St. Patrick's Day Triathlon

This morning, I completed the Dallas Athletes St. Patrick's Day Sprint Triathlon. The race consisted of a 300 meter pool swim, 12 mile bike, and 5K run on the same course as the Monster Tri back in October.

I finished in 1 hour, 11 minutes, and 59 seconds for 17th out of 52 in the men's 35-39 age group ... and 103rd out of 462 total participants overall. (I think a couple of the times in front of me are flawed, though - two people must have only done one loop of the bike course because they had average speeds of 29.7 and 33.1 MPH)

Here were my times:

• Swim: 5:55 (1:49/100yd pace)
• T1: 1:34
• Bike: 37:41 (19.1 mph average)
• T2: 1:07
• Run: 25:44 (8:18/mi pace)
• TOTAL: 1:11:59

Compared to the Monster Tri (times below), my swim, T1 and bike times were a little faster, T2 was exactly the same, but my run was slower. So, unfortunately, my overall time was 28 seconds slower.

• Swim: 6:02 (1:51/100yd pace)
• T1: 1:39
• Bike: 37:52 (19.0 mph average)
• T2: 1:07
• Run: 24:54 (8:02/mi pace)
• TOTAL: 1:11:31

Full results at http://www.stpatrickstriathlon.com/images/StPattyOverall2008.txt and http://www.stpatrickstriathlon.com/images/StPattyAgeGroup2008.txt.

This was an "official" Team In Training practice tri for all the TNTers heading to the Lavaman (in Hawaii!) and Lonestar tris in the coming weeks. So I saw a lot of fellow teammates before during and after the tri. Also with a lot of my friends doing this event and the out-and-back run course, I was waving and high-fiving people every few minutes on the course - Archie, Don T, and Coach Todd on the way out and Derek and Don on the way back in. (Jarrod and Matt started in a later in the swim so I had already crossed the finish line before they started the run).

After the race, we all met up and had some pancakes, enjoyed the live Irish band, took some photos with our finisher's medals. It was a little chilly in the early morning before the start, but the sun came out and it warmed up nicely.

Although not quite a PR, the St. Patrick's Day Triathlon was still a decent kickoff to "Tri Season 2008". I'm getting psyched for the BIG ONE in only two weeks!