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sandman 2004

This year's sandman race was much more satisfying for me than last year's, for a couple of reasons. First, preparation. I was playing water polo 3 days a week and running at least twice a week for two or three months before the race, which was a stark contrast to last year's where I spent a lot of time on the bike and almost no time on anything else, and didn't start running until the month before the race. My run was much stronger this year, and I dropped a couple of minutes off of last year's time even though this year's run course was about half a mile longer than last year's. I managed to stay on my bike the whole time this year, which was a new experience for me, but not especially remarkable except if you know that last year I fell off. I dropped about five minutes from last year's overall time, which was pretty surprising to me considering the extended run.

It was also surprising that I dropped time because it was so foggy on the swim leg that when we were supposed to turn back towards shore, you couldn't see the beach. It was very disorienting, water and grey haze as far as your eyes could see. My fellow swimmers and I actually poked our heads up and talked about the poor visibility during the race... a conversation along the lines of

me: "do you see the shore...?"
guy 1: "no..."
guy 2 [points left]: "I think it's this way...?"
guy 1 [points 120 degrees from guy 2]: "well, we came from over there, so..."
me [points in between guys 1 and 2]: "is that a shark?"

pretty comical all around. After the race, someone told me that the race organizers realized that swimmers couldn't see the shore about half way through my wave and parked a car on the beach with its lights on, pointed out towards the turn marker so that swimmers would know which way to go.

Peggy had a very satisfying race as well, and was able to stay on her bike, and held off a challenger at the very end of the run, which allowed her to claim the trophy for first place in her age group!

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