Tri Time

We did it, Lauren and I survived the innagural US Open Triathlon. Yes, even though it took me 2 hours and 33 minutes, I did survive. The swim (800M) plus the first transition took me about 40 minutes. Lauren kicked butt and finished the whole Tri in 2 hours and 17 minutes(I think that’s right). Yep, she owned me, and you know what, I am really proud of her. I know that in the spring she’s gonna break 2 hours on a sprint Tri and probably kick butt at the Olympic Distance (no pressure Lauren.) I am glad we did the Tri though. It was a lot of fun training and preparing for it, and finishing an event like that gives you a great sense of accomplishment, because Lord know I wanted to quit about every 20 meters in the choppy, nasty water of Joe Pool Lake. But I didn’t. And I’m not nieve enough to think that I did any part of that race without help from above. I spent half of the bus ride from Reunion Arena to Joe Pool praying for the strength to finish the race. Lauren thought I was so nervous that I was sick. For those of you that don’t know, my calves cramped up really bad Thursday night and I could barely even walk on Friday and was still a little gimpy on Saturday. I was seriously worried I would cramp up in the water and have to be pulled ashore by a rescue boat. No way I made it through that race without some divine strength. My calves didn’t cramp up once during the whole 2.5 hours. Now my quads and hamstrings, that’s another story. You think maybe I was a little dehydrated?


Overall it was a great experience. Once I loosened up on the run I probably finished my last mile in about 7 minutes. Afterwards we enjoyed an awesome mexican food lunch (thank you Bob and Johnny), and then napped the rest of the afternoon and went to church and had a big fat burger with bbq sauce and cheddar cheese. Guess it was ok to eat since I burned over 2600 calories during the tri, plus whatever I burned in the hours immediately following. Probably 3500+ within 5 hours. Crazy.


Another fun part of the weekend was that my friend Mike Pelaggi (Holla!!) was in town from Beantown, aka Boston, aka Dedham. We got to meet out Friday night for some beeahs at Pete’s Piano Bar. Fun times. Good to see Mike but poor choice of pre-event carb loading. I think you are supposed to carb load on pasta, not on Miller Light. My bad. Also probably shouldn’t have had around 2 bags of chips with guacamole, salsa, and cheese dip on Saturday during the Tech/A&M game (WRECK EM), hours before the Tri. Nice work Eric, you are a genius. Anyways, it was great to see Mike and hang out. Too bad we didn’t get to go to the Pats/Cowboys game with him like we had originally wanted to do. Probably best since it was a struggle to get up off the couch Sunday after the Tri. At least the Pats won.


So, a busy weekend, but an awesome one. I am attaching a pic from after the Tri. Enjoy!