Pyramid Lake Triathlon 2009 race report

A warm day with a slight breeze made for good conditions for the race this morning. Megan's parents, my parents, Megan and Leila all came out to watch and cheer. I was little nervous about my ankle after spraining it a few weeks ago wakeboarding and having twisted it last year running into the water. I felt good on the swim and came in around 15th I think. I managed to cover myself in sand getting my wetsuit off but had a quick transition. Some day I'll actually ride my bike before the race. Luckily there were no mechanical issues like at Graeagle. But my powertap was only displaying speed. With no power info I just focused on a high cadence and trying to keep the guys in front of me in sight. I passed a few people right out of transition then stayed about 30 seconds behind Mike Scarborough for most of the ride. I think I had an aero advantage so I'd gain a little on the flats. Behind me, Brian Casey was gaining on me and came in just seconds behind me off the bike. He had a quick transition and beat me out to the run by a few seconds so I started in 9th about 15 seconds behind Mike and another guy. I've had dissapointing runs here the last 2 years and this ended up no different. I felt pretty good the first half mile and passed Brian with the next guy about 20 seconds ahead of me. But Brian passed me back before the turnaround and really made me fight to get back to 7th. I still had hopes of running down 6th place on the last 3/4 of a mile but he pretty much matched my pace the rest of the run. I ended up just being lucky enough to hold off Brian by 6 seconds, finishing in 1:11:25, almost the same time as last year. Besides the course, the thing that makes this race really cool is knowing so many people racing and cheering for you. Can't wait to do it again next year. It felt great to swim in the lake with Megan and Leila afterwards. It was cool to see Ryan Evans handing out copies of the new issue of Active Reno with my article about my Ironman race in it, too. I'm excited about the publication and how their website will hopefully help the active crowd in Reno grow. No race pics yet so a pic of the blisters on my foot is all you get