As I mentioned in the previous entry, I had another triathlon scheduled about one month after the last one. In this one, it was the same course, the same distance, run by the same company, Noble ran with me... and when I say he ran with me, I will "let the cat out of the bag" here early and tell you that he did not run with me... he ran much faster, ahead of me. Details to follow...
We drove over to Clermont after work on Friday. Once we arrived, it was time for packet pickup. We got our bibs and our T-shirts, and I even picked up my medal from the last event. It was a much nicer medal than the one that I received at the finish of the last race. Apparently they had a delay in receiving the medals from the company that made them so they had a local company make some cheaper ones on the quick. So, now I have two medals for that race. After packet pick-up I showed Noble the course and let him experience the hills. We headed to the hotel, checked-in, changed into our swim gear and went back to the race course to have a little pre-race swim. Nice and easy, just to get a feel for the whole thing. After the swim, we went to dinner with our friend Tommy Medlin and our new friend Robert at Beef O'Brady's. We had a nice meal and then back to the hotel.
We both got a great night's sleep and up about 5:30am. We headed over to the race start and set up our transition station, received our ankle chip timers, and made ourselves ready for the race. We had a very brief warm-up swim and then waited for the festivities to begin. They started right on time again. First the "open men", then the orange cap group three minutes later. This group was ages 6-49, so Noble and I were in the same group. We started off to the left, (the inside) of the start and avoided a bit of the congestion. As I swam inside the first buoy, making my way to the turn buoy, I did not have any traffic. I was able to see Noble as he was on my right and I primarily breathe to my right. He was keeping pace with me. I was a bit shocked and a little nervous for him because he does not normally swim that fast. I was afraid that he might burn out before the first turn and struggle to finish. I made the turn, but continued the turn a bit too long. When I finally looked up, I was in the middle of the course when I should have been on the perimeter. I began to redirect when I heard one of the safety kyakers yell, "Are you OK?" I yelled back... "Yep!" and made my way to the second and last turn. Just a little side trip. I don't think it ate up too much time... maybe 30 seconds or so. Once I made it to the beach, the end of the swim, I stood and started to jog onto the land, but I realized at this point that I was gonna have another long day. I was winded and had difficulty running to the transition. Once I reached transition, I changed with haste into my cycling shoes. When I say with haste, I definitely do not mean fast or quickly. I was still sucking wind, but made myself ready for the bike portion and headed out. I made a concerted effort to save some energy for the run. My overall bike effort was less, by a little over one mile per hour slower. I was hoping this would leave me enough energy to have a decent showing on the 5k run to follow. Up the second to last big hill, I hear from behind me, "Come one Dad! Let's go!" It was Noble who had caught me. He made up a three minute swim deficit and was now overtaking me. I said, and I am being vulnerable here with my direct quote, verbatim, "Seriously!!??!!??" He responded with, "I guess so." I said, "You're the man!" and then he took off. For a minute I was deflated. Noble is only 14 years old and he did not adequately train for this race, and he is not a strong swimmer.... YET, so I figured there would be no way that he would catch me on the bike.... but he DID! I stayed fairly close from that point and saw him as he was leaving the bike rack in transition, as I was entering the transition. He had about 90 seconds on me.I racked my bike and changed into my running shoes and headed out. Last month I had to walk right from the start of the run because I was just winded and could not keep the pace until I rested a bit. I remember walking at the beginning of the run and then for a short few seconds two more times. This time, I was really hoping to have a better run, particularly after a slower bike. As it turned out, I ended up walking SEVEN TIMES during the 5k run. It was a major disappointment for me. The run course is an out and back, so I was able to see Noble again as he had already made the turn. He had a little over a mile and a half to go. I gave him a quick high five and a "You're doing GREAT!" and I did not see him again until I was finishing. After I made the turn and back over the little bridge, I saw Tommy Medlin. He asked me where is Noble? and I said, "He is finished already". Keep in mind that Tommy started on the wave after us, a full three minutes later.
I remember as a kid saying and hearing, he beat me by a mile. Well, Noble LITERALLY beat me by a mile. He finished 11:00 minutes faster than me. He was nice enough to come out and run (jog) in to the finish with me. It was really sweet to see him and to know that he did so well. At the same time it was deflating and humiliating and upsetting. I did not perform well, and you may recall from previous entries that my level of enjoyment is tied to my performance. Noble's beating me in any kind of a race was/is an inevitability, but I sure did not think it would happen when he was only 14 years old and certainly not on his first triathlon. BTW, my performance was not stellar, but he even finished faster than my time on the previous race, so he is simply faster than me. Good for him. That actually makes me proud and happy for him.
I will say that I intend to make it difficult for him if and when there is a next one... but who knows if I can pull off a win on any race at any distance? We shall see.
After Tommy and Robert finished, we took some post-race photos and headed back to the hotel. After getting all cleaned up and ready to go, we learned that Noble finished third in his age group, so we went back to the race and picked up his age group award, then headed home.
He did gloat a few times... that is he did not let me forget that he finished before me, and I imagine that he won't soon forget either.
