The thrill of victory

From right to left: Rob, Mike, Heather and Tom

The "recovery" period

Rob finishes lap one of the run

Donation update

Just did the math and Make a Wish will receive a sum total of $608 for my "sweat" equity. That works out to about $75 for each week of training. Not too shabby.

Official Official results

So apparently some adjustments were made overnight because my time (which was listed on an "offical"-looking document posted at the event yesterday) suddenly increased when results were made available on the race website today.

My new final time of 1:28:31 beat two other competitors in my age group. Thanks to VJ Anma who finished at 1:46:56, I was “not last” by 18:25.

We’ll round that down to 18 minutes which means all you fine donors need to get out your checkbooks and start sending me money. If you’ve forgotten your commitment, let me know and I’ll look it up.

I’ll also be making the rounds with a Make-a-Wish t-shirt for folks to sign to commemorate this historic achievement.

Official finish times

Times just got posted and I came in a very respectable 1:26:49 which put me in 112th place overall. Age divisions weren't broken out but there was one person near my age at 1:29 so it looks like 3 minutes will be the minimum for donation purposes.

My neighbor Tom Butler (whose wife started this whole mess) finished a very strong 1:20:42, good enough for 81st.

Mike got a DQ for wearing his timing chip on his wrist instead of his ankle but based on our best guess, he was somewhere near 1:20 in the shorter Tri-it<.BR>
I was very happy with my split times. I felt slow in the water but managed a 19:42, at least 4 minutes faster than I expected.

The bike took 39:32, right where I thought it would be. The run was 24:48, a little slower than I would have liked considering that was my strongest discipline going in.

Not last (unofficially)!

Well, it looks like all the training paid off. I passed two competitors that appear to have been in my age group which would mean I was not last.

Everyone was marked with their number and age on their legs and I saw at least two ages in my group on the run.

We'll have to wait and see the official results for confirmation.

Race conditions

It's super cold out here this morning. I can see my breath. The low last night was in the mid-40s and it doesn't feel like it has warmed up much. The reported water temperature is 61 degrees. Fortunately, there isn't much wind which means the water will be calm for the swim.

We came into the park on the road we'll use for the bike portion of the race and it seems fairly flat. The hilly sections are short and shouldn't pose a challenge.

I haven't seen the running trail.

I got bib number 751 in my race packet. I've got all my stuff arranged in the transition area. Transitions aren't something I practiced so it will be interesting to see how I handle that.

Got to go to the start to get my race briefing.

Race day!

Race day is finally here! I'm riding down to the race with Mike, the fireman.

I'm changing out the pedal's on Lincoln's bike this morning because he uses clip-in style shoes. Since I'm just wearing my tennis shoes, I prefer flat pedals.

Hope to have a report on race conditions later:

The blue band is magical

Got my package from Make a Wish today. Two t-shirts (XL) and 7 blue wristbands a la the popular yellow Livestrong bands (one of my all-time favorite marketing programs).

I wore a wristband on my run today and it must be magic because I went 6 miles at a pretty decent pace and felt like I could go another 2 or 3. It's either that or my "eat anything you want, workout occassionally" training program is going to make me millions.

Make a Wish responds!

I got a call from Dayna Russell, development coordinator at Northwest Make a Wish Foundation in response to my earlier post.

They are sending me a t-shirt to wear in the race and "a couple extras" (can't wait to see what those are!). Dayna was also nice enough to provide me with all the details I needed to ensure my donors can deduct their donations from their taxes.

I'm very impressed that Make a Wish responded. I'm thinking of having all my donors sign the shirt as a memento (since I'm never going to do this again).

I swam and biked today. A little concerned with my bike times. I'm revising my finish time up to 1:30.

Choppy waters

Had a pretty good training day. Did an open water swim in some chop (boat wakes created by folks heading to the UW game) and finished in under 27 minutes. Didn't try to push it in those conditions as I was merely trying to get comfortable in turbulent water.

Ran 50 minutes this evening (about 5.5 miles). Nothing spectacular, just trying to get a long run in.

Tomorrow I'm going to test out the new road bike that I picked up from Lincoln today (Thanks, coach!). I'm pretty excited to see how quick I can go. I'm also going to do a hard run. Hope to have a pretty good idea of what time I need to achieve in the water to make my goal.

Donation update

We're up to $15 a minute and $300 in straight pledges from 15 donors.

So, if I finish last, Make a Wish gets $150.

If I beat the last place competitor by 10 minutes, Make a Wish gets $450.

I'm going to make another push to friends and family who haven't donated to see if those number can go even higher but that already exceeds my expectations. Definitely a lot of motivation to continue improving my times.

Bike/run combo

Did a bike/run combo for the first time in that order. In the past, I've run and then hopped on the bike but thought I should get used to the transition between the two.

It definitely is interesting to do them in that order. Your first quarter to half mile, you feel like your legs are bouncing off the surface. My first thought was to slow things down a bit because you definitely feel like you are running fast. I didn't want to go too quickly and not have any energy at the end.

Next time, though, I'm going to let myself go as quick as possible. I feel like I'm leaving a litte bit of energy on the table at the end of my run and I want to see if I can use it to jumpstart the run.

My father-in-law and his wife join the donor list. Thanks Paul and Lee!

Delinquent but not delayed

I've been delinquent in my posts lately but not because of a lack of training.

I finally got my hands on a wetsuit (my brother-in-law Will lent one to me) and I have to say it's almost like cheating. It makes you so bouyant that you spend most of you time moving forward instead of worrying about staying afloat.

As a result, I've completed two open water 800 meter swims and felt great. I'm now starting to work on improving my times.

Still projecting a 1:25 finish.