When I got up this morning to leave for the race it had been raining during the night but had stopped and was perfectly calm and around 50 deg. Perfect race conditions. As I made the 45 min. drive to the other end of the valley I got into a lot of heavy wind. Not so good especially on the bike. When I arrived there were also a few raindrops starting to fall. About 20 min. before the race was supposed to start it started raining hard. I didn't see one person out warming up and I didn't either. I just couldn't get excited about going out in that downpour. The race director was trying to give us some last minute instructions with everyone huddled under the pavilion but everything he said was completely drowned out by the roar of rain hitting the roof. When it was time to start it wasn't fun to take off my sweatshirt and head out into the cold and rain in shorts and short sleeves. We took off in the rain and I was completely soaked and cold right off the bat. There seemed to be a lot of standing water right off that soaked my shoes and socks. My hands were freezing and I realized I hadn't put any gloves out in my transition stuff for the bike ride. That first mile I really didn't feel like running at all but after about 1.5 I started to warm up and felt better. I tried to keep the effort hard but not too hard so I would have something left for the bike which is actually where the most time is gained or lost. The race is a loop course that you run twice so the direction you are running changed several times so headwind verses tailwind or crosswind changed several times which kept my splits a bit uneven. Splits for the first 4 miles went 6:22,6:18,6:24,6:28. The last mile I had mostly tailwind. I usually don't kick at the end of the run in a biathlon and when I turned the corner into the parking lot I could see the clock was still at 30 something so I took off a bit faster to break 31 min. I got to the clock at 30:57 or 58 but the timing mat and barriers had been changed around since the start and I had run around the wrong side and had to go back around to cross the mat. It got me at 31:02 but I'm saying I was under 31min. The last mile was short. I had it at .92 miles on my garmin at 5:30 [5:58 pace]. Overall pace for 5 miles was 6:17. I was about 58 seconds in transition if I add in the 4 seconds I lost getting across the mat. I had to decide in transition whether to put on the jacket I had left there but was feeling warm now even though it was still raining. I didn't want the extra wind drag so I went without it. The bike part started out with a tailwind and not too far into it the rain stopped. The bike part goes 16.5 miles on an out and back course. With about 2 miles to go before the turn around the tailwind got harder and I was really flying. Unfortunetly I soon had to turn back into a much stronger headwind.The whole way back I felt like I was just crawling. I normally get passed a lot on the bike but until the last mile and a half I had passed 3 people and had not been passed myself. At that point I had a guy about half my age with twice my bike go by me. After he got about 5 or 6 bike lengths on me [you are not allowed to draft] I could see he had used a lot getting past me and I was able to keep him from getting away any farther. When we got closer to the finish I started coming up on the side of him. He kept looking back and trying to hold me off but I continued to gain on him. I was right even with his back wheel as we were closing in on the finish and still slowly gaining. The race officials do not want you racing this last bit across the line as it is an open course and finishes in a bit of a crowded area. they want you to take care of it out on the course and then cruise in the last bit. I decided I had waited a little too long and backed off and cruised in but I think I could have gotten him and he said afterward that he thought I had him. I beat last years run time by almost a half a minute but my overall time was 1:30 slower. I really wanted to break 1:20:00 and figured when I finished the run faster than last year I had it but that wind really kicked my butt. It must have slowed everyone else a lot too. I finished 7th overall. Up from 17th last year. I was only 3rd in my age group which includes 40 to 49. I have two of the better racers in my group with Keith Anderson and Mark wallace. Even though my time was slower than last years I'm sure I had a better race. After it was over I headed to Southern Utah for 5 days of bowhunting.
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