Mogman Cycling Blog: Ballwin Triathlon 2009

Well, Sarah and I did our first official individual Triathlon race on July 19th. The weather was perfect! We had a fun time and both of us placed 4th in our age groups (did I mention there were 3 entries in my age group...just kidding of course).

Sarah and Dan before the race..

Let the swim begin!

Outside of almost rear ending a car during the bike portion near the intersection of Kehrs Mill and Holloway, everything went well and my cycling event helped offset my swim time.

The swimming was a real challenge for me. I guess I really couldn't call it swimming though but technically, it was free style, I mean really free style swimming..or free style floating if you will. Take a look at the pictures below. Notice the guy in lane 1 (closest to the life guard chair) has his head facing up. What is up with that? Oh, wait a minute, that's me! Yikes, I must have gotten disoriented in the water. Also notice they put me in the lane closest to the lifeguard chair. Somebody must have warned them about my ability to sink faster than I swim.

Wait a minute, he is floating face up...that can't be good in a Tri swim race!

Now Sarah, on the other hand, had left the pool probably when I was about into my 4th or 5th length (12 lengths of the pool was the official distance). Given my lightning speed in the pool, and my precarious swim positions, I did have plenty of time and opportunity to wish her well as she exited the pool. Come to find out later, she thought it was sort of strange but hysterical that I had my goggles on my head (instead of over my eyes), and that my head was above water. I was cheering her on as she exited the pool. She was wandering how that could be if I was swimming to beat the clock. Reality was, I was just swimming to survive and keep from sinking to the bottom. I was less concerned about horizontal distance and speed and I was more concerned about maintaining a vertical distance above the bottom of the swimming pool! Add insult to injury, the lap counter volunteer made me swim another lap (2 lengths) and that sealed my envious position of being the last one out of the pool for the heat and the entire event (we were last heat of the day). I had witnesses that verified I did a bonus two lengths. Maybe they were just assessing me penalty lengths because I was going too slow.

Okay, now for a video of the swim...please keep in mind that this is NOT slow motion, sad to say. Guess I need to work on the swim form. Could be a new instructional video titled, "Instructions on how not to place in Triathlon competition as illustrated by Dan the Mogman."