Poor Sarah was feeling under the weather with a nasty cold, but she was hanging in there. This year they had two starts, one for the men, then 15 minutes later the women and relay teams. I wonder if the change was so that the women wouldn't have to look at 'speedo guy' (A competitor from at last year's race) He was ...um...unusual, shall we say a bit too enthusiastic in his warm up stretching. Anyway, no sign of him this year.
The race started and it wasn't too bad, all down hill for the first mile or so, but the climb back was tough. It took me just over a minute longer than last year. I handed off the chip timer to Ryan and he was gone! This year I decided to do the whole thing so I changed shoes, put the helmet on and tried to catch up to Ryan - wow, he has gotten a lot faster, it took me almost 4 miles to catch him. Sarah caught a couple of pictures of us riding by. I finished the bike section and got ready for the pool. It felt nice to jump in, but after a couple of laps, I was getting really tired. Oh well, no stopping now. By the time I was out of the pool, Ryan had finished his bike ride and Sarah was closing in on me.
So how did our team (The Crew II) do? In spite of her cold and a crowded pool, Sarah bettered her time in the pool by 11 seconds. Ryan bettered his time on the bike by a whopping 4 min 50 seconds! Thanks to Ryan and Sarah we beat our old time by 3 min, 50 seconds - OH YEAH!
(click for larger image)My individual finish time was 1:27:36.
Enjoy the pics!
