Cinco Ranch Triathlon
Sept 7, 2003

I decided to register at the last minute for this triathlon. Always hate paying the late registration fee for signing up at the last minute. I didn't even get a T-shirt for the race. They said they would mail them - yeah right. Anyways, like we really need more race T-shirts. Since we registered late we ended getting a race number in the 800's, which meant we were way the hell out there for our bike rack. I feel it was at least an extra 100 yards more that the average participant to and from the bike location. Most of it running in your cleats.

The swim start was horrible. Did anyone out there besides me notice that the swimmers on the right side of the starting line swam at least 100 yards less than the guys that were at the center. I am really surprised no one said anything after the first couple of heats. As soon as the gun went off the starters on the right were already ahead.  As for me I did better on my swim time than the Stampede. I managed to do more freestyle than at the Stampede. I did have some trouble with my goggles leaking. I kept getting water in my left eye and had to stop about three times to get the water out. Even with this I managed to get a 10:57 swim. Pathetic although not bad for me.

As usual I did excellent on the bike and run. After coming out nearly last in the swim for my age group, I managed to work my way up on the bike and run to 12th place in my age group.  I ranked 6th on the bike in my age group and 3rd for the run.  I feel I still have some room improvement on my bike. Overall I came out with a time of 1:13 :19.

The moral of this story again is even though people say the swim is not going to win the race, if you are as shitty a swimmer as I am, it's the difference between placing and averaging 12th place in triathlons.

Andy's Tri is the last triathlon for the season for me. After this it's marathon training for season. You can be sure next year I will be out there kicking ass on the swim. Hey, you got to think positive.