That’s how long it took Kevin to finish the Hawk Island Triathlon this weekend.
Before the race. Mom and Dad had to have quite a long discussion with Kevin over the last couple days about expectations; he finished first in his age group last year and was looking forward to doing that again. For someone who hasn’t run more than 2 miles in any day in months, and hasn’t swam at all since April, we found this stance very bizarre…..if you want to be first, put in the effort to be first, if you’re just doing it for fun, well, that’s different.
Last year Kevin went off with the wave of 29 and under men; learned our lesson and had him do an individual start this year, even though we thought his swimming had improved a lot. Definitely a better choice.
The weather was a lot nicer too; last year it was a balmy 42 degrees for a low the night before and the water was a nice 62 degrees….this year the air temperature was about 62 and the water was in the low 70’s…no complaints from the Kevster.
The water was warm enough that he could have gone without a wetsuit; he wanted one to help with the buoyancy and not being a member of the Nations-Tobin swim team, well, any help is welcome. Of course, since he’s grown like a thousand inches this year, we had to buy a new one…this one was fine for height but he didn’t really fill it out like he should/could have.
When we talked about signing up for the triathlon, I told Kevin it was under one condition; he had to fix his stroke so that he didn’t look like a complete goof during the swim part of the race. Of course, the start is all about running out as far as you can before you dive and get going; you can see the guy behind Kevin in the previous photo decided to dive sooner….Kevin was obviously going to wait as long as possible.
Kevin did get his swimming stroke in order; he finished almost four minutes ahead of his time last year. A sweet performance by the tall one!
some contestants completely get out of the wetsuit before biking/running. Kevin prefers to wear his all through the competition
The first of the professional photos that caught him during the race
Kevin after the first transition heading out onto the bike course; he had some speedy transitions (and of all of his split times he was the most interested and impressed in these…).
Out on the course. If there was one thing I wish I had mentioned to Kevin before the race that I didn’t it was this….last year starting with the pack had him on the bike course with the faster guys and probably helped him bike faster….this year he was going to be starting with the slower men and women and he should find someone faster than him and do his best to just stay with them, because I could have bet the temptation would be to just go along at the average speed around him.
And…it doesn’t help that he has a mountain bike not a racing bike. But, with the same bike as last year he was about 2 minutes slower on the bike course.
Leaving the transition area for the run.
Out on the run; he rocked it here too and finished again almost four minutes ahead of last year’s split time.
And Kevin at the finish. About 9 minutes overall faster than last year, but, only good for fifth in his age group. More competition this year…. Still, as we said to him repeatedly in the discussion of finishing first, we’re just extremely pleased and impressed that he’s even doing this!
