It's Becoming an Addiction

It felt better the second time. My hobby of triathlons is becoming an addiction I think and Saturday's race in downtown Orlando solidified it for me. The race itself was slightly longer than my first one back in June and my training for it was even longer.

The OUC Downtown Orlando Triathlon consisted of a .25-mile swim in Lake Underhill, then 11.5-mile bike ride and finished with a 3.7-mile run from the Lake Underhill to Wall Street plaza in the heart of downtown. I smashed my goal time by five minutes to 1:15:22.

The swim segment is still my strongest of the three disciplines (shocking I know) but this swim was much different than the first race. The main reason was that it was an open water start as opposed to a sprint from the beach. I kept getting kicked and hit for the first half of the swim but when I got away from the pack I really kicked it into high gear. I was the 8th person in my grouping to get out of the water which I thought was really good.

The best way to cut your time in a triathlon is to tighten up your transitions which I did very well. I cut my transition times by 2 1/2 minutes this time around. The biggest reason for my time improvement from the first race was knowing iPods are prohibited. I din't have to waste time putting it on and then taking it off.

The bike course was more tactical compared to Clermont's scenic ride around the lake. This was city biking with 90-degree turns along the way. I did have to yell at one participant as she didn't know the meaning of pass on the left. She just kept peddling her little beach comber while I screamed, "LEFT!!!!"

It was during the run that I started to feel the temperature. The wind that was in my face during the bike was absent as I turned on to Robinson Street for the long run to downtown.

Looking back, the only thing I would've changed would have been to increase the pace of my run earlier. During the home stretch I had way too much left in the tank. I had a kick that felt like I was at the NFL Combine timing my 40.

In the end I placed 11th out of 42 for my age division and 121 out of 505 overall. I felt great after the race and now want to find another to enter. I am making a goal to enter and finish a half Ironman next year. I already have done the swim and run distances of 1.25 & 13.1 miles respectively. All I need to do now is see how I would do with those and a 56-mile bike thrown in. Who's with me?

Putting the Wife to Work

After the Magic beat the Cavaliers and advanced to the NBA Finals, I got an email from my editor at EPA asking me if I could find someone to help run digital cards from the shooting positions back to the editing room during the games in Orlando. Wow talk about a tough find. It's not like I had everyone and their brother calling or emailing me after Game 6 asking if I needed an assistant.

I knew I better call and offer it first to Cathy before calling my buddies up. I told her that two of the three games in Orlando didn't start until 9pm and that we probably wouldn't be going to bed until 2 am. Didn't matter she was in.

We made some logistical arrangements for Benjamin as well as for us to stay with my mother during Games 3 and 4 so we could get as much sleep as possible following the game.

Cathy's responsibility was to retrieve the cards from our two photographers on the floor who were shooting while I had a separate runner for my position in the stands. She said following the game that she developed a series of signals with John and Larry to communicate if they needed a card picked up or not from her position just off the court. So she was able to watch most of Game 3 from an area that people were paying close to a $1000 to do the same thing.

It was funny listening to her after the game talk about the celebs that she saw and literally ran into during the game. (Apparently Charles Barkley collided with her coming out of the bathroom. Don't worry he survived.)

I have to say that it was nice that I was able to get Cathy into the Finals. I know that most of the games I cover she could care less about attending but this is special. I mean The Finals only comes around to Orlando every 14 years.

photo taken by Phelan Ebenhack