Lane 4, until the run at least...

A buddy of mine and I have a saying we use when talking about workouts. His daughter is a superstar swimmer at a Div. I school, so he’s down with the swimmer lingo. So anytime he or I have a good workout or race, we say “I was in lane 4 today.” Which in swimmer talk is good, cause the fastest qualifier for the finals gets lane 4. So that explains the title a bit. Onto the race recap.
The return to short course racing was a fun, yet painful experience. We packed up the truck (literally, since my dad’s truck had a bunch of stuff in the bed, the jet fighter sat in my lap for an hour) and headed up to Lake Providence for the Cotton States race. We get there, and all is well and good. I was in the 2nd wave, and figured that the winner would come from the 1st wave, so I asked my dad to start his watch as soon as the first guy from that wave came in off the bike. I figured with the 5min gap, I could adjust as I needed to try and win the race. I had really kicked around the idea of going old school on this race, and rockin’ out the man bra (aka Manzierre) and a Speedo. At the end of the day, I chickened out and went with the Manzierre and some DeSoto shorts. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, as I would have been trumped. Some dude rolled up in a Speedo, compression Under armor long sleeve shirt tucked into the Speedo, and a snorkel for the swim. Really, I can’t make this up. Good thing that dude was in the 1st wave, because it gave me at least 4 minutes to laugh before having to start swimming. The swim was good, mainly because the bulk of my group started WAY to the left of me. The only thing I could figure is either someone behind me farted in the water and scared everyone away, or that group knew something I didn’t. Anyway, the gun goes off, and I start swimming typical me style, way too hard to start. When I get to the turn around, I thought we had to swim over a bit and then come back. Nope, out/back swim. So I played that off, and started back to shore. Now I’ll say with some certainty that this race was definitely the first race (and possibly the only race ever) where I led my wave out of the water. It was strange. Anyway, to the bike. The ladies’ who run the race set up a very cool transition area. It was ITU style, in that it was just a long line of bikes. It made me feel cool for .5 seconds as I pretended I was a pro. This was the first race on the jet fighter, as well as the first race with a new aero helmet I got. Wasn’t sure how it was all gonna go. After we got past the first 5 miles of pavement, which was about as smooth as an old farm road, wait it was an old farm road, everything smoothed out and I got somewhat of a rhythm. The disc sounded so cool, and that shark fin bottle was so sweet looking, that I didn’t think the shark fin doubled as a water bottle. Plus, somehow I convinced myself that 1:15:00 or so of all-out, on the rivet effort was short enough that I didn’t need any calories. I never claimed to be the smartest kid. Came in off the bike and felt great. My dad shouted, “3 and a half minutes!” Perfect, I thought. I’ve got a 1.5 minute cushion for the run. Maybe I should just run solid, and play it safe. Nope, not today. That voice in my head (who I’ve since fired for being stupid) somehow convinced me to try and catch that first guy, in the first wave. Yeah, you only need to make up 3.5 minutes….in 3.1 miles. “Hello, McFly?!!” So I tore out of transition on a blistering pace. My 1st mile was in the neighborhood of 5:30. Then the wheels on the bus came off. The rest of the run was, well let’s just say that it got about as ugly as Lindsay Lohan’s mug shot. In the end it all worked out, though. I finished up in 2nd place, about a minute off the winner. And I got a cool Cotton bale award, and all I really wanted was a big cotton bale. See Cotton States has some of the coolest trophies in the Triathlon world. Cotton Bales for awards. So cool. And why the “Dopers Suck” wristband in the picture, you ask? Well, I wore my shirt that matches the wristband before and after the race. Just my way of saying that I’m racing clean, and I think even age group guys who cheat should get kicked by a horse. Anyway, it was a great time and a fun race. I’ll be going back next year, as it is definitely a race worth doing. What did I learn from the wonderful world of super speed, super sprint triathlons? Well, since the race I’ve been working on pacing a bit more and drinking every time on the bike. Some rookies never learn….

Thanks for reading.