Paul's triathlon...

Well, on Monday (Labor Day), Paul participated in the Austin Triathlon. It was an international distance triathlon, which means it was a 1 mile swim (okay technically he swam 1500 meters, but most people don't have a concept of what that means - here's a hint - a mile is 1609 meters, so he was pretty close), a 24 mile bike, and a 6 mile run. Another note on the swim - it's in a lake, and you don't have lane lines, so adding in his zig-zagging, he probably truly swam a mile. So he covered 31 miles in different loops (1 swim loop, 3 bike loops, 2 run loops).

You can find out Paul's official results at http://www.texastriseries.com/events/austintri/results.asp.

Jack and Adam's Triathlon shop hosted the race - that's where I bought my bike, and it's our favorite source for splurging on training equipment that we store in our spare bedroom instead of using. :) The guys that run it are down to earth and really helpful (we've actually met both Jack, and Adam, and Drew, who joined after they had the shop name). I think one guy had experience working at a different tri/bike shop, and then 2 others were lawyers that decided running a triathlon shop would be more fun. They do a good job with their shop, and the race was run really well - better than some of the other races we've been to, so that was really nice.

The building on the far left, is actually one of the buildings that is caricatured in Jack and Adam's logo (far right building in their logo). Because I'm not from Austin, and didn't do my homework, I don't know what building it is. But it was fun to get a picture of it in the early morning just after the sun came up. It also shows how cloudy it was that day.

We got up at 4:20am to start preparing for the race that started at 7am. We left our hotel at 5am, and Paul got his transition area all set up. It rained the night before, and had threatened rain on Monday, too, but thankfully God held back the rain and just allowed the clouds to stay, which made a perfect race day - cloud cover and cool temps (especially for Texas in Sep!!)

Yep, it was a wetsuit legal race, which Paul really enjoyed. All that neoprene helps keep you afloat and you swim much faster!

This is a bad picture of Paul's wave getting in the water (jumping off a floating dock). I couldn't tell which guy he was - I was too far away at that point. But we can pretend that I captured him in pixels here. :)

Okay, this is a side-note to Paul's race. I just want to point out that the guy who won the race, won because his swim time was almost 2 minutes faster than any of the other guys. His bike time wasn't the fastest out of the crowd, and his run time wasn't the fastest, either. But his swim time gave him such a great advantage, that he won the whole race. Above in the first picture, he rounded the last buoy, and no one was even close to him. You probably can't even see him in the first picture - just know that he didn't have any chasers nearby. The second picture shows him getting out of the water. The big crowd at the top of that picture is the chase pack. I think there were 3-4 swimmers in between him and that big chase pack that aren't in the 2nd picture. But it gives you an idea. I think he swam a mile in roughly 17 minutes (I looked at my watch - his official time may be longer because he still had to cross over the timer pad). The announcer said that this guy is a professional triathlete, so if he took longer, I guess I would have been disappointed. :) But it was still amazing to watch.

Okay, back to Paul's race. Below he's the one in the red cap - looking at me and smiling for the picture. So that was a good sign. Did I mention that he didn't really get much training in before this race? So I was glad that he was cognizant enough to recognize me. I was pleasantly surprised that he took a few seconds to look at me for the picture, too! He finished his swim in about 40 minutes.

Below is his transition area in the daylight (since the earlier ones showed them in the pre-race, pre-sun, darkness. He was number 242.

Another transition picture (between swim and bike). He's still smiling!

I was impressed that this picture came out (maybe I'm improving my photography skills...or maybe my camera is super cool and compensates for my lack of skills). He was probably passing me at about 22 miles an hour. Notice, though, he's still smiling. He said that his average bike speed was maybe 22 mph on the flats, 7 mph going up hill, and 30 mph going down hill.

Here's the first time I saw him on the run course. You may notice that...he's not smiling anymore. Not even a glimpse. But he said that he only walked at the 3 water stations, and 2 additional places, so for the most part he was jogging the whole time. And for not training before this race, I'm super impressed that he did so well.

Below are pictures of him crossing the finish line. It was kinda nice because they had 2 plastic "winner banners" that they would alternate throwing across the finish line. So everyone got to raise their arms and "break through" the winner banner. I did wonder how much sweat was transferred from each runner by the end of the race. I hope they threw those banners away - I sure wouldn't want to be the person to clean them. Yuck!

Above you can see the clock time on the left. Subtract 3 minutes from that, since his wave started 3 minutes after the official clock did. So the whole race took him roughly 3 hours and 19 minutes.

There's that smile! I guess he just needed some cold pizza to re-energize him...and to see his lovely wife that supported him all the way. :)

If you're still with me (I know, this was kind of a long blog, but still fun in my opinion), here are some aerial pics of the race courses - the red line marks the course.

Swim course:

Bike course:

Run course: