Beaver Freezer Triathlon

What a difference a year makes!! Went down to Corvalis and did the Beaver Freezer Sprint Triathlon this weekend with the Headhunters team. Friday afternoon we loaded up the van in beautiful blue sky 75 degree weather. (top picture is of the van on Saturday) I think we had 11 people in the van and several more from the club drove down on their own. We got to the motel and put the bikes in the rooms, then drove the course. Then we walked the run course loop once and then to packet pick-up where we ran into Frank from the base so he went to dinner with us. We invaded American Dream pizza with 20+ people and had a loud dinner. Then back to the rooms and someone said "hot tub?". The hot tub turned out to be way too hot, so into the small pool for volleyball and underwater endurance competitions.
The next morning with so many people and different start times we had to be there for the start of the race at 7:30. My heat was at 9:30. When we got there it was sprinkling and they moved the barricades for us so we could park the Headhunter's van next to transition. I think there were close to 30 from the club who did this race. Set up the bikes in transition and went into the pool to watch the swimmers. After a while people would walk in soaked, it was pouring outside. Around 9 I went out to get my goggles and take off the shirt and everything was wet even though I had put towels over my stuff. There were 5 of us from the full-iron team, coach Denise, John, Julie, Kevin, and myself. Kevin was hurt so he came along as support and picture and video taker. We had all put down 8:23 as our swim time hoping to get in the same lane. As it worked out Julie and I were in lane one and John and Denise were in lane 2. So Julie and I decided to do what we had planned and trade off pulling each 100 yards. When we got in the pool there was Joanna in our lane who I had ridden with once last May. She remembered me and said "hey, we did a ride together". Joanna and the other guy in the lane had put down 8:15, so we told them our plan and they were ok with it. I took off third in the lane and then Julie. I was pumped and swam along at a good clip and looked back after 50 and Julie was a ways back, so I slowed and then waited at the wall for her when it was her pull. Then we did a smooth fast pace with good trade-offs. Got out of the water and started running for the bike and looked at my watch and it said 8:30 something- I showed Julie and we both did a woohoo! Afterwards I saw on the results that I did an 8:32 swim- 1 minute and 13 seconds better than any pool swim race ever and almost two minutes better than last year- one discipline down and one pr. Denise and John had gotten out maybe 5-10 seconds ahead of us so we were all in bike transition together. Denise went first and then John and then Julie, then slow transition guy- me. I started out fast and kept Julie within a hundred yards at the most for about 4 miles and then passed her and kicked it up a little. The course had a couple of hills that were pretty flat this year, didn't even go out of the big ring. Oh I forgot, it had stopped raining while we were in the pool so the road was wet but there was no rain. Just lots of spray if you got close to someone. I played leapfrog with a girl for several miles and we even joked about each time we'd pass each other. Came in from the bike and results said an average of 20.0 my fastest triathlon bike average! Two disciplines- two pr's.

In the run transition as I was putting on my shoes, Julie came in and said "Jeff, can you move over?" I moved over and saw that I had forgotten my knee brace. So in the time it took me to take my shoe off and put on the brace and put on the shoe and put on the other brace, Julie had parked her bike and put on her shoes all while standing- I have to work on my transitions. My being in the way turned out to be either bad luck or divine intervention because Julie tied for 1st in her age group- if I hadn't been in the way she would have won her age outright. She's a 6 something pace runner, so that's the last I saw of her until the end. I finally started out on the run.
I started the run the way we do when I run with Cecilie- start out slower and build up as we get warmed up. I used to go out fast to start and then tire. The run does three laps around a block with one small hill in it. I gradually ran a little faster and something new for me- I passed people. On one of the laps I saw a group of Headhunters and veered over to high five. The third lap came and I waited until after the hill and had about .4 to go and I stepped it out some and got to the edge of ragged breathing. As soon as I accelerated I felt like this is the speed I should have been running at. Got to the finish line and stopped my watch at 1:15 something. In the finish picture, Frank from the base is the guy in black with a yellow hat. When I saw the results on the wall it had me doing an 8:06 pace on the run- a new 5K pr- three disciplines- three prs. Plus it showed me at 1:15:01 a new sprint pr by over 4 minutes and over 5 minutes better than last year. We stayed for awards and Julie tied for first in her age group and coach Denise won her age group. In the women's overall Julie was number 4 and Joanna from our swim lane was number 3. Overall I think 3 Headhunters won their age group and around 9 ribboned. The winner in my age group had a 1:09 or 1:07, so I was probably close to a 5th place ribbon, results haven't been posted yet. The one they had on the wall showed me 64th overall. Last year I was 125th overall! It was very cool racing with a group and very fun riding in the van to an event.
Happy Easter- went to services with Friends and you know you're in Oregon when the church lobby has an espresso stand in it!
Ps- Annette and Matt asked about my foot- knock on wood, no pain.