It's the most wonderful time of the year...

The season of joy is once more upon us - and everyone knows I don't mean the holiday season.  No - the best time of the year is that collection of variant weather that comprises Spring and Summer.

Why?

For reasons like this:

Banking into the major turn on the Carl Dolan course.  I threaded the needle between the "hole" and the "divot" this time.  I wouldn't be as lucky or as well-placed to choose my own line very often today.

That's right.  It's RACING SEASON!

Today some friends and I rang in the new season with our inaugural event, the Carl Dolan Memorial Spring Classic, or, as some of the Strava chatter has been calling it, "The Crash Fest."  But more on that to come.

The first proper race of the season (and only my 4th and 5th mass start events, let it be known) began with much eager anticipation.  I'd been looking forward to testing how the off season and a pretty debilitating surgery would affect my performance.  I'm glad to say, at least with respect to my previous performance metrics, that it hasn't very detrimentally.  In fact, my fitness and handling skills continue to improve - an encouraging fact, despite an eight-week hiatus.

My sabbatical from fitness was very depressing, but in the end it didn't put me too far behind.  I think it came (fortunately) at the pinnacle of the lousy weather, when few but the hardiest souls are consistent with their training in the off months.

The surgery (a ventral hernia) delayed my winter training for approximately two months and was more frustrating than it was debilitating, as I'd anticipated this year as a breakthrough of sorts.  I'd determined to become vastly more empirical about my training - which before had been uninformed by any serious understanding of physiology, nutrition, or goal-oriented training.  I'd opened up a Training Peaks account and slated a few training plans, bought a set of deep-section carbon wheels for the Time Trial, and even invested in a pricey multisport watch - the Forerunner 910t.  (I recently sold a bike and upgraded to the 920xt.  For anyone who's on the fence about saving the extra money for the older model, I say go with the 920 - unless you absolutely MUST pinch your pennies.  The investment is well worth it if you're diligent about your training.)  Lydia and I had even started training together with a circuit routine and pretty stringent core exercises.  It felt like I was in the best form of my life.  Then - WHAM!  Six-to-eight weeks of nothing.

I came back with a vengeance, though.  And fortunately my clear bill of health coincided with the launch of Zwift's Beta version.  It was still crappy weather out, so the trainer and the computer became my best friends as I gently reengaged the endurance engine while waiting for the weather to break.  I soon returned to the pool with a coworker for our bi-weekly lunch laps, and late in March I hit the road again with my first post-surgery run: a fast 10k that was only a minute off my all time best for that distance.  To top it off, I'd supplemented my down time with some reading from Joe Friel's Total Heart Rate Training, an absolute must guide to cardiovascular fitness training if you're unable to spring for a power meter.  I also have begun flirting with the idea of founding a cycling team with the stated goal of competing and growing cycling in Calvert County.  It's an interesting project, and one that I hope pans out.  As a part of this plan, I laid out some specific goals for the 2016 season, which include upgrading to Category 4 on the road and cutting specific times off my triathlon margins at specific distances.  This way, I thought, I'd at least hit the ground running with some focused training plans cribbed for the season and some measurable goals.

The result was a quick return to decent form - not, certainly, anything like what I'd achieved before the surgery.  Too much of the edge got lost, and the toll invasive surgery takes on the body's reserves as it heals itself led to a depletion of the endurance I'd achieved.  But it was decent enough.  First "ride" back after the surgery was a 30 mile trainer session.  My first swim back in the pool was rougher, but I was similarly quick to return to form.  (Also, perhaps, a result of some focused reading during my enforced rest period - a book called Swim Smooth - not a very fun read, but it gives some good pointers and images about form and technique.  Using these methods I've already shaved a minute off my "easy" pace for the 1,000 yards.)

So that's it in a nutshell to bring us up to today.  I had some vague notion of trying to save myself for this race, but my training plan called for an interval run during the week, and I was very unfortunate not to work it into the plan before Saturday morning.  For anyone who's interested to know, Zone 5 repeats on hills is definitely not a strategy I'd recommend for resting to prepare for a bike race.  But the long term goal is Ironman, so I'm not bothered by the short-term inconvenience of poor placing on the road.  If absolutely nothing else, today was great training!  You simply can't beat the value of training during an actual competition: the nerves are high, adrenaline is pumping, and everybody wants that moment in the sun - even if the price is the sweat pouring down your face as you hurtle dangerously close to the curb.  (I'm not kidding, six or seven guys who likely don't know how to corner at speed effectively short-circuited 3/4 of the peloton several times today because they wanted to make up a spot or two before they got dropped again on the hill!)

Plenty of people had their moment in the spotlight.  And unfortunately it wasn't all that glorious.  Robbie and I raced today with some ideas for a loose strategy.  But - again, unfortunately - those plan are always subject to the intensely unstable conditions of a Category 5 road race.  Basically, we had a general plan that went to shit and we both were left to make due as best we could.

Robbie seemed to have the luck today, but he couldn't have performed so well without some solid miles under his belt.  He pulled a few tricks that had me grinning in the middle of the bunch - including a late surge up the last hill for a decent finish in the top half of the first race, as well as a long solo pull off the front during the second race, when we were both much depleted.

But let me try to narrate things a bit more chronologically.

Our first race was slated to go off at 845 and was entirely Cat 5.  They gave us a quick preview lap and then sent us away at around 850.  We took the first lap pretty smoothly, although it felt fast and nervous.  I expect that's because for many of us it was the first race of the season and we hadn't many group rides to offset the attempts to maintain fitness indoors.  Translation: Cat 5s can pedal their asses off but can't handle for anything - especially early in the season.  Things started to heat up around the midway point, around mile 9 of the 18 mile course (4 laps into a 9 lap loop).  But it wasn't anything too major - just a perceptible increase in speed on the backstretch.  I knew things weren't looking promising when we started to approach the corner in the backfield (pictured above) at speed and then slowed dramatically into the corner.

The classic accordion effect was in force:  too many twitchy riders with too little experience at speed bottlenecking into too little space on the corner led to the inevitable collapse and extension of the line.  If you were gritty enough to pull through on the back straight heading into the corner, you could take your own line at speed, gap the field, and be in a good position to set up your sprint for the line after the hill - assuming you still had the gas to go for a sprint after the hill.  Too frequently on the finishing stretch, which rises considerably in the last kilometer, the reverse of the accordion was true. As the leaders would slow, the long, snaking line of the peloton would collapse and nearly collide with its own head.  It meant a line like this

would collapse into a bunch like this.

The resultant bleeding off of speed would produce some slow going up the hill unless you dropped a few gears and spun on a faster person's wheel.  And it was definitely ill advised to be on the front as you reached the 500 meter mark.  The hill itself doesn't level off until rather after 200 meters, so if you're on the front before then you're hauling other people who'll scoot past you when it evens out.  I would like to say I was clever enough to avoid this tactical faux pas, but the truth was that I had to spin like a villain to hold a few back wheels, and springing around for better placing was out of the question in most cases.  I did it a few times, but that was only a viable plan when I didn't have to drop the hammer after the major turn, ramping it up to 175+ bpm just to get into a decent spot on the climb.  Most of the time, I made it to the climb in the group and didn't have to worry about getting spat out the back, but only if I was diligent about setting up for the corner well in advance.

And that raises an important question about bike racing as a general thing and Cat 5 racing in particular.  Generally, you'd like the strongest and most skilled guys to win.  Even at the professional level, I don't think this is the case.  The Road is the great equalizer, and she doesn't care about your fitness or your $9,000 carbon fiber machine or the new aero kit you splurged for.  So much can happen that's far beyond a rider's control: flats, unscheduled breakaways, crashes.  To a large extent it's a matter of due preparation both prior to and during the race.  You have to create the conditions for Fate to smile on you, and you have to be ready to pounce when she does.

But this poetical axiom is complicated and confused in amateur racing, and especially in any race featuring Category 5 riders.  Complicated by the unreliability of your fellow riders - after all, how often do you ride with these fellows?  How much experience do you know they have?  In most cases, not much.) Confused by your own inexperience reading the race and others' abortive tactics - most of the time there's no real strategy in effect; riders come, pedal their buttocks off, and wind up blasting into and through one another - often literally - and the dream of winning is often little more than a vague hope.

Now, I certainly don't want to devalue anybody's achievements in the sport, especially other amateurs, for whom racing is a rarity rather than a vocation.  (We look forward to it like a holiday season, remember.)  But actual winning in these conditions is as often just as much a function of other people's errors as it is your own skill.  You can be placed perfectly in the group in 4th or 5th place - and if you have an ally ahead who knows you're there, you can be especially secure in the leadout.  But then, some knucklehead - with total disregard to the laws of physics, an utter disregard for the dictates of safety, and a supreme unconcern for anything resembling etiquette of the road - will zoom up the inside at speed, cut the corner too close, and slew toward the outside.  The result is a wholesale dumping of speed by anyone who was unfortunate enough to be setting up a skillful maneuver at pace.  Visually from within the bunch, this resembles a giant, invisible hand casually brushing sand away:

Recovering after the apex of the corner.  Note how the group is sprawled all over the road from left to right.  In a well-executed corner taken at speed, riders bring themselves through the apex of the turn while banking smoothly and maintaining a stable line.  Here, there's not a line per se, just a gaggle of riders trying to recover lost speed as they splay over the road.

riders spread along the outer reaches of the forsaken trajectory like so many motes of dust.  Then we have to sprint to catch onto the lead group, which without malice has taken advantage of our un-friend's tactical naiveté.

But that's bike racing.  Such are the vicissitudes of the sport that it could happen at any level, really.  In fact, something similar happened during the Cat 3-4 race immediately preceding the Cat 4-5 race.  So it's not a foregone conclusion that riders will be safer in the higher categories simply because there're higher categories.  The circumstances of the crash were unclear, but it seemed that contact occurred between several riders going hard to overtake the leaders during the final straight up the hill - that section where the field telescopes together again after reaching speeds of 40+ mph.  Apparently, one poor soul had a protruding collarbone.  Now I don't know if this was the case, but he definitely had to be taken away by ambulance.  And what sucks is that he wouldn't be the last.

As for our own, purely Cat 5 race, we closed things out - thankfully - without incident.  Here's a clip of the closing run as I approach the hill:

You can see Robbie in the florescent yellow sleeves gunning it up the hill.  I thought I might join him, but I hesitated for that split second which can cost the race.  I'd had to pull hard to close a gap that formed as we began the last lap.  The unfortunate collapse and extension of the peloton during the heavy corner led to my exclusion from the select group who controlled the front leading into the last lap.

It went down like this:  Approaching the big corner, we accordion-ed out, and I had to push a massive gear to regain the main bunch.  I managed to do so just as it broached the hill at about the 1k mark from the line.  But whereas before the line collapsed, this time it stayed fairly open.  Lines were moving up and down the sides until about the final lap, where it appeared things calmed down.  Actually what happened was that some of the front guys lost steam, slowed at or about the line, allowing a bunch of people to move up on the outside.  By this point, I'd tied my boat to the inside line and got hemmed in behind a few people who were heaving pretty heavily.  When a sliver of space opened up moving into the backfield, I took it.  But at cost: my recovery was limited during this cat and mouse segment, and I reached the last long pull still in high Zone 4.  In the video, I can see where the decoupling from the lead group started: there was a moment where the pace appeared to subside at the line.  I relented for the briefest of moments, but it was enough to lose valuable momentum.  By the time I noted the shift in dynamics, a fellow moved in on my left and closed that avenue to me.

I paid for it in the final standings, coming home 32nd out of 58.  But for the first race of the season, I wasn't displeased at all!

Here's a copy of the race footage for the Cat 5 race.

I think the major lesson to be learned here, at least for me from the video, is that I wasn't as comfortable close on the wheels as I need to be in order to save energy.  I think for most of the race I was working with at least half a length of space between my front wheel and whomever I was attempting to draft.  This leads to increased workload and added chances of missing the crucial moment of acceleration.  But really, that's what the video's for: helping with some objective, empirical feedback for analysis.  We'll see if I can't make it into better performance the next go round.

As for the Cat 4/5 race, it would prove a dismal affair by comparison.  Things like this near miss:

And this crash on the first lap:

Made for a palpably nervous race.  It was almost a foregone conclusion, I felt, as they staged us at the start line only to wait for approximately 15 minutes while they cleared the course of a serious crash in the 4/3 race.  In addition to being poor physical preparation (after about 5 minutes, any of the benefits of a diligent warmup dissipate as the body seeks recovery heart rate), it gave us all time to speculate on the crash without any serious information.

I'm sure the race officials meant well, but when they started the race with a "We don't mean to lecture anybody, but this is how it happened" speech I think they unwittingly helped us imprint crashing as a conceptual certainty.  You could feel the nervousness on the first lap and throughout the whole race.

Somebody went down without any apparent cause on the very first lap in the big corner.  (The picture above with the red arrow, pointing to the hapless soul standing in the hottest zone of the race!)  A little later on, another guy went down on the left on the outside of the big corner.

At first I thought this guy was forced outside by the inexorable mass of the twitchy peloton taking the corner too wide, but I don't think that's conclusive from the video.  It seems just as likely that he got too anxious about rejoining the line as he geared up and simply wrenched his front wheel out from under himself.  He'd come out of the turn and wasn't banking like I first thought.

The race concluded with this catastrophe, and seriously diminished the satisfaction of the day:

If you look closely you can see one of the participants in the crash in mid-flight as he tosses his fiber all over the road.

Up close it looked more painful:

As I passed, guys were moaning and cursing their luck.  Only one of the crew here got up as I passed.  But what was especially curious was this guy, who I guess decided to express his solidarity with the fallen brethren and introduce himself to the asphalt about twenty yards up the road.

In reality, he probably heard the terrible sound of crashing - like giant soda cans chalking against the pavement - turned his head to see the disaster, and created his own one-man show.

So it was an unhappy race for most of us, who sensed - perhaps intuitively - that the ride would be dangerous from the gun.  But in hindsight, there were a few near misses - including some which I haven't shown - that helped me lose "The Edge" as Cougar called it in Top Gun.  But lost isn't accurate.  I discarded the edge, and happily so in this instance, since the goal was just to finish and keep to my plans for upgrading to Cat 4.


Crashes notwithstanding, I think the same overall critique of my first race applies to the second race: I left too much room open on the wheels and couldn't react in time when the important moves ensued.  For instance, in this shot, Robbie and this speed demon aced past me and Big Mac to salvage their placing in the final stretch.

But I hesitated when I saw Big Mac begin to drift over in an attempt to catch their wheel, and I derailed myself by bleeding off speed which I couldn't recover in order to catch the back of the pack.

Lessons learned, I suppose.

Until next time, here's the whole Cat 4/5 race for any who's interested.  Enjoy!

Two Years of Druid Hill, Part II: Expanding the Circle

   The second year of Druid Hill, I wasn't what you'd call an old hand, but I certainly wasn't green.  Or at least, I wasn't as green as I was only a year before.  By that time, I'd competed in two Olympic distance triathlons and had accomplished a fair bit of training to make those events manageable.  But even so, I still wasn't a contender for the overall in my own mind.  I didn't approach the event as a competitive thing.  (In fact, I don't think I acquired the desire to contend until after Savageman later in the season.)  The main difference - apart from a spiffy new bike, an exorbitantly overpriced set of Zipps, and familiarity with the course - was that I was attending with a posse!

  That's right - the triathlon devotee had successfully converted three of his family to one-time triathletes!  I say one-time because, to date, each of the three initiates has only competed in one event.  But the story of their results is hilarious - to me, anyway.

  Now, at the time Druid Hill took place in 2014, I'd just left my job as a CO and its attendant shift work.  In fact, I was working midnights the Thursday before, which saw me in the jail's control room the night of the 8th into the morning of the 9th.  I really lucked out in this, since that Thursday was the end of my set - the group of days constituting the "work week" for many law enforcement agencies.  It's standard to have a brief respite - usually two to four days - between sets, since each set alternates: early, late, midnights, and on and on and on for interminable eternity.  

   (Those days between sets are extremely important for people in rotating shift work: they give the body time to normalize or adjust to the next set.  For law enforcement shift work in general, and in our facility particularly, the midnights are very difficult and unhealthy.  The body naturally develops its circadian rhythm, the pattern of physiological effects recurring on a 24-hour clock: sleep, metabolic processes, regeneration - these are all intimately linked to the process of exertion and recovery that happen over consistent periods.  Interruption of the body's circadian rhythm can complicate recovery times, lead to artificially-induced hormonal imbalances, and chronic adrenal fatigue.  Such working conditions often lead to depression, metabolic disorder, obesity, and severely-compromised personal and family relationships.)  

   In this case, I was scheduled to come off my set, and off the uniformed job, that Friday morning.  I would then have Friday to recover, Saturday to prepare, Sunday to compete.  I'd timed it just right, so that after Druid Hill I'd be spending a week off with Lydia to vacation in Wildwood, NJ, after which I'd compete in the General Smallwood triathlon before returning to jail as a civilian office aide.  So after staying up most of the day Friday in an attempt to "reset," I woke Saturday and packed for the week with Lydia, whose attention was mostly directed at the upcoming week.  To be fair, she had coordinated this entire trip between three different branches of her family tree and was probably mentally fatigued before the vacation even began.  In this sense, she probably really needed some time off!  But she was a good sport about it, although I expect she signed on mostly to indulge me.  I guess I was projecting the importance of a fit, active lifestyle early in our relationship and she wanted to conform to it - if only to show that she appreciated my hobbies.

   For my part, I felt like I was indulging the novices, since in addition to Lydia, my cousins Paul and Barry would both be participating this year.  But the strain had started to show by time we convened at our staging area Saturday night.  We'd arranged to stay with my brother, Christopher, in Columbia.  Within easy driving distance of the race, we could spend the night discussing race tactics, as if any of us had done more than a handful of these things before.  After picking up our race packets, we hit the course on two wheels to reconnoiter: two quick laps where I pointed out a good line through a turn, where to begin slowing on the long, fast descent, the mount/dismount line.  Afterwards, we rushed home to Chris's place.

Now, Lydia'd had a long day, and wrapped up in our enthusiasm, none of us noticed that our eagerness was becoming loud and oppressive.  We were jovial about monopolizing Chris's kitchen, and he didn't seem to mind half-assembled bikes and spandex athletic wear littering the house as we waxed esoteric on the finer points of stride efficiency.  He was a champ about the fact that a makeshift bike shop had appeared in his newly-tiled dining room (imported Italian tiles, mind you!), and he stayed up late into the night with us as we prepped our race kit, finalized transition bags, and otherwise just tinkered about the bikes, looking for excuses to sound off about how much we knew (from the internet).  I think we debated sports nutrition (as if any of us except Chris, the sole non-competitor, had a clue) before making a last-minute supply run.  In our great foresight, none of us had planned for breakfast Sunday morning.  At this point, I began to wonder if Lydia was feeling alright: she'd grown quiet and withdrawn from the conversation by time we got back to the house.

   I swear, we must have cited half the internet in our eagerness to share our (predominantly reading) expertise: strategies to pace the swim, techniques to streamline transition, and when to drop the hammer on the run.  "It's a pool swim, so you'll gain time with the flip turn."  "Yeah, I'm leaving my shoes clipped in the pedals - speed things up out of T1."  "You'll want to be well into your kick by time you see the finishing chute, 'cause the end comes up so suddenly once you make the turn in."  

  At some point during the pre-race conclave, Lydia disappeared.  I took that as my signal to retire for the night as well, and I found her in our designated room.  We made up the bed for the night and set our alarms, and I resolved to try and include her more - which was a dumb thing to do and showed that I obviously hadn't listened when she told me that we were all being too loud.  What she was saying had nothing to do with volume, though: we'd become so enwrapped in our plans for the event that we hadn't even given her much stake in the conversation OR acknowledged the work she'd done for what was for her, the main event: her long-anticipated vacation.

   For those of you aspiring or current triathletes who may be reading this, if you haven't learned this trick already, learn it now: NEVER under ANY circumstances FORCE or even STRONGLY URGE your girlfriend (who will later become your fiancée) to participate in a first triathlon - even if it's "just a sprint" - after she's coordinated a weeklong vacation with her uptight relatives, without first offering to help with the planning and at least actually helping with some of the planning.  Just don't do it.

   After a short night of fitful sleep, we got up at five Sunday morning.  Descending on the kitchen, we cracked open the eggs and bacon and avocado we'd bought the night before, whipped up a decent spread, and bolted it down.  We were getting the jitters as we loaded up the bikes and bade Chris and his war-torn kitchen farewell.  On I-95 northbound, I noticed that Lydia was still quiet from the night before.  I attempted to reconnoitre.

   "Babe, you feeling alright?"  I asked.

   No response.

  "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"  I offered.

   "I'm just not as excited about this as you are." She said.  Or at least, I think that's what she said.     

   What I heard was this:

  "This is a big old bunch of stupid crap."  

   What I should have heard was this:

   "This is a big old bunch of stupid crap that I don't want to do with you and your loud cousins on the first day of the vacation that I worked so hard for without anybody's help."

   And to make matters worse, I'd completely forgotten the fact that Lydia had just learned really to swim that summer.

   Fellow Triathlete men, if you're ever fortunate enough to find a woman who is so devoted to you that she'll climb along for a first triathlon at the end of a hectic summer just before her vacation and she just happens to have learned to swim THAT VERY SUMMER, you'll want to demonstrate a bit more sensitivity than I did.  You'll just want to do it.

   But, zoned in as I was, I told myself that I needed to stop worrying about Lydia's nerves and focus on my own race.  "Run your own race."  All the blogs and magazines said so.  Don't get inside your own head.  Don't let other people in there either.  You'd think from my level of focus that I was going for Olympic Gold!

  We arrived to the race with time to spare for the family who'd come to cheer us on.  Where last year it had been only my mom and dad as last-minute spectators, this year we'd brought a clan.  Paul's wife, Michele, and their three kids: Kayla, Brianna, and Austin; Barry's wife, Kristen, and their four kids: Callie, Meghan, Emily, and Colton; my mom and dad; aunt Jo and Uncle Bruce (Barry and Paul's parents).  And they'd gone all out, too.  They had colorful signs and posterboard calling us out by name.

   This was a special event for all of us, but it was especially resonant for Paul and Barry.  They'd recently attended a funeral for our cousin, Rusty.  Rusty was a cousin on my father's side who'd lived in Florida with his wife and young son.  He'd died very suddenly - within a week - of being diagnosed with Leukemia.  Russell was too old and too distant for me to remember - we'd only met a few times in my life - but Barry, Paul, and Rusty were close when they were younger, and in recent years they'd found the commonalities of parenthood to renew their bond.  It was a tough time for the whole family, but for Paul and Barry it was especially difficult.

   The thing was this: Rusty'd met his wife while training for Ironman Florida, which they both completed.  So we'd all be running Druid Hill this year to honor his memory.  When we saw all the family gathered on the hillside overlooking the pool, we began to realize how much the day resonated with significance.  (The kids would later all swear they saw a brilliant shooting star course across the predawn sky as they caravanned to Baltimore from Southern Maryland.)

(From the Left: Barry, Paul, Lydia, Me as we await the swim start)

   The day began with a staggered start for our crew.  Paul went off first, having estimated his time up near the competitive end of the field.  I went second, having for a second year running underestimated my time and been placed towards the dull end of the stick.  Barry, Lydia, and I saw Paul finish the swim and start the bike before I had to dive in.

   This year was considerably better for me, having some experience with the course.  The swim went by quickly, though not so fast that I emerged winded - which one cold argue means I didn't go hard enough.  I managed not to get caught out behind clutch of poor swimmers this year.  When there was congestion, I just went under or around.  But if I didn't finish the swim winded, I was certainly huffing by the time I got to transition.  After the swim, when you exit the pool you have to cross a road that cuts through the park and climb a short but sharp hill to reach the transition area.  Anybody who doesn't reach this mark within the first fifty or so people has to contend with the sodden mass of grass and mud that remains after the post-swim drippings erode any semblance of footing.  You make it to the top, but not without a-slippin' and a-slidin'!

   Transition this year started out poorly for me because I reached my bike rack only to discover my bike had been stolen!  I checked and double checked: there was the rack card announcing that I was in the correct row.  Here was my towel lying on the ground.  Here even was my transition bag, a distinctively colored Under Armour drawstring bag, with florescent ---  

   Wait a minute!  That's yellow, not green!  Where the hell is my bike?!  

   I looked around and found that I was indeed in the correct row, but I was facing the wrong way!  The culprit who'd stolen my bike (and shoes and helmet) had actually made off with his own materials while I stood there wrongfully accusing him of theft while my belongings lay right where I'd placed them - behind me.  I looked around sheepishly to discover who'd witnessed my faux pas.  Nobody?  Good!  On to the next disaster!

  I donned slammed on my helmet, slid on my sunglasses, and scanned the area for my socks.  Where the hell were my socks?  Had somebody stolen them like they'd stolen my bike?  After an eternity (which was probably closer to six seconds), I abandoned any hope of finding them and decided to go barefoot.  I flew from the transition area towards the mount line, mounted my noble (and new) steed (with the flashy carbon wheels), pedaled pro-style for a few meters before slipping my feet into my shoes like a rock star.  

   Except my left foot wouldn't go in!  What the hell was wrong!  Did someone steal my left cycling shoe and replace it with a dwarf's?!  Wait - those are my missing socks!

  Swiftly and immediately I pulled the offending articles from the shoe and tossed them to the ground, which was now whizzing by beneath me on account of my superior fitness, the new bike, and the carbon wheels.

Me, about to discover the epic musket wadding that is my sock, forgottenly tucked away within my left shoe!

  Once I found my stride, I really punched it.  In the preceding year I'd averaged approximately 18.9 mph on the bike course.  This year I averaged 20.1 mph.  And you know what?  It was worth every cent of those two grand I dropped for the wheels and sweet new bike.  The bike passed by more quickly that I'd recalled from the previous year - perhaps because my familiarity with the course, but likelier because by this point I'd done some serious speedwork and longer distance training.  There was a brief moment when I saw Lydia on the bike as she was going out and I was coming in.  Also, the groupies were all clustered near the mount/dismount line so as to shout encouragement as we passed.  

From the Left: Aunt Jo, Brianna, Triplet 1, 2, 3

   But by time I reached the run I was looking for the rest of my crew: where were Barry and Paul?  Lydia had started last, so Barry had to be between me and her, but it was highly likely that Barry'd hit the bike course while I was on the far end of it on either of the two laps.  

   Where, then, was Paul?  Being fit and athletic for most of his life, Paul was the most likely of all our crew to perform well in the event.  He had the hunger for it fresh out of the gate, while I was concerned to preach the gospel of triathlon to my family.  But when it became apparent that I couldn't have a reunion on course without seriously damaging my chances of a sub-hour finish time, I pressed on.  Paul would be at the finish by time I was there.  Who knows?  Maybe I'd even catch him on the run?  (That was definitely not the case!  But I tried it anyway!)

  I powered home in 57:27, a fair time on a moderately challenging course (given the hilly sections of the bike).  Paul had run in a strong 59:15, a great time for a novice age grouper.  He and I both hoped to break one hour, and we both did.  But that wasn't the end of our celebrations on the day.

  With our finishers' medals in hand (or round the neck), Paul and I drifted up towards the finishing chute to see who would come home first: Barry or Lydia.  I learned that Lydia was the last of our group onto the run course, but she was making good enough time to pass Barry and drive home in a very respectable 1:09:38 - pretty good for a first-time, stressed out, "just not as interested in this as you" age grouper.  In fact, in her age group, only two women would finish faster than she on the day.  In a jubilant display of enthusiasm and accomplishment, Lydia leapt clear into the air a good twenty feet before she actually crossed the finish line, and Michele - ever trusty with a camera - caught the whole thing:

Jumping for Joy: Lydia sprints to the line

   It remained only for Barry to round the bend and cross the line.  He was trucking out a decent clip for his category - the Clydesdales.  The Clydesdale category is a complimentary title bestowed upon the hefty male triathletes.  (The female equivalent is the Athena category.)  He crossed the line in 1:22:25, good enough for third place and a spot on the podium.  As I looked to see where I placed, I was happy to learn that I'd placed 5th in my age group (25-29) and 20th overall.  Then Lydia started jumping and shouting in hysterical excitement: she'd placed third in her age group as well.  Then Paul discovered that he'd landed 27th overall and 3rd in his age group.  It was a great day of racing and a fun family event.  But Michele was kind enough to observe that I had the fastest time of the group and the least to show for it.  She did console me with credit for everyone else's performance.  And I hereby claim coaching credit for the rack of podium placers we put into that race!

Lydia takes 3rd place in the Novice Women's category

Paul has his place on the podium: 3rd place in men's age group, 30-35

Barry with his trophy for 3rd place in the Clydesdales

  In all, it was a great day to swim, bike, and run.  I'd achieved a personal best on the course, while my loved ones excelled in their first attempts.  We'd had a blast while also tipping our hats to our departed blood.  It was a good day to Tri, and it was a great day to be a Bevard (or soon-to-be Bevard)!  We had a fantastic day, and I've successfully transmitted one of my greatest passions to other people.  Perhaps next year we'll hash out a team jersey or something.