Bret

Race Report of sorts - St. Anthony's Triathlon - Olympic Distance Tri - Relay.  Had a pretty good time today.  Got up early at Richie's house in St. Pete and headed down to the start.  The swim route was new this year, so I was a bit thrown-off by having to basically go in the opposite direction than I am familiar with - and having no sense of pace - I just swam to what felt right and tried not to go off course in the open water swim in the bay.  Water temps were nice at 78 degrees - and although there were some swells - it really wasn't bad.  Ample amount of kicking and bumping during the race resulted in one heel kick to my eye and my google filled with salt water - but nothing too awful.  Odd water (as opposed to beach) start had us treading water for 5 mins before the gun.  Had a very pedestrian effort on the time - of a little over 36 mins for 1500 meters - for which I have no explanation.  I felt good and comfortable and thought I was swimming quite well in fact.  Alas, two years ago, on a different course in the full event, I swam over 6 mins faster. I guess I should have expected to go slower with little to no training and just coming off of the Paris Marathon 2 weeks ago, but just not that slow. 

Ken had a nice bike leg averaging 20.6 mph over the 40 k's and Richie had a very good 10k run of 37:50 which gave us 4th Place in the old men's relay competition (Male Masters).  Our nearest competitor in 3rd was over 9 mins ahead of us (so even if I swam to what I thought I was able to do, we still would not have placed any higher).  Interestingly, when I did this event in 2010 individually my time was 2:31 and in this competition in a relay  today- our time was 2:30.  Obviously, my overall contribution to the effort was the poorest - but we had a fun time nonetheless. 

Had to run about a mile to get to my car after the swim to get to church on time - hence the 1 mile in the log.