3 seconds...

I raced the Mountain Lakes Triathlon this morning, a sprint in Guntersville which is only about 40 minutes away. I felt great on all three legs and the weather was awesome... cool and relatively low humidity.

They started the college kids first and then I was the first of everyone else to start. I passed about half the college kids during the swim and headed out onto the bike. I felt great on the ride as I was continuing to pass those who started ahead of me although my rear wheel started "wobbling" (for lack of a better term) during the second half. I tried not too think too much of it and caught the last of the college kids in the last mile of the bike. (As it turned out, when I got my bike after the race, my rear tire was flatter than my Saturday morning pancakes. Awesome!)

Once I started the run, I was excited to be running fast. I tried to open it up as much as possible but it was a bit painful as I havent run that fast in quite some time. The 3 miles went by pretty quickly and soon enough I was finished!

Unfortunately, crossing the finish line first wasn't good enough for the win. Timex teammate and swimming stud Bruce Gennari ended up beating me by 3 seconds! (Results here) It sure wouldve been awesome to actually RACE him but sadly enough, I had no idea where he was on the course because he started about a minute and a half after me.

This offers a great opportunity for a little triathlon bashing. What is the point of a time trial start??? I can understand if its one of these early season races that is in a pool as clearly you cant have 500 people starting at the same time in a pool. But when the race is in the huge Lake Guntersville, why the hell do you need a TT start? If I wanted to do a time trial, I couldve just driven down to the river 5 miles from my house. However, I wanted to actually race but apparently that was too much to ask.

OK rant over. Overall Team Magic does a great job with events but I just dont understand the fascination with time trial starts. Also, aside from the frustration of getting beat, it was a fun day out there and nice to be able to sleep in my own bed the night before a race. I was also reminded of how much fun sprints are in general.