Janesville Aquathon #1

I've got some catching up to do on my blog.  I've done some racing, had some breakthroughs, had some bad training days, good training days, etc.  So I'll start with the first of four race reports....

Madison has an aquathon series and a couple of friends of mine in Janesville have been working hard to get the series started up in Janesville.  They succeeded in getting a 2-race series started for this year.  I don't race many of the aquathons, but they're fun so I decided to support the event.

An aquathon is a 1000 meter swim followed by a 5K run.  With the heat wave this year, we had temps approaching 100 degrees for the race....and humid.  Always humid.

That's me leading the group into the water.

Lesson - when you lead into the water, know the course.  I thought I did but quickly found out I didn't have the slightest clue where I was going.  The course was a triangle, but I thought it was an two-loop out and back (I thought we were swimming the old Janesville Triathlon course twice....nope).  I went out hard and took a left past the first buoy.  I was supposed to go straight to a buoy I never even saw - a huge, orange buoy.  It's pretty obvious in the picture below.

See the buoy way out there?  That's the first corner buoy.  I swam to the yellow buoy and hung a left.

The race director sent a kayaker out to get me.  She went out and hit me with her paddle, but not very hard.  I kept swimming.  Courtney told the race director to tell her to hit me really hard or I won't stop swimming.  So hit me really hard she did.  That got my attention.

Kitty the kayaker hitting me with the paddle.  You can't even see any other swimmers.

There's nothing like going from thinking you're leading the race to finding out you're not even in the race.  I was halfway to the wrong buoy and had a lot of ground to make up.  I swam hard, caught the group and sat in second place the rest of the swim.

Here I am coming out of the water catching a lot of crap from the race director for swimming the wrong way.  Good times.

Transition....still catching crap...."do you need an escort for the run?"

Heading out on the run.

The run flat out sucked.  I've been struggling with my running lately and this was no exception.  It was my slowest aquathon run ever, actually.  My legs were heavy and tired and I couldn't catch my breath.  It's no fun suffering on the run only to set one of your slowest times ever.  So it goes. 


Fortunately I managed to come out of the water with enough of a lead over 3rd that I was able to hang on for second overall.  

The finish line.  Tired and about to hear a lot more crap about swimming that wrong way.  That's what happens when you screw up at an event your friends are running.  I'll never hear the end of it.

They had tons of great prizes and I won a free VO2 Max test for taking 2nd overall. 

Picking my prize.

Next up, race #2.  The Janesville triathlon.... or how to end a sprint tri in an ambulance.