ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title>Paul Graham</title> <meta name="author" content="Paul Graham"> <meta name="description" content="Paul&apos;s webpage"> <script type="text/javascript"> function moveover(image, pic) { image.src=pic } function moveback(image, pic) { image.src=pic } </script> </head> <body text="#B0E0E6" BACKGROUND="../../pagebackground.jpg" bgproperties="fixed" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed;" bgcolor="#000000" link="#999999" vlink="#666666" alink="#cccccc"> <div align="Center"> <! insert page stuff Here!> <br><B>Milton Sprint Triathlon June 6, 2004</b></a><br> <br> This past weekend I did my first Triathlon in Milton, and had a blast. The only other time I ve ever raced in any of those three sports was cross country running in grade 5. It all started in December when I decided I wanted to do a triathlon and bought  Triathlon 101 . As the time approached I registered for the Try-A-Tri, although I was still didn t have a bike to ride. I figured that if all else failed I could get slicks for my mountain bike, but really didn t want to do this. I finally got my bike 2 weeks before the race, and tried to put as many kilometers on it as I could. <br><br> Upon Mike s suggestion during a conversation at an SCC practice I decided that I would switch to the sprint distance. I hadn t realized that the Try-A-Tri was run before the other race, and I would have to watch everybody else do the sprint distance. I was confident that I would be able to finish the sprint so I made the switch. I m really glad that I took the advice. <br><br> My parents live about 10 minutes from the course, so I had visited it a couple times on the day before the race to see how things looked. Seeing the swim course was intimidating, as I have never done any great distance in open water. The bike course had a crazy hill at the beginning, with a ton of hills all the way through. I tried to eat properly, and ensure that I was hydrated that night, and tried to get a good night s sleep. <br> Race day I was out the door super early. I had picked up my race stuff the day before, but I still wanted to be early just in case. I set up my transition stuff, and watched the Try-A-Tri start and T1. I was in the first wave of the sprint, so I went into the water right away to try and warm up. I m not sure the logic in this, as the cold water didn t really warm anything up, but I suppose it d be worse to jump in when the horn goes off. <Br><Br> When it came time for the race to start I ran into someone I knew from university at the start line. She s on the Canadian national development team, and won the women s elite category last year (and went on to win this year as well). She told me that it was a fun course to run, and that all the hard parts were at the beginning& the big hill on the bike course was at the beginning, and the run course was all down hill after half way. This was great news, and helped to calm the nerves a lot. <br><Br> When the race finally started I decided to hold back a bit so that I wouldn t get clobbered at the start. My stomach was doing crazy things, and I wasn t feeling good about the swim. It took until about the 2nd buoy before I started to feel comfortable doing my swimming. I had lost a lot of time, but was starting to get the groove, and had to keep going. People from the next wave started to pass me somewhere after half way. <Br><Br> Running to my bike in T1 I saw Mike (who had apparently been one of those passing me). The transition wasn t great, but I left with everything I needed, so I was pretty happy with that. I knew that the big hill was going to be killer, but that all I had to do was get through the bike course without a flat tire. Going back down the hill was crazy fast. I think I hit 77 km/hr. <br><Br> Rolling into T2 I was pretty sure that everything was going to work out fine. This transition went a lot faster, but on the way out I realized that I was still wearing my bike shorts. Not a big deal, but I had originally planned to take them off for the run. <br><Br> The course was fantastic, with lots of running on trails in the shade and nicely placed aid stations. Fewer people were passing me at this point, and I was feeling good about my running pace. Once I was on the way back I knew for sure that I would finish, and that made everything much more enjoyable. I m pretty sure I had a smile on my face for the last 3 km. <Br><Br> As I got closer to the finish line more people were cheering, and giving words of encouragement. I crossed the finish line at 1:56:28, which by default would be a personal best. I was happy that I finished under 2 hours, and am looking forward to improving my results in Huntsville. <Br><Br> <br> <div align="Center"><br> <br> <br> <div align="Center"><br> <! last modified code stuff*> <font size="-2"><SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> var theDate = "" theDate = document.lastModified document.writeln("Last updated "); document.write(theDate); document.write(); </SCRIPT> </FONT> <! end of last modified java*> <center><font size="-2"> This page is maintained by </font><font size="-2"> PaulGraham, paul(at)paulgraham(dot)ca</font></center> <center><img src="../..//grokanim51x1.gif" height="60" width="80"></center> <br> </body> </html>