Not so Mock TRI.

Saturday was our Inaugural Phat B’s “Not so mock TRI” and I had a blast!
First, I have to say we had a great bunch of people come out to play, you guys were great.

An Athlete in Training... Chris (http://athleteintraining.blogspot.com/)
Kevin (http://triaflete.blogspot.com/)
Mary Ruth (http://snowgypsy.blogspot.com/)
Richard (http://beyond05.blogspot.com/)
Sam (http://slowsam.blogspot.com/)
Sarah (http://www.chasingiron.com/)
Wes and Dee Dee (http://www.codegeekstail.com/)

The Swim: We had 8 people doing the Inaugural event, which was really the perfect number because of the lanes in my neighborhood pool, any more I would have needed to set buoys and do laps. Anyway, we started the swim sometime around 10:00 and swam for 15 minutes; I think the swim went fine; the duration of the swim was perfect.
We all hopped out of the pool and walked back up to my house for a lazy T1. We decided that we should all stick together for the bike, at least the first loop. So we all got our bike stuff on, mounted up and headed out.

The bike: The route I mapped out is a relatively flat route with a few good hills mixed in, but nothing crazy. We had a couple of issues along the way, we had a chain bounce off and later we had a flat, and I actually did a small crash like thing. Ok, I admit it! I crashed, I jumped up and asked if any saw it and everyone said no (what pals), I was just about standing still and I was looking back to see where the group was and my wheel turned and I dumped. The bike didn’t get a scratch but I scuffed my arm and leg a little trying to catch the bike, I’d rather wreck myself then scratch the bike. A few times some of the faster riders would speed up and let it out a bit, but wait at the turns so everyone could regroup and keep together. For a group ride with riders of both sides of the spectrum I think everyone was having fun, after all this is a fun event and a fun sport.

We got back to the house for another lazy transition; I got a pitcher of Gatorade out and stated filling cups and bottles while everyone got their run stuff on. At this point a few peeps headed out for another loop.

The run: for me was a very flat 1 mile social event. My running has been miserable this season, I’ve been plagued with shin splits and I am just now starting to get over them. So I just wanted to run a short distance and take it easy. The short run also allowed me to be the first person back to the house so I could start playing host. We got back to the house got a drink and I stayed at the house while many of the others did more loops.

Post race: (my best discipline), we all got to sit back and have some snacks and drinks while we got to know each other better. We talked about which raced we had planned, which raced we had done. A bunch of us are going to race the Chattanooga Waterfront Tri next month so we talked about that a lot. I just had a great time, lots of laughter and smiles.

My next question is when can we do this again?

I think for the next event we might want to do an open water swim, so I was thinking maybe at one of the parks around Lake Lanier or Lake Altoona would make for a good starting point. I loved having it at my house, but I think we were at capacity on the pool swim, and OWS would be a better training session. I think we could have a post race BBQ and any non racing family member could spend some time at the lake.

Let’s pick a date and a place.

-Brian