First real race in two years almost!   This was a little warm up sprint (or maybe super sprint) just to test out the gear and practice racing again.  The water temp was awfully warm (70ish) so I really didn’t need a wetsuit, but again it was a training race so what do you do.   Lastly, I thought we would be climbing 1000’ on the bike and then defending so I brought my road bike instead of tri bike, while instead it turned out to be a fast out and back on Donner pass road.

The race was still a blast.   After some carefully paced swimming to not repeat the mistake of June lake I carefully passed the rest of the field in the swim and came out strong.    Altitude swimming is a thing and taking it extra easy paid off!    The transitions were a little slow as it had been a while and I had trouble stripping the wetsuit off.   On the bike, the course was great.   I passed a few remaining swimmers except for one guy who passed me.

But redemption was mine when we got back to transition and I got back past him on the run.   At the turn around I was running third in the under 44 age group.   The air was thin, but the run was short so we just pedaled all the way to the end.   I did miss the last turn and the guy behind me almost caught up, but I still held on to go and be fourth overall.   Run splits were sub 7 which was awesome especially at altitude.   Next time I’ll check the bike course to bring the faster bike but otherwise I couldn’t have hoped for a better return to racing!