Arose at 2:00 AM Saturday morning to drive 139 miles to Starke, Florida, and do my 196th triathlon at Camp Blanding Florida National Guard Training Base. Several previous competitors were racing and I'd never been here before. This race is usually in downtown Jacksonville but road construction forced the move.
The wind rose with the sun and by my 8:07 AM start in Wave 3, had hit 15 mph. Had a good swim but the bike course's rolling hills were a surprise. Headwinds, tailwinds, up and down hills produced some amazingly fast and slow speeds. I was doing 26 mph one minute and 10 mph the next. The 12 mile course was entirely on the military base. At one point we passed a huge paratrooper training area filled with multiple obstacles. Transitioning to the run brought more surprises as this course also had hills. I felt strong though and ran the 5k in 29:12 for 9:42 mile splits. My overall time was 1:29:47 for a Third place out of seven in 70-74.
Nice BBQ Chicken sandwich at the feed table and two Pavehawk helicopters overflew the transition area at the end. I did get my revenge on Michael Chance's beating me at Crystal River by 8 seconds; I was over 24 minutes ahead of him today.
Visited the Post Museum and Military Vehicle Park afterwards and really enjoyed it. Great day!
 |
| Transition sunrise |
 |
| Moulton SST up front |
 |
| Heading to T1 |
 |
| 70-74 Podium |
 |
| C-47 Dakota (DC-3) |
 |
| M4 Sherman tank |
 |
| DUKW aka "Duck" |
 |
| Road to Germany marker |
 |
| M-1 Garand rifles |
 |
| Willy Jeep with .30 machine gun |
 |
| M-60 Patton tank |
 |
| CH-47 Chinook |
No comments:
Post a Comment