The Finish Line - There’s my drinking bud, Duane Dunfield at the left. He finished just ahead of me. In the back is the Killarney Lake lodge. (Photo by Cassie)

Matt Savage from Savage’s Bikes talks bikes with a customer. Click here for an interview with Matt and a skill-testing quiz.

Yep, I finished the race and I’m living to tell about it. That’s me coming across the finish line after most of the other competitors finished. I should have entered the Sprint event, but I wanted the full impact of the Olympic level event to make the triathlon scenes in the sequel to The War Bug as real as possible.

Not only did I get lots of great ideas and notes, but the training generated characters and a whole new type of of triathlon that just might be run in the future. More on this later.

For more on the triathlon and why I did it

Read the Media Release

For a day-by-day account of the training and the race day

Read My Blog

Cassie is a night person who likes to chat with her friends till the wee hours of the morning, alternating between chat rooms, email and the phone. She wasn’t too happy about getting up early on a Sunday morning for the triathlon. And then, of course, I kept waking her up from what little sleep she could grab in the car before the race started. But that didn’t stop her from cheering me on and making the whole thing worth while in an unexpected way when I finished the race and she said, “Dad, I’m so proud of you.”

That’s me in the pink cap with no wet suit just about in the middle of the photo. Two minutes before the race started, my swim goggles broke. It was the first time they’d ever done this. I managed to get them fixed seconds before the start siren sounded. (Photo by Cassie)

Even after breaking my goggles, swimming into the shore, mixing up my gloves, not eating any of the gel packs taped to my bike, and finishing almost dead last, they still gave me a medal. Just for finishing. Cool.

In the transition area, right after the swim, I noticed that I suddenly had two left-handed biking gloves. I pondered this mystery for a few minutes before pulling it on anyway. During the bike leg, it finally occurred to me that I had both a right and left-haned glove, but one of them was inside out. (Photo by Cassie)

Killarney Lake is one of my favorite places on earth. The scenery is breathtaking and, after our unusually wet Spring, the trees and grass are a stunning green. The picture on the left shows me running on a stretch of trail right after the beach. The one of the right, shows the bridge between the lake and the frog pond. Click on the pics to get the full effect. BTW, nice pics, Cass!

Read about it at:

The Bike

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