came as a pleasant surprise. At one point in the swim I was swimming stroke for stroke with a swimmer who on a normal day would have cruised by me. Unfortunately I lost count of my laps, and I ended up swimming an extra lap (adding 1:16 to my time). I almost swam another extra lap; I had already done my flip-turn, when I heard the swim co-ordinator yelling.

T1 was neither good nor-bad, although a little slower than normal as I decided to use socks to practice for the HI and also because the side of my foot had been rubbed raw in last weeks race. After transition it was out on the bike and time to make up some ground. I did not push as hard as last year, but I still rode a 30:54 (which includes T1 & T2). I was too busy passing a last couple of cyclists and forgot to pull my feet out of my shoes before transition forcing me to run in my bike shoes to rack my bike. Starting out after T2 my legs were feeling a little of that stiffness that they had in the morning and it took until almost half way through the run to get into my groove. Once I had my running legs, I managed to pick up the pace and I passed a good number of athletes finishing the run in 19:00.

My total time for the race was 1:03:46 which placed me 10th overall and 3rd in my age group. However, I am satisfied with the race as I know that if I had not swam the extra lap I would have done a 1:02:30 which is the same as last year and would have placed me 5th OA and 1st AG.

It has been a couple of days since the race and my body feels good other than a little soreness in my left knee. I will attempt to do only what I have to do in terms of exercise in order to rest my knee before Sunday.