Race Result

Racer:	Shawn Clark
Race:	Little Pepper
Date:	Sunday, June 17, 2007
Location:	Culpepper, VA
Race Type:	Triathlon - Sprint
Age Group:	Male 30 - 34
Time:	1:24:54
Overall Place:	41 / 300
Age Group Place:	1 / 16
Comment:	Up and down up and down up and down, etc.

Race Report:

Wow. I spent the night before at a friends house in Culpepper. We had planned on having a healthy meal and relaxing. We ended up having steak and drinking..suprise suprise....Nothing better than an icy Pabst Blue Ribbon on a warm summer evening. :-)

My alarm never had a chance to go off due to one of their cats needing to leave the room at four. Those damn things are loud. Anyway I got up and packed up my car and drove the 5 miles to the race. I stopped on the way at a Shell station where I ran into Scott Baldwin and his kids, the 12 year old one was in my wave..I couldn't let him beat me. He had a good race but thank god he didn't beat me, it won't be long though.

I ran into Fabrice early on and we chatted and got ready for the race while we waited for Kevin; he arrived slightly before the race started, really it was SLIGHTLY before the race. He blamed his wife and kids for the delay but we all know Kevin is time challenged. (good thing he's fast!!)

I had an average race that ended up well as I was able to take home my first Category award, a lovely chair.

The Swim: 14 something. Not the fastest swim but not horrible. I am still trying to get faster in the water. When I got out of the water I didn't see too many people ahead of my from my wave so I was relieved and told myself I just need o hammer ont he bike.

The Bike: 42 something.... I pushed and pushed but my legs didn't wanna move. I don't know where they were but they were definately not ready to HAMMER. I came into TA and none of the other clydesdales were in yet so I knew I was in good shape. All I had to do was hold them off. Somewhere in here I saw Debi's son, I didn't know who he was at the time, but he was encouraging me and continued to do so each time I saw him on the run in which the gap grew throughout. Thanks Max!

I was running up one of the seventeen hundred hills the run had when I saw a Team Z jersey fly by me on the bike, the rider turned almost all the way around, and I think it was Stacey, shouted out a Good Job Shawn.

Kevin eventually caught up to me (started way behind me) and he pushed me to finish as strongly as possible. Thank Kevin.

When I finished the race Debi came up and introduced herself to me and I Unfortunately didn't talk too much with her but it was nice to put a face with the name.

All in all I realized that I am lucky to have such a great group of people that I race and train with. I look forward to continuing to do so. Now if I could just get people as fired up about tequila I'd be set.

Until Next Time....

shawn