Today I did the Pinehurst Triathlon for the first time.

Pinehurst is an Olympic distance race. It started out on the wrong foot for me. The first problem was that I had trouble finding the race site, and thus got there much later than I normally would. Then, once I got to the race site, I had trouble finding my spot in the transition area. When I finally did find it, it was at what quite possibly might have been the most remote, inacessible and disadvantageous spot within the transition area.

I didn't have time to do a warmup, except for a short swim warmup. The weather was quite beautiful, temps in the 50s at the start, sunny and low humidity. The water temp was 68 degrees, so wetsuits were legal. I was happy about that because I need all the help I can get in the swim!

When my wave started, I could not see the buoys because there was a thick shroud of mist rising from the surface of the water. I wasn't alone in this, though. When I got close to the first buoy, I could see a long line of guys in front me doing a 90 degree right turn so that they wouldn't break the rules and swim to the left of the buoy. So, I followed suit.

When I emerged from the water I glanced at my stopwatch and saw 33 minutes and change. This was a new swim PR for me in an Olympic distance tri. The wetsuit gained about 5 minutes for me. My official swim time was 33:21.

I made it through T1 without any great difficulties, in 3:31. This time, for the first time ever, I left my cycling shoes in the pedals and rubber banded them to the frame of my bike. That worked really well for the run to the mount line. But once I got on my bike, I had some trouble getting my feet into my shoes, and a few people passed me while I was struggling with that.

Nonetheless, I had a really good bike split, finishing in 01:06:52, good enough for ninth place on the bike in my age group.  In T2 I put on socks for the run, because the last time I did an Olympic distance race I did not wear socks and got a huge blister on the bottom of my right foot. My T2 split was 2:06.

I came out of the transition area about the same time as a teen age boy and a woman. I passed the woman almost right away but the teen sped away from me at a pace I couldn't match. I was also passed early in the run by a particular guy in my age group. Both of those guys apparently went too fast early, because I caught and passed both of them later and finished ahead of them both.

I had what I thought was a very good run, passing people more often than I got passed. However, there were several people who passed me that looked most impressive, some of whom were guys that are older than me, and I thought, "Damn. There are some really strong people in this race!"

I had a bit of a duel going on with one particular guy in my age group. We passed each other several times, but he powered away from me at the end and finished ahead of me. Afterwards I congratulated him on his run and thanked him for helping me keep my pace up. My run split was 49:29 .

All in all, it was a great race for me. My official finish time was 2:35:18. I did not place in my age group, but I am still very pleased with how I did in this race. It was a new PR for me in the Olympic distance by about 22 minutes (albeit on a course that's much less hilly than the other two Olympic races I've done.)

I finished #35 of 83 guys in my age group and #197 of 512 men overall. Going into this race I was #13 in my age group in the series standings. Pinehurst was the last race of the series, so I'm looking forward to seeing how I fare in the final series standings.

Next race for me? Ironman Florida on Nov. 1!