I did two triathlons this year. The first was the last one before David headed off to college; it was the Mid-summer triathlon at Blue Lake. In years past, I did this race, and it was a good gauge to see how my fitness had progressed over the racing season. This year, it was a gauge as to whether I had any race fitness at all.
Notice the difference in the number of people around David vs. the number of people around me. Guess that's what happens when you are on the sharp end of the race rather than in the washing machine.
It was a fantastic race from the standpoint of spending a last weekend with my college-bound son. David had a great swim, exiting in the top 3 (and even getting some video footage from the drone on the website). My swim was typical: mid-pack. However, the great part of this particular race is that the waves make my swim much less exciting, as there is less jostling in the old-man wave. I jokingly refer to it as the "and over" wave, as it is usually announced as, "xx years and over." I had a good bike, not great, as I was not in very good shape. As I started my run out of the park, I saw David approaching. We exchanged not very high 5's and I started to do the calculations in my head. I realized that, given the time difference between waves, and the location of where our paths crossed that this might be the race that David finally would beat me. As I finished, I noted my finish time and asked David what his time was. He thought that his time was about a minute faster than mine, and I agreed with him. Well... when the times came up on the computer, I had beaten him... by 12 seconds! So, I still had the family title for 1 more year. We both won our respective age groups.
