This past weekend I raced in my first triathlon since our move to England.  The race was held at the Eton Rowing Club grounds which will host the 2012 Olympic Rowing events.

I went to the race without the family. Heather was busy preparing for a weeklong business trip and we decided it would be difficult to make a family day trip out of this race outing.  When I arrived, I immediately noticed the wind.  You can see in the video clip below that it presented a bit of a challenge for the day. The bike was 4 laps and the run was 2 laps, so you got some good and some bad out there.

The race was well organized. The only interesting thing I wasn’t used to; the waves started every 1/2 hour. They had waves going off from 9AM until 3:30PM.  I guess this was because of the bike course which is a fairly narrow path around the lake. With four laps per wave it could get pretty congested if the waves were closer.  My wave was at 1:30PM, so I had plenty of time to find the venue in the morning

The race went pretty much as I expected:

The Swim

The swim was too short to really matter; 400m. The wind was in your face on the way out and you had a nice draft on the return. There weren’t any good swimmers in my wave so I was able to come out of the water 7th out of 74.

The Bike

The bike was the as expected, I haven’t been on the road since being in England. I’ve been pulling a Christophe (aside from the fact that he’s twice as fast) and doing all my bike training inside. Below is a picture of the torture chamber set up in the basement of our flat.

The Run

The run went well.  Despite what “Stealth” might tell you about our flat hour long run along the Thames, London actually has quite a few hills.  We don’t have a car in London so I end up pushing the boys in the double jogger everywhere and I think that’s been helping a lot. I get quite a few comments on those runs, especially when I’m pushing them up a steep hill. A few weeks ago one man exclaimed “Now that’s proper exercise” as I was huffing up Primrose Hill.  Last week while summiting Parliament Hill, Heather heard a woman say “That chap is bloody mental”

Below are some stats from my race results site. I held an ever so brief lead out of T1 until getting crushed on the bike.

To get fueled up for the Sunday race, Heather and I went out to dinner on Friday night to celebrate my birthday. We went to a restaurant we have heard a lot about but have never been to; La Foret. We had a great time in a quiet restaurant while Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to put the kids to bed. 

Race morning I made the 40 minute drive south to Uvas Reservoir.

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A lot of us were very familiar with the course since this is the same location as another race that takes place later in the year. This particular race is new this year. It’s put on by a new race management company made up of a number of local triathletes and is called  Threshold Racing

I don’t think I was really ready to race an Olympic Distance race this early in the season, but thought it would be “fun” to see where I am fitness wise. 

While I got ready for the race, the rest of the family was driving down together to be spectators.  My swim wave was only 10 minutes away when I spotted them on the bank of the reservoir. Below I am getting some last minute race advise from Kevin and Ryan before I head to the starting line!

There were only 5 start waves in the race and the “old men” were last; 45 and older. I saw a lot of familiar faces in the water as we were getting ready to start. There was a lot of joking going on just 15 seconds before the race. Of course there were also plenty of nervous looks on others faces and all our joking around was probably not helping them concentrate

The swim went well and I headed out for a little 40k bike ride. For the entire hour I was out on the bike, Kevin was sitting on a police motorcycle. He and his mom approached a policeman because Kevin is obsessed with motorcycles. It took a little warming up before he got the nerve to sit on it, but after that there was no getting him off of it. He talked about it for days after the race.

While Kevin sat on the motorcycle, Ryan was happy to just watch the race and enjoy an early morning prune snack.

I felt pretty good the entire way on the bike. I purposely started out a bit reserved since I knew I hadn’t been biking enough to really pound a 40k from start to finish.

The run was tough. I could tell it was just a bit early in the season to have a solid race start to finish. Nevertheless I had a good time and it was fun to see the whole family at the finish line!

After the race, “Team TRIbe” enjoy pizza and strawberries from the post race food tent. It turned out to be a perfect April day for a race, sunny and near 70 degrees.

So now at least I know I have a little work to do before the rest of the season arrives. I have 2 fun races coming up in May…both shorter distance than this one:

1) Angels Camp – My annual trip to Gold Country in CA with Rad and friends to do a low key, fun race.

2) Got the Nerve – This will be the 2nd annual trip to Pennsylvania on Memorial Day weekend to visit the family and do a little race while we are there.

Of course I’m still hosting a local triathlon results website bayareatri.com in my “spare” time. Below is a graph from the website showing where I finished relative to everyone else in the Reservoir Triathlon. I just noticed it also gives away my true age!!

Now you’d think there would only be a few crazy people out there willing to join you for that kind of “celebration”. Below are 10 people who knew what they were getting into and all seem to be smiling prior to the start.

(left) Eduard, the birthday boy is showing everyone how it’s done. (right) Fred and Staffan make it look easy.

Here is a nice shot from the bleachers of the whole group coming around the track with Fred and Eduard leading the way.  Thanks to Conrad for taking such great pictures. See everyone next year for 43!

Being able to stay so close to the race start sounds great, but with Kevin it’s always unpredictable.  Heather and I found out that he has become very use to his comfortable crib at age 2 and doesn’t much care for his pack and play anymore. He spent most of the night flopping around like a fish in our room trying to get comfortable. So neither Heather or I got a good nights sleep.  Then Kevin was up at 6:30AM waking the rest of the house up by playing with a toy vacuum cleaner that made a lot of noise!

With the lack of sleep I poured  a few extra scoops of Pete’s Major Dickenson’s blend “The Major” into the coffee maker and drank a few cups to get me going for the race.  I headed down to the race start to pick up my chip and race number while the rest of the household slowly woke up, had breakfast and made their way to the beach for the 8AM start.  While they were making their way to the beach I did my usual warmup routine, a little biking and a 10 minute run.  The biking is a relatively new addition to my warmup routine. I never did that in the early days of my triathlon career, but I’ve found that it helps to the get the legs going in the race at my “advanced” age

I finally made my way down to the beach and spotted family and friends standing on the boardwalk. I went over to say hi prior to my swim warmup.  I came back later to tell them how freakin cold it was. The water was 56F and that’s cold enough to make my head hurt when I get in.  The fun part of the warmup was swimming 20ft from a sea lion (who was wondering what all the people were doing in his swimming pool).

The race went off in 3 waves, the first wave was all men 35 and under. The second was my wave, all men over 35. The 3rd wave was women and relays.  The swim is around a big boat wreck sticking out from the beach and is about a 1/2 mile long.  I felt pretty strong the entire way and was later pleased to find that I did better than the swim on my last race at Treasure Island.  As I approached T1 I spotted Heather, Trilbe and Kevin. I took time out to come up and high five Kevin. He was very excited and I was just happy he recognized his Dad.

This year was the first year they have split timing, so we ran across the timing mats entering the transition area. I was quickly out on the roads and decided this year to just start out steady and strong and try to build. In past years I’ve tended to blow it out on the first couple hills and struggle towards the finish.  The entire bike course is very hilly, so it’s good to have something at the end.  The roads were very wet from the morning fog and there were several turns where my back race wheel slipped out and I was lucky to recover. After those first few incidents I decided to take it a bit easier around the corners so I didn’t end up crashing.

The biggest difference between this years race and the last 2 years is that my main competition from the last 2 years was missing.  In both previous years he passed me on the bike 2/3 of the way through the course and then I slowly reeled him in on the run only to have him out spring me at the finish.  This year I didn’t have any competition and with the youngsters 5 minutes ahead in the previous wave I had nobody pushing me on the run. I was running all by my self the entire way.  The run was a bit harder this year because it was high tide.  There were also several “sea lion obstacles” where they had beached themselves and volunteers had actually set up cones around them so that we would run around them.

After the race it took a while for the race organizers to sort out the results.  In the end I managed to win my age group and ended up 6th overall.  While we were waiting for the awards ceremony, Kevin had a blast playing in the sand with his friend JT and his Grandma.

He was one sandy mess and exhausted but had a great time.  It was also fun getting the race trophy with him.

Next up is Pacific Grove, then Sentinel and a week later baby #2 is arriving!!!

Over Memorial Day weekend we flew back to Pennsylvania to visit my family.  There were a lot of family members anxious to see him.  It had been almost a year since we last visited and Kevin had changed a bit since then!! Above is a picture of Kevin in our driveway ready to head to the San Francisco airport. He hauled Mom’s suitcase most of the trip. He entertained quite a few folks at baggage claim.

When we stay in PA we stay with my sister and her family because they have a big house with plenty of extra room for all of us.  My nieces had a great time getting to know their cousin again.  They put him to work out in the big backyard helping them water the plants (below)

One of the first things on the itinerary for our trip was a little triathlon in Mt Gretna on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Friday I spent the day putting my bike together and then taking a drive on the bike course with my Dad and Uncle Jim.  Uncle Jim always likes to point out places where I can cheat and cut corners.   We also fit in a visit to see my Dad at work at the volunteers’ office of the Good Samaritan hospital. He loves showing his grandson off to all the ladies in the office.

Saturday was the race and the entire family made their way out to Mt. Gretna early in the morning to spectate. I think everyone had fun watching me suffer.   I had a good time and it was a well organized event.  The bike course was pretty hilly but the run was on a railroad bed trail that Heather and I had run on in the past.  I really enjoyed that part of the race.  The results of the race are on my website.

After the race we spent lots of time with family and visiting friends.  Nanny took Kevin to visit Marshall, her horse.  The picture on the left is from our 2008 visit, the one on the right is from this year.

By far Kevin’s favorite part of the visit to the farm was playing with the pitchfork in the hay…yes we’re horrible parents for letting him play with a pitchfork…but it did make for some great pictures and he had a blast as can be seen below.

Finally we packed up and started the trip home.  We were a bit worried on the 6 hour flight home as Kevin was super hyper and very loud. We were not making many friends around us.  He had learned to “sing” at my sister’s house while playing Guitar Hero and was practicing his best Adam Lambert whiny/screeching singing voice for the first hour of the flight! Finally he lost energy and fell asleep on Heather’s lap.  I  had loaded episodes of Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street on my iPhone and that helped put him to sleep. He would sit on Heather’s lap watching, fighting to stay away, but eventually his eyelids got REALLY heavy until he fell asleep.

After a peaceful (for everyone) 2 hour nap Kevin was awake, had a snack and seemed to be enjoying himself.  20 minutes before landing in San Francisco he was sitting on my lap when all of a sudden he started vomiting like a volcano.  He was completely covered and I started feeling a wet, warm feeling soaking into my lap.  Two minutes later he was sitting in his diaper in his own seat giggling like nothing had happened. Meanwhile I’m sitting in a pile of puke and smelling wonderful.  I must officially be a Dad now because I wasn’t even phased by this…I mean, what can you do? 

Aside from the final vomit event, it was an excellent trip and Kevin was a real trooper. He adjusted well to east coast time and to the new surroundings and thoroughly entertained the family.