Cohasset Sprint Tri

Today was the first race of the triathlon season, part of the Commonwealth Tri Series, down in Cohasset. We got up bright an early this morning at about 4am. Even the birds weren't singing yet! We hit the road at about 5 and were down at the race by 6:15, including pit stop. Not bad- it's always great to sleep in your own bed the night before a race, even if you have to get up really early! We rode our bikes down to the transition area and got things going. As last year, the weather did not cooperate with a lot of misty fog and really choppy seas. Because of the chop, the race was delayed a bit and everyone hung around shivering.

Nervous?

When the race finally went off, the elite men and women went off with the elite juniors, for whom this was some sort of qualifying race, hence the long swim. It was a running start into the water and some people took it out hard!

The line-up

The water

Janda's wave had to do three lengths of the course in the whitecaps and I was glad to see Janda come out in one piece. He was 12th out of the water, which is pretty good for him and only about 45 seconds behind his main competition.

Janda threatening his arch-rival before the race!

He came in off the bike in second, now about 1:15 behind and he was off running. He pulled into first around the mile marker and ran it in for the win!

Super fast T2

Celebrating the win

Then we cheered on his other athletes, talked to everyone- it seemed like nearly all of his local athletes were there (I'm counting at least 10!), so it was a reunion of sorts. After a lot of shivering and chattering, I mean chatting, it was time for the awards. It was nice to see Janda up there on top of the podium- maybe this will be a trend for 2009! Then Janda gave a speech- which included a nod to his Ironman training for IM Wisconsin and an announcement of our engagement, which meant that I got a lot of attention on the way out!

The podium shot

Janda making his speech

A little lunch on the road and it's back to the homestead for a little work around the house.