Give it a Tri

Work intruded on life for a couple of rough weeks in mid June, and I'm still dealing with some of those issues now.  The copper plater I'm in charge of has been getting worse, until finally a major overhaul was required.  This involved a couple long days of changing out parts, and in the process finding more parts that need changing out.  All this was accomplished, and then the machine worked worse than ever.  So the end result was that I ended up working a 65 hour week leading up to the Tri-loppet, with 50 of those hours being in 3 days.  This somewhat decreased my motivation for the race, but it is such a fun race I was still excited by Friday evening when Mike Kosloski and I hit up lake Calhoun for our one and only canoe training day (and Mike's first time in a boat in who knows how long) in the Jensen named Lilly that we borrowed from Paul.  I did my best to impart my incomplete knowlege of race paddling on him, and try to learn how to steer a boat at the same time.  The practice round didn't go too bad, and we had a plan ready for the next morning. 
Race day was bright and beautiful.  Jeff came with to be cheering squad, and the paddle over to the beach where the race was starting went off without a hitch.  There was a bit of down time to relax before the race start, then it was get in the boats, get in position, and get going. 
We started in the second row and drafted a rather fast boat right out of the gate.  We were probably about the 20th boat around the first booey, and were out of most of the traffic.  My steering wasn't the best, so we ended up bumping boats we were trying to draft a couple times, but never really interupted their paddling or ours.  We picked off a few boats along the course, including Fixie Paul in his solo kayak and Carl Schaffer, who had taught me my dubious paddling skills.  I was rather pleased with this, and even more pleased when looking at the results to see we finished 25th and 26th in the paddle leg, my best tri-loppet paddle yet.
Then it was off to the hilly quaking bog for the run leg.  I have had the fastest time for the run every year I've done the Tri-loppet, so I had a record at stake for this section.  I was feeling fast, but not winning fast, and taking a digger around a sharp corner didn't help.  I was back up in a jiffy, no worse for the wear, but it broke my rhythym a bit for sure.  Jeff was all over cheering, and when he ran along side me for a stretch not even breathing hard I figured I was in trouble.  My abs hurt far more than other years, since I actually used them to paddle this year, and the lack of sleep over the last week was beginning to catch up to me.  I powered through though, and was happy to hop on the bike.  Not that the bike leg hurt much less, but it did give my abs a rest, and the speed and wind always help a bit.  When I was at about the 3 mile mark in the bike I saw one of the leaders passing the 6 mile mark going the other way, so I knew there was no winning for me this year.  I got passed by a rider who I had caught in the running leg, the first time I've ever been passed in this race after leaving the boat behind, so that was a bit demoralizing too.
After an exhausting race I wasn't expecting much, so I was quite pleased to see I ended up 8th overall, and managed to snag a 2nd in my age group behind Matt.  I did have the fastest running leg, and was 5th in the bike, so if I ever get a fast boat I could be in the mix for a win.