Lobsterman Relay, McTriple domination.

Saturday marked the end of Triathlon season in my neck of the woods, as it is fall and the lakes are about to freeze up solid.
The theme of the year certainly has been Tri-Relays- I have had SUCH a fun time participating in several and this was no exception.
The destination on this particular day was Lobsterman, an Olympic distance race in Freeport. I haven't done a 10K in a "real" racing way this year and with my schedule being heavily into marathon training I wasn't positive of the outcome. I predicted a 45-47 minute finish if the course was relatively flat (it was not. more on that later.)



Looking athletic per the norm!

The team today was my sister's friend Taylor. My sister Kate and ME! After much deliberation Kate had come up with the genius team name of "McTriple" paying homage to our favorite pre race snack (brought to us by Rev3 and Reggie!)
 An important side note is that from what I understand after spending the day with her, Taylor REALLY, REALLY hates swimming. With unbridled passion. Poor kid, a mile swim is a significant undertaking if you hate swimming in the face.
She was in the last wave which seemed promising as she wouldn't have fast, collegiate men swimming over her (scary.) We knew she was going to finish but we also knew that she was absolutely hating her life (and us) while attempting to swim thru the seaweed and murk of the ocean.

There she goes!!

The thing about the Olympic distance vs the Half is that everything flies by much more quickly. Except the stupid swim. Basically, the way I see it is that an Olympic swim is the same damn thing as a half. UGH!!! (and word on the street is that the swim actually measured long, as in 1.2 miles. whoops. and apparently the currents were fierce and the sharks were everywhere!!)

Taylor made it out alive, which was a great relief and Kate took off on the bike.
She was relatively coherent and only said "NEVER again" once or twice.

During this time I also saw Eric speed off on the bike (he then had multiple bike mechanical issues. blah!)

Zoom.

I had just enough time to pick out who I needed to chase down in the run portion of the event. Standing around in transition for a while gave me quite the opportunity to scope out the competition (and there were an ass ton of teams. more than we have seen all year.) I am a jerk (as we know) and certainly won't be beaten my someone wearing today's race shirt, or other things that have already been discussed. Anyway, I knew who I would be chasing!

Kate was quick on the bike coming in at 1:28 after chasing down several Relay bikers on the hilly course. Not wasting any time I ripped off her timing chip, she smacked me on the butt and yelled "go get it" and I scampered off.

Hello mud run!
See, my bogs were totally justified!

And then....
I scampered straight up a fucking mountain. What the hell? I was not at all shocked to see that my first mile was done in an abysmal 7:50 due to the fact that the course was legit retardo mountainside stupidity. Things only were slightly better during the first half coming in at 7:33 and 7:40 as I struggled and wheezed my way laboriously past a couple of Relay-ers.

At mile 3 I told myself to man up already and run, that it was only a 10K and that I could stand to kick it up a notch and quit whining. So I did. The final 3 were in 7:17, 7:15, 7:04 which is much more reasonable given the distance at hand! My watch read 46:14 but my official time was 46:46. This has be baffled as I started and stopped my watch exactly (and I mean, EXACLTY) over the timing mats. While it certainly did not impact my results I'm a person who always defers to the official time and I'm sad that I added mysterious seconds. Either way, I was done, I was happy, and in the end I passed a few people which brought our final placing up another couple notches to 48th out of 62. Hey, we'll take it!
Oh, and for those keeping track. I did a damn good job predicting my finishing time today! Boom!

McTriple for the win! Or... For 48th but who is counting?

Then we had beers.
The end!