Got Platelets?

ITPMan Triathlon
9.29.2007 – Darien, CT

After a quick swing to Interbike mid-week, I was back in action six days after my previous race with a chance to defend my overall win from ’06 at the ITPMan Triathlon. The ITPMan benefits the ITP Foundation, which is working to cure Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a blood disease that prevents sufferers from forming platelets. I’ll defer you to the ITP Foundation website before I start pretending to know more science than I do. Anyway, it’s a great cause, and the foundation puts on this wonderful race to help race money to support that cause. Through the support of some great sponsors, pretty close to 100% of each entry fee goes to the charity, which has allowed them to raise a lot of money. So you can feel good about doing this race from a moral, as well as physical, perspective.

After my first ever fastest swim split in a half-ironman, I was hoping for another good swim here. Last year I missed the fastest swim split by one second as someone who had sat on my feet the whole swim shot around me in the last 50m. This year, none of that nonsense! So, hard and fast out of the blocks (or the middle of Long Island Sound) was the name of the game. I kept the pace high for the whole swim and came out of the water first (with a lead this time) for the second race in a row. Thanks to Coach Joel and the rest of the gang for beating me down all year in the pool and the lake. It’s finally paying off.

Then it was off onto the bike course. Sprint bike courses are always hard since I never seem to be able to get up the same head of steam that you can for a half or even an Olympic. They always seem to have too many turns. I had a good ride, but it was tough to do the speed-up//slow-down//turn//speed-up//slow-down//turn. That’s just not my style, but it does keep things interesting. My escort did a great job of keeping me on the course, which was superbly marked and policed.

Back into T2, I had a pretty comfortable lead of about 4 minutes or so. But I wanted to get a fast run, since it’s important to not let your body get accustomed to coasting. Coasting is NOT a BAMF thing to do. Plus, I wanted to improve on my time from last year, which I did, though I missed cracking the 1:20 mark by 20 seconds. Next year…

All in all, it was a very good day, which was very nice after a bunch of disappointments this year. Thank you to Mike McGuire and the ITP Foundation for having me, and I’m looking forward to coming back next year!