I decided that it would be more fun to do a multisport relay with some friends to get in my 5k rather than just do a community road race, so I talked Dave, my buddy and Alounge bike mechanic into riding and my friend Ilana into being the second runner. Just like that, team "Negative Split" was born!
It turned out to be a really fun race, with a 5k road run to start, followed by the 30k bike, and finally a 5k cross country run. There were a lot of fun people at the event and it was a great, low-key, but still competitive environment. As with most triathlons, you can get whatever you want out of it, there's something for everyone, and I personally love the strong community feel of triathlon here in Oregon.The night before the race Dave and I loaded up his bike, my racing flats, and all of our extra gear so we'd be prepared for any weather condition that the Northwest could throw at us, and we headed down to Philomath, which is a few miles away from Corvallis. We checked into our $50 hotel room and got to sleep after talking some smack about all the people we were going to smash the next day :)
The sun was shining on race morning, and after a quick subway breakfast stop, we got to the venue and met up with Bryant, Illana, and Janet, Bryant's wife. My friend Tahir, who I haven't seen in months showed up to watch and warm up with me, which put the final punctuation on an already great morning!
RACE!... I got off to a good start in the road 5k, but fell off the leader's pace about halfway through (partially due to a poor-warmup, and partially just fitness) I came into T1 about 50 seconds down on the leader, at 17:01, which I'm OK with for a pre-season time, but I think a better warm-up would have gotten me sub-16:45. Dave headed off on his 30k ride and was back several minutes before either of us had suspected, putting down an awesome performance, putting team Negative Split into 3rd place. Illana had the best race I have ever seen her run, and held off the majority of the field, coming across the line in 4th place overall and first team!
I had to get a total of 90 minutes running for the day, so I jogged around the course with Tahir and cheered on the remaining participants, which is one of my favorite parts of community races. It was a great chance to look back on the weekend and appreciate all of my great friends and just enjoy our sport.
