Mossman Sprint Triathlon, Norwalk, July18, 2010

Mossman has been my baseline race: I have participated every year since 2006, to gauge how well I am doing keeping ahead of father time. This year was special, because my daughter Christina agreed to do her first real triathlon as a Christmas present to her Dad. She did great! Her swim time was outstanding, and her run time well ahead of the pack. The bike, however, was a disaster. She's not a cyclist, and did not have enough time to use a road bike, so she did the race on a heavy mountain bike. Just to make things more difficult, she ran over a huge nail about a mile from the end, and had to bike that last mile with a flat tire! But even with that disadvantage, she managed 12.6 mph over the course, and her finishing time was within a few minutes of my time on my first tri. Best of all, I think she might be close to hooked. We are going to try to borrow a decent road bike for her, and show her how much better things can be.
I hope she does it.
Back to me (that's what this blog is about, right?):

For the first time in a USAT sanctioned race, I placed: 3rd in age group 60-64 (out of seven, but still. . .).This year, the organizers had to change the bike course, so there is no direct comparison to prior years. About .6 mile was added to the normal bike route, and it was far more technical, with many turns, and a short section where passing was not allowed. So, although my time was about 45 seconds slower than last year, and the bike average was .7mph less, I feel REALLY good about the run time. I don't believe I have ever run a 7:30 minute mile at any age, any time. When I was 32, I ran a 10K at 7:46 pace, but nothing even approaching that since.
So, here's the numbers:

Time: 1:20:22

177/571 all = 31%

140/344 men = 40.6%

Swim: 15:19.5 ; 1:51.5/100yds

Bike : 13 miles : 38:43.9 ;  19.4mph

Run + T2 : 24:24.8 ; subtract 50 s for T2 = 23:34 ; 7.35 m/mile

Sunday was just 63 days to my 1/2 Ironman in Syracuse, and I really need to work on endurance, so at about 7:30pm on Sunday, I did an 8 mile training run. I will now start to do both morning & evening workouts 6 days a week (to the extent possible), and a long brick each weekend for the next 7 weeks! (Taper has to begin after that).
Anyway, I was surprised at how smoothly the 8 miles went. I could easily have extended to 12 miles, if I had not run out of daylight. More of this to come.