Well, I did what i said I was going to do, and signed up and did the first tri of the year. It’s also the first of five in the Texas Tri Series http://www.texastriseries.com/. I got there just in time to get set up at the transition area, get my chip, and body marking. This tri was at Texas Ski Ranch and featured a 300 meter swim in the waterski area. This was the first time I’d seen a facility like this where water skiiers and wakeboarders can hook in to a cable that will drag them around the course so they can ski or board without a boat. Several of them skiied after the tri, and it was fun to watch. They were having a blast.
I ran into Randy Whitten and his girlfriend. She was doing the triathlon and he was there with her. Really good to see both of them, and it made the tri more fun.
I’m happy to have followed through. I did between 8-9 minutes on the 300m swim, averaged about 15mph on the 10 mile bike, and ran about 9 minute miles on the 2 mile run. I think I finished in 1 hour 13 minutes. I’ve been recovering through the day. My training consisted of sitting at a desk the week before. :-) That’s not entirely true. I have run maybe once or twice a week before last week, and have been swimming more often. Also, I have tried to do Bikram yoga once a week and am usually sucessful with that. I did it on Saturday and it was quite a challenge. I’m so glad I did it before the tri though to loosen up and get the blood flowing everywhere after a sedentary week.
Coming from Austin to New Braunfels for the tri, I thought I’d give Clarence a call in Seguine. He was available and so we went and had lunch across the street from his place at the mexican food place, which also happened to have been the clinic where his grandfather, Dr. Friday, practiced medicine many years ago.
It was good to see him. He has been struggling to find a job. I hope the substitue teacher thing works out, because I think it would be such a good fit. It would be something he would be good at. Some kids might actually learn something, he gets paid, and gets a step closer to getting his license to practice medicine as a P.A again.
The drive back to Houston was long. I got tired and had to pull over and walk around for a while. Once at Bucee’s and once at Katy Mills.
Mom, Dad and I had an interesting conversation about the latest Prairie Home Companion and an article in the July 2007 issue of National Geographic that had a story about Swarm Theory, and computer models based off of it that have applications in the human world.
Bikram yoga on Saturday was cathartic.