Whatever it was, it SUCKED!

I think these faces may help to explain it...

The face of Anaerobic...

Anyway...

On to the write up...

NB's Comments:

I arrived at the hotel in Huntsville later than usual because of my 10-hour drive from Florida earlier in the day. 

I was going to camp since brewer was originally going to crash on the floor of Eric and David's room ('cause I wasn't sure what time I would be back from Florida).  After looking at the weather forecast on Friday night, I'm glad brewer decided to split the cost of a room with me.

I unlocked the door to the room at the La Quinta and immediately climbed into the bed.  I was beat, but I needed to eat.  I waited for brewer (he carpooled in with Eric and David).  Upon his arrival, all four of us ate at a seafood restaurant--NOT our traditional Chinese!!!

I climbed into the bed at the hotel around 22:30, which is entirely too late for me... especially after my 10-hour drive on 5 hours of sleep from the previous night.

The first section of the race was the trail run.  Unfortunately, I forgot to turn on my GPS until we were 11:51 into the run, but doing a little extrapolation, I was able to come up with the following:

We ran 3.18 miles in 27 minutes and 11 seconds.  My average heart rate was 181 bpm--max was 191 bpm.

We always smile at the beginning...

We pushed it on the run this time.  I led a lot of the time.  Since brewer wasn't having any issues with the pace, I kept pushing a little more than usual since we could see the series leaders a couple hundred yards ahead of us.

brewer passing...

NB passing...

We grabbed our boat seats and were in and out of the TA in literally less than a minute!

We ran down to the boats and hauled one to the water's edge. 

Time to row row row...

We were a tad spent from the run, at least I was, so the paddling wasn't as good as it should have been.  My seat kept sliding back, and the stupid boat kept pulling to the right.  I HATE it when we get a boat that pulls in one direction or another.  Regardless, we made pretty good time.  We paddled about a mile and a half in 27 minutes.

ROW ROW ROWING!!!

After the paddle, we ran back to the TA and once again, we had a fast transition time--in and out with the bikes and related gear in about a minute.

Then off to the mountain biking...

As you can see from the heart rate and elevation graph below, at 1.5 miles in, my heart rate (red line) hit 191 bpm after the hill (green line):

It took me a while to recover from it (as you read in my email to my buddies above).  brewer on the other hand was smoking!!!  On fire!!!  He even had to wait for me once during the ride--which really, really pissed me off!!!  But at the end of it, no one passed us, and we even passed a couple of teams (once I got my heart and lungs working properly).  We mountain biked for about 55 minutes and peddled just over 9 miles. 

Go brewer!  Yeah, that's me draggin' up the rear...

GO Pokey GO!

We came smoking into the TA and dropped the bikes, helmets and Camelbaks and were out the other side in mere seconds to the mystery event.

The mystery event was to run from the TA, grab a life vest, run into the playground area of the park and slide down a slide (yes, silly... but fun!).  Then we had to jump into the lake into waist-deep water and walk out and back about 500 feet each way.  The entire section (including the run from the TA and back) was 0.45 miles and it took us 7 minutes.

Second place.  1 hour, 56 minutes and 58 seconds--a mere minute and 40-some seconds behind Keith and Bobby--I reckon you guys know we're coming after you in two weeks... :-)

You know, now that I think more about it, I wonder if I really sucked that bad or if brewer was just ON!  Either way, I reckon we may never eat Chinese food before a race again!  You kicked butt today brew-dogga! 

More details, the map and other yada yada are here.

Here's a picture of the outside temperate I mentioned in the email to my buddies (taken from my cell-phone camera):

110 degrees... that's a tad warm!

Nice, huh?

And that sums up the pictures for now.  Laura (Wes' wife) didn't make this race, so we didn't have our official photographer.  We'll have to wait for the race photos like the rest of the folks (I'll post them once they do).

Next race, 2 weeks... though, I have a duathlon next weekend.

Until then...