Yesterday morning I competed in the Olympic Distance Triathlon in Oshkosh.  Although in all fairness, it wasn't in Oshkosh, it was in Winneconne.  And it wasn't technically Olympic distance... but it was close.  A true Olympic Triathlon is a .9 mi swim, a 25 mi bike, and a 6.2 mi run, where this race was 3/4 mi, 28 mi, 6.2 mi.  Either way, it is the longest race I've ever competed in, and as usual... the triathlon gods demanded a blood sacrifice from me.

Lately this sacrifice has come in the form of raw nipples... but this time I wore Under Armour under my wetsuit and kept it on all race, which worked great.  What I didn't anticipate were the zebra mussels that have apparently infiltrated Lake Winneconne.  As I was running through the shallow water at the start of the race, I felt something hit my foot, and I thought I stepped on a sharp rock.  I kept going, and it only stung for about a 1/4 of the swim, and then I mostly forgot about it.

I actually felt a lot more confident during the swim leg than I thought I would.  During most sprints I'm considered a slow swimmer... but in longer races I'm able to keep my exact same pace.  I may not have speed, but I have stamina.  So I actually ended up staying with the group for a decent amount of time and actually passed a few people.  I felt great during the first half of the bike leg, and spent a good amount of time down on my aero bars.  During the back half of the course though, the wind picked up and made it much harder going.

The run pretty much kicked my butt.  And it was then that I realized how badly my foot got cut.  It didn't feel sore amazingly enough, but I could feel the wetness in my sock.  My back wrenched a bit too, probably while on the aero bars, which started to really drag me during the run.  My overall time was just under 3 hours and 9 minutes, which is almost exactly what I was predicting ahead of time (3 hours, 10 minutes).  Of course, compared to the rest of my age group, that time sucked... but I'm never in it for the trophies anyway.  You can see everyone's results here.

After I finished, I headed over to the aid station where they cleaned up my foot, and I found out I had about 4 cuts on my right foot, and 5 on my left that I didn't even know about.  They said at least a dozen people had already been by to get patched up that day.  That's when I found out about the mussels.  I'll be walking pretty gingerly for the next few days I suspect.

As for Sarah Reinertsen... she was apparently there, but from what I can tell she didn't actually do the race.  Oh well.