Singing in the Rain

Despite flash flooding on the bike course, the Long Course National Championship was a fast race. About 45 minutes before the start of the race, a thunderstorm rolled through that delayed the race by 45 minutes. The Race Directors decided that we would race, but at certain spots on the bike course we would be required to dismount...pick up our bikes...and carry them ~75 yards across the washed out roads. This Half Ironman distance triathlon quickly became a cyclocross event. The rain continued to pour and continued for 4 of the 4.5 hours that I was on the course. Because of the flat terrain in Oklahoma City, several sections on the run course were also full of a half foot of standing water. This was a lot of fun.

The race was without a doubt a success. I came out of the water in about 10th place for my age. Coming off of the bike, I had made up a lot of time. In fact, I saw another guy in my age group in the bike to run transition at the same time. We came out of transition within 3 yards of each other in 1st and 2nd place for Men 25-29, and it stayed that way for almost the rest of the run. I led for the first 11.5 miles by one step. His footsteps were like a constant echo for the first hour and ten minutes. With 1.5 miles to go, I laid it all on the line and took off at about a 5:40 pace. I was able to hold on to this pace and ended up winning my age group by 1.5 minutes with a total time of 4:29:07. I did the 1/2 marathon run portion in 1:25:09, which was a 6:30 min/mile pace. Not bad considering the rain. Overall, I took 12th place at the National Championship.