Bob the runner

I did it!  On Sunday I completed my first Olympic Distance Triathlon.  TriRock was held at Aurora Reservoir in Aurora Colorado and included a 1500 meter swim, 24.8 mile bike ride and a 10 kilometer run.  This is my biggest accomplishment since the marathon in January and I'm feeling quite happy with myself!  On July 1st, I visited Endurance House for their weekly group run.  They were giving a free entry to TriRock away and I was hoping to win.  Unfortunately I didn't win, but did receive a nice discount and a free TriRock technical shirt, so signed up for the event.  While at Endurance House, I also won the raffle for one of their technical shirts.  Normally, to earn the shirt, you have to attend ten of their group runs, so I was quite fortunate winning on my first visit. On Saturday, my wife and I drove to Aurora to pick up my race packet at the Expo.  There were a handful of vendors there but nothing like typical Rock-n-roll race event...

Today I accomplished a new milestone by swimming 1.2 miles in open water.  This was the longest swim I have ever done! The event was called Cancer Sucks and was held at Grant Ranch.  There were about 182 participants in the event.  My wife did the swim with me as well as 3 other folks from the Arvada Triathlon Club.  It's always more fun when you have family and friends at an event.  There were two courses, 1/2 mile and 1.2 mile.  The distance options were 1/2 mile, 1.2 miles, 2.4 miles, and 4.8 miles.  Most participants did the 2.4 mile course.  You could swim in a wetsuit if desired and there were no awards.  I chose to swim with the wetsuit.  Since this event was for charity and not a race, the atmosphere was well organized but also very low key.  This was great for me as my focus was on finishing the distance not racing for time.  We entered the water around 730am and the swim started at 735am.  There were only 5...

I finished my first sprint Triathlon of 2014 on Sunday.  TriBoulder was a fun event and I finished faster than the time I predicted for myself.  The race was held at Boulder Reservoir.  The weather (70) and the water (72) were perfect. For the swim start we were facing right into the sun.  This made it impossible to see the buoys so we were pretty much hoping the faster folks led us in the right direction!  The wave before mine veered way to the left away from the first buoy and probably cost themselves a minute or so getting back on track.  It was quite entertaining watching everyone follow the leaders in the wrong direction.    The start for my wave was announced by a countdown and then we ran into the water and began swimming.  Personally I found the entire swim to be quite congested as I was constantly either smacking, kicking, bumping, or getting it done to me.  The leaders in my age group took us in the right direction a...