Bowling Green Sprint Triathlon

A couple of weeks ago, I did the Bowling Green Sprint Triathlon. I had thought I was done with triathlons this year, but a friend at work approached me and said he was thinking of doing this one - his first one. I was glad he was considering it and wanted to support his entry into multi sports, so I said I'd join him if he decided to sign-up. I got worried the week of the race, though when he came to me and said he hurt his calf running over the weekend. I was afraid I would be doing the race alone. However, by the end of the week, he felt good enough to try. He ended up walking much of the 5k, but he finished with a respectable under 2 hr finish time.

Bowling Green is more hilly than even the eastern part of Daviess County. In addition, the race promos actually mentioned challenging hills. This can't be good!!! Before the race I was able to drive the bike course (in reverse) and confirm that the hills were going to be tough. The first big one was at 3 miles and I finally had to get off the bike and walk a bit. I was a little upset because I thought I was stronger than that, but my breathing rhythm was off and I just didn't feel like pushing through it. I still managed to catch my friend, Joe, finally, around mile 8. He had a a few minutes on me after the swim. There was another tough hill at mile 10 that I handled pretty well and of course there was the descent that I coasted down at a slightly terrifying speed over 30 mph, but didn't crash. (Thank God!). This event had only a 400 m swim, and I improved my 100m split time, but there is work to do.

The run was pretty good, too. My average mile splits were under 11 mins, which was good for my triathlon runs, so I was happy about that. All in all, I'd do this race again, and I'm very glad that my friend was able to finish without injury and had a good time. Now, I'm done with triathlons for 2008!!!

Today's Mileage: 14.3 miles
2008 YTD Mileage: 520.4 miles
Miles to reach 2008 goal of 750 miles: 229.6