Prairie Man triathlon (Sept. 10, 2006)

I raced in the Prairie Man triathlon, a half-ironman held in Grand Prairie Texas, on Sunday Sept 10. It was a 1.2 mile swim, 55 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run.

I think this was my best triathlon so far, at least at the half-ironman distance. My time was 4 hours 38 minutes, and I placed 6th out of about 260 finishers. Excluding the relay teams, I had the 10th ranked swim, 10th ranked bike time, and the 8th ranked run. That's pretty good balance!

I'll make this shorter than my last few race reports. Not really much to say about it, other than it went according to plan, and was a steady effort the whole way, with no fading at the end. I was first in my age division (45-49), by a pretty wide margin. It was pretty tough around miles 8, 9 and 10 of the run, but I didn't slow down, and then I perked up at the end. The run was hot, sunny and humid. I think the "heat acclimation" training that I've been doing paid off on the run (I've been doing my running on the Clark field track at 5 pm, in over 100 degree temperatures).

Here is a link to the complete results.

This is the third triathlon in a row where I've been first in my age group, so I guess I have a streak going. Just one more triathlon for me this season - the Ironstar triathlon in Conroe, Texas, which is another half-ironman on October 29th.