Pictures from the 2003 Boilerman Triathlon

(click thumbnails to see full-size images)

Lara and I were off to West Lafayette early this morning for the Boilerman Olympic distance triathlon. While both of us have done longer races in the past, this would our first Olympic distance race. What made today special though was that Lara's mom had flown all the way from Connecticut, for the weekend, just to watch my little Pan race.

We left for Rainybrook Bay at 6am sharp. The weather forecast looked perfect ... low wind, highs of only 76, sunny. Even when we got there, the course was great ... roads were smooth, only mildly hilly, and not too many sharp corners for Lara (the run course on the other hand was not as nice ... a little long, half cross-country and a short insano dirt hill a mile from the finish).

Rainybrook bay, like many of the lakes in our area is not clean and therefore visibility is very poor. I actually dropped my goggles on the way down to the swim start and almost had to do the swim without them, which probably would have had no effect since the water was so dirty. After sprinting up the hill twice in 5mins to find another pair, I was ready to go. Lara also had Steve's wetsuit (thanks Steve) for her first wetsuit swim ever. At 9am sharp, my wave was off. I started at the back because of the whole goggle fiasco and had to patiently work my way through the crowd. In the end, I still had a good swim with an unofficial time of 21:00 for the 1500m. Lara's wave went off at 9:10am and she remained near the front almost the entire time. Her split was around 25mins.

From the water it was a couple minute run up a grassy hill to T1. After a quick transition, that was it for me ... the rest of the day would only be average to poor. That's alright though, whenever I have a bad day, I make a point to meet people out on the course ... have conversations on the bike, walk with others on the run, etc... Lara, on the other hand, had a good ride, about what she expected. Both of us averaged about 20mph and went about 1:14 or 1:15 for the 25miles. For those of you that know both of us, we all saw this coming, the day that Lara would start beating me. Well, as predicted, it's finally here. No excuses either ... she has been sick the past 3 days and I've been feeling sick for the past day and half, so we were both equally capable. At least I can take a little credit for her performance because I setup her training schedule ;)

Into T2, we had to run our bikes up a steep slope from the road. Both of our transitions went smoothly and we were off onto the run. The first and last 1.5miles of the 6.2mi run (ended up being about 6.5mi) were off-road. This suits me much better. We rounded the lake and then exited onto the roads. Within only a couple miles of running through a subdivision, it was back off-road and around the lake to the finish.

While on the run, at the 1.5mi mark, I got to see Lara coming in off the bike, and then again when I was returning to round the lake, she was just finishing her first lap. I love seeing her when we're racing ... Within a couple minutes of seeing her though, I had to stop and walk at the 4mi aid station. Right then, I almost collapsed. This had never happened to me. I just had nothing left, my legs buckled and I knew that it was going to be tough from there to the finish. After running about 7min miles for the first 4, I ran/walked 10min miles for the last 2.5mi ... which sadly put me at a final finish time of 2:35 ... well above my goal of sub-2:20. Lara managed to run the entire 6.5mi and probably split the same as I did on the run. She came in at 2:42 and placed in the top-10 women overall (unofficially). So the 7mins I put on her were all on the swim and transitions. Given the hilly run, she was psyched ... and best of all Mom Z got to see it all (and she got great pictures too).

The season is now over for the Zimmermann-Shanbhag household. My races have gone poorly since Ironhorse in june, while Lara finished strong after two disappointing performances in July and August. For her first season, Lara managed a win in Sullivan and a top-10 today ... not too shabby :)
You won't be seeing me at the pool or running until winter (still gotta ride :p ) but Pan will still be making appearances at IMPE and weekend rides.

Maneesh & Lara