Bracebridge Half Ironman-5:20:25

Welcome to Gravenhurst, the gateway to Bracebridge. As you can see,it was a beautiful day on Saturday as Mrs. Digger and I arrived at our hotel. It's about 20 minutes south of Bracebridge.

Bracebridge is where Santa spends his off season, and we got to run on Santa's Village Road!

It's also home to the world's largest Muskoka Chair.Note the podium shoes, which would sadly, once again, prove to be unnecessary.

Onto the action. This was the most organized we have ever been.Everything looked perfect until just before the start of the swim, when the rain started.

And they're off!
  Look at this last guy trying to figure out how to start his watch. He should do what I do, and just forget to start it until you check your time at the end of the swim and say "DOH".It's a very unusual swim course, it's in the Muskoka River. The turnarounds narrowed to about 10 feet, so it was quite the logjam, lots of contact and rough-housing. I couldn't help but think Sub would love it.
 You swim upstream for 250m,turn around and go downstream for 500m, then back upstream for 250m, and do 2 loops of that. You feel like you're going nowhere on the upstream, then feel like Mark Spitz on the downstream. Repeat. I figured out on the 2nd lap that the current was less near the shore, so I stayed close to the shore. Now that I think about it, I should have gone right down the middle on the downstream legs and close to the shore on the upstream.Stoopid Digger.

So, I had a just under 40 minute swim. A little disappointing, but with the river currents and the logjams, who knows. I was at the bottom of the top 1/2, or the top of the bottom 1/2 of the swim, 73rd/140, which I'm happy with.
 The bike leg was pretty hairy in the rain with all the hills and curves. I just about had my first crash, I locked up my rear wheel on a fast downhill curve and went into a death slide, but managed to keep vertical.2:52 on the bike,which I'm very pleased with due to the hills and the rain.A great training ride for Penticton. My Assos Chamois Cream proved worth it's weight in gold, which is approximately how much it costs.
  Terri got a good shot of me running, unfortunately,it was captured on the down-stroke and it makes it look like I need breast reduction surgery,so I cannot include it here. I wounder how much more weight I would lose?

Here's a shot Terri took of the race announcer, boy, these guys are dedicated. Once we started running, the rain felt great.I did a 1:44 for the half marathon, as usual. I realized there is no freakin' way I'm going to run that fast at Ironman Canada if I want it to finish happily, and I really want it to finish happily(not walking).

The "Lady Muskoka" barely fits in the recently vacated river.

Terri and I stopped at Weber's in Orillia on the way home, and they have recently set up a park on the west side of the highway. It would have been great to sit here and eat our burgers, but I was afraid someone might jack my Litespeed Tachyon. I just spent another $300 on a new chain, new cassette (with a Granny Gear for IMC's  Richter's Pass) new cables, a tuneup etc.
  As for the race itself,it was a tougher course than I thought it would be, full results are here. A guy in my age category came 3rd overall(4:30), only 3 minutes behind the winning Pro. What the heck is with that? Five guys in my age category were at 5:00 or under. The largest age category group? 50-54. Doh. Last year,my time would have got me 2nd place in the 50-54. Stoopid world championship spots!
 I was 73rd overall on the swim, 60th on the bike and 24th on the run. Clearly, I need about a year to get as good as I want to be on the bike. When I'm 54, I'm hiring a coach to get ready for the 55-60 category!I can use help on the swim technique as well. As a triathlete, I'm a good runner.

A T T R I T I O N , it's a beautiful thing.