2011 Triathlon Fun - in brief

With the receipt of USA Triathlon's recognition as the Grand Master Triathlete of the Year I need to give a few folks an idea of what 2011 entailed. Below is most of a December letter I sent to a friend, slightly edited, which gave an "executive" summary of the year -- bullet points, therefore, being a must. :) I'm going to do a longer post within a day or two.

Dear _________,

2011 has been such a one-off year that I’ve wanted to get a note to you. The challenge in writing such a note has been keeping it from moving very quickly into the tome category – not a good thing to send a busy friend. So I’ve set an arbitrary writing limit which requires an abbreviated list without many of the details. I even employed incomplete sentences. :) Thus, here is a taste of what you were a significant part in helping me to enjoy during a season of 11 triathlon events.

• Enough pain in the runs of each event to feel like I was in my own PC category. (Of course, at this age we are all in a PC category of some sort it seems.) (Note to non-triathletes: PC is the term for the physically challenged categories of racing such as missing appendages, blindness, etc.)
• Struggling mightily in late January just to get myself to begin working out again after three months of no running or swimming. (I was still using crutches and a removable splint, companions throughout the season.)
• Being the only, I think – not verified, person to be both the USAT road and off-road national champion.
• Setting an age group course record in a 70.3 (half-ironman) race in Calgary, Canada on an old 1997 round tube aluminum bike I received free third-hand, while also hobbled by the foot injury during the run. This only one week after the Montana Xterra event done to earn enough points to qualify for nationals.
• Traveling by car, except for road nationals, to get around the country – sleeping in the car at campgrounds or staying with friends or family. The toughest series of trip-event challenges was a consecutive three weeks doing a sprint road tri in Northern Colorado, an Xterra tri in northwestern New Mexico and then driving cross country to the Xterra East Regional Championship in Richmond, VA.
• Crashing on a mountain bike pre-ride the day before the Xterra East Regional and then using the medical tent, set up for the trail runners, the day before the race. Humorous. And also made me a very cautious winner the next day.
• Borrowing road race wheels from a friend to maintain my status as the poor man’s triathlete representative.
• Having the third fastest bike split in a road tri at age 60 – the last time I entered a 2011 event with fresh legs. Sure it was a smaller sprint but the event was near enough to Denver to have some good riders.
• Being told after winning Xterra Nationals that I should get a decent bike so I could race well.
• Somehow coming back from a two minute swim deficit at road nationals to win my age group.

It’s difficult to stop sharing. You’ve been too kind to listen in the past though you hear better stories regularly at your various levels of involvement in our sport. The great interactions with family, friends and strangers as I traveled and camped were numerous and always a bit surprising. You should be glad we are not sitting, having some coffee or tea. You would have to just get up and walk out as I doubt I could stop once I started on the other stories of events and people.