3:13:42

The triathlon took me 3 hours 13 minutes and 42 seconds which is a whole 29 seconds slower then I did it back in 2005. Honestly I am very disappointed with my performance in this race, specifically in the swim. This time around I really worked hard on my weakness in the water and in the pool I went from someone who could barely do a length of freestyle to being able to swim a non-stop mile. So when I got in the water on race day and could barely manage more then a couple yards of freestyle before flipping over in defeat, it did not make for a good start. I have plenty of excuses for why I could not manage to swim that day; could not sleep the night before, freezing water, sick to my stomach but mostly I had just not properly become accustom to swimming in open water. It took me nearly an hour to finish the swim, by comparison the same distance was taking me 40 minutes at the pool. My calves cramped pretty badly about 100 yards from the swim finish which did not help matters either.The rest of the race went fine once I was out of the water with me doing about the same on the bike while I cut almost 8 minutes from my run, even with my calves being tense from cramping. Even though I think I could do better I have no plans on ever doing another triathlon. Even the reasoning I used when I signed up, it will make me work out, seems ridiculous since I would have worked out even without the triathlon looming overhead, maybe not nearly as much but adequate for keeping in shape. So here and now I pledge to never make the mistake of signing up to swim, bike & run a triathlon ever again.

~ by Tim Humphreys on 2007.September.14 Friday.