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="#33cc00" bgcolor="#000000" link="#999999" vlink="#666666" alink="#cccccc"> <div align="Center"> <!put page title here!> <div align="Center"><img src="../..//paul_graham.jpg" alt="Paul Graham" width="500" height="100"><br> <br> <!title stuff below!> <table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" border="0" width="50%"> <tbody> <tr valign="Top"> <td valign="Top"><a href="/pictures/"><img alt="Pictures" id="pictures" width="150" height="50" border="0" src="../..//pictures_on.jpg" onmouseover="moveover(pictures, '../..//pictures_on.jpg')" onmouseout="moveback(pictures, '../..//pictures_on.jpg')"></a><br> </td> <td valign="Top"><a href="/hobbies/"><img alt="hobbies" id="hobbies" width="150" height="50" border="0" src="../..//hobbies.jpg" onmouseover="moveover(hobbies, '../..//hobbies_on.jpg')" onmouseout="moveback(hobbies, '../..//hobbies.jpg')"></a><br> </td> <td valign="Top"><a href="/skule/"><img alt="skule" id="skule" width="150" height="50" border="0" src="../..//skule.jpg" onmouseover="moveover(skule, '../..//skule_on.jpg')" onmouseout="moveback(skule, '../..//skule.jpg')"></a><br> </td> <td valign="Top"><a href="/stupidity/"><img alt="stupidity" id="stupidity" width="150" height="50" border="0" src="../..//stupidity.jpg" onmouseover="moveover(stupidity, '../..//stupidity_on.jpg')" onmouseout="moveback(stupidity, '../..//stupidity.jpg')"></a><br> </td> <td valign="Top"><a href="/resume/"><img alt="resume" id="resume" width="150" height="50" border="0" src="../..//resume.jpg" onmouseover="moveover(resume, '../..//resume_on.jpg')" onmouseout="moveback(resume, '../..//resume.jpg')"></a><br> </td> <td valign="Top"><a href="/links/"><img alt="links" id="stupidjava" width="150" height="50" border="0" src="../..//links.jpg" onmouseover="moveover(stupidjava, '../..//links_on.jpg')" onmouseout="moveback(stupidjava, '../..//links.jpg')"></a><br> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <!end of title stuff!> <! insert page stuff Here!> <br><B>Muskoka Sprint Triathlon June 19, 2004</b></a><br> <br> I did my second Tri this past Saturday the Muskoka sprint distance (750m swim, 20km bike, and 5km run). After the Milton tri two weeks ago I was determined to improve my placing. <br><Br> I got to Huntsville fairly early Saturday morning and checked out all the sights in Huntsville, and got my race number. I had made plans to meet up with an old friend for lunch, which ended up eating into my pre-race prep time. I ended up being in a huge rush to get set up and to the start line. Definitely something I will be doing my best to avoid in the future. I ran into Mike for the body marking and managed to get the last train out to the start area. Apparently he wasn t in a rush doing the marking because the  E on my leg because it wouldn t wash off no matter how hard I scrubbed later that night. <br><Br> Once in the water I was able to relax a bit and warm up. The water was much warmer, and I was more comfortable with the open water swim than I had been in Milton. I was also in the second wave, and there didn t seem to be as many people in the water. My swim time wasn t as good as I d like, and much slower than I m capable of doing in the pool, so its an area I d definitely like to improve. I ve been using an old wetsuit that isn t exactly made for swimming, so I m placing some of the blame on it. I got when I was 16 and I m looking forward to some warmer water later in the summer so I can ditch it. <br><Br> The swim seemed to last for ever, but it eventually finished and I was off on my bike. All those practices with the Sudbury Cycling club must be paying off because I was able to pass a fair number of people. My average speed was just over 30km/hr, which is an improvement for me. Back to the transition area and switching to the run I figured I was doing ok. According to my stopwatch my splits weren t too bad, and judging by the number of bikes on the rack I was about mid pack. I took a look at my heart rate, and was a little concerned. <br><Br> Once on the run course I developed a huge cramp in my abdomen. This limited the speed I was able to run, and lasted until the second loop. I was quite annoyed at this and saw a couple people from my age group pass me. Not cool. I was secretly hoping that they were on their second loop, but I m pretty sure that they were the ones I had passed on the bike. I suspect that the cramp was a result of the late lunch I ate, or maybe a bit too much Gatorade during the bike. Something I ll have to avoid in the future. Near the end of the run I passed someone I knew from university. She said something like  hey, this is only you re second Tri, you re not allowed to pass me & I apologized and told her it wouldn t happen again. <br><Br> As I approached the finish the timer was almost at 1:30, which was a finish goal I had set for myself. I was determined to beat the clock to 1:30, so I sprinted to the finish and finished at 1:29:31 on the clock& I had forgotten that I was in the second wave start, so my actual time was 1:26:31. I ve made progress since Milton, slowly scraping my way up the standings, finishing 16th out of 26 in my age group. Despite the cramp while running and slow swim I had a blast, and am looking forward to the North Bay Tri on July 4th. Thanks to anybody who was cheering& it was appreciated. I heard a  looking strong from Mike during the run. <br><Br> I stuck around for the next day s races& I wanted to see the pro s and cheer on the other people from Sudbury. It was an enjoyable day, and was fun to watch. Congrats to everybody from Sudbury who raced& <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>