Couch2Boston

Who's the dude in flip flops behind me? Sorry it is going to take a while to get to the actual racing in this race report. You might want to skip ahead. I started this year with a new approach to Boston training and wound up with hip pain that sent me to the doc and left me with a needle full of cortisone getting guided into the joint by ultrasound 6 days before marathon Monday and talk of seeing a surgeon. That was a wakeup call. I stopped running, starting biking a lot and set a new goal for 2019 to finish every race I had already signed up for. I also announced I was done with racing. I meant it. Well, mostly I meant it. I'd still go to Boston every year that I was lucky enough to get in and Musselman because it’s awesome, but I was done turning myself inside out in training and on race do to beat the clock. The year has gone great. I've spent hundreds of hours swim/bike/running and I've gotten a lot of great long rides in. I thoroughly enjoyed many mile...

I just had a fantastic weekend that happened to include a race, so be forewarned the rest of this race report is going to have a pronounced lack of humility. You probably should stop reading now. I've got Barrelman 70.3 coming up in 2 weeks which has become an important goal race for me. When my friend Scott said he was going to race Finger Lakes Tri (9/8/19) with his son a few weeks ago, I signed up right away. I've never done FLT before. The timing was perfect as a tune up race for Barrelman. This is also the race where my mind was blown 10+ years ago when I showed up to cheer on my friend Chris. Watching Chris planted the seed about triathlon years before I ever developed an exercise habit and it was going to be pretty special for me to jump in the water and swim way out into the lake just like him. Sunday, which was race day, was also the last day of the biggest 4 week training block that I've ever done. I set a goal to do 20+ hours of training for 4 weeks in a row....