Triathleteguru: 2009, the Year in Review...

2009, The Year in Review...

Another year has come and gone. It's been an interesting year. Hard to decide athletically if it was a successful year or not! Overall, I had a great year, lots of great experiences, but many of the highlights from 2009 aren't from races...

The year began living in an unfinished house and ended the same. However, at this time last year I did not have a functional kitchen but rather was in the process of hanging the cabinets. While I failed to finish the interior of the house, I made great progress and for the most part have enjoyed the process. Well, enjoyed might be stretching the truth... It has been a rewarding experience and I have learned a lot in the process. I've documented the whole process through pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/triathleteguru/sets/72157604338199425/

Two months into the year, I was able to get my house re-appraised at $40,000 which was double the purchase price from 9 months earlier. This allowed me to get a fixed home equity loan and pay off the credit cards I had purchased the house with. This also freed me up financially to take a trip to Indonesia to visit my sister and her family where they were living as missionaries. The trip to Indonesia was definitely the highlight of the year and included two 100+ mile bike rides with my brother-in-law while there. Bike riding in a foreign country has to be one of the best ways to see the country!

Taking Shelter from the Rain in Indonesia

Despite the bike riding while in Indonesia, I returned in relative poor physical fitness and was sick for a week on top of that. So once the multisport season started up with Max Trax Duathlon, I wasn't nearly ready for it and decided all I could do was hope to race myself into shape. This included a spur of the moment decision to sign up for and race the Duathlon National Championships in Richmond VA. In late April I headed out there with my friend Delbert Marriott. It was a fun trip; however neither of us did well as we ended up racing in 100+ degree weather which was a heat wave, especially in April! Nevertheless, it helped jumpstart my fitness and I had some decent race performances in the following months.

What I would consider my highlight race of the year was the Republic Tiger Triathlon in mid August. I ended up placing 5th overall but what makes me consider it my best race was that I came within 32 seconds of beating Jay Orr, my Ultramax Series Championships rival! I started the swim directly behind Jay, caught him in the pool, and came out of T1 ahead of him. He caught and dropped me shortly into the bike, but I dug deep, caught back up, and ended up coming into T2 within seconds of him. I managed to beat him out of T2, but within less than half a mile he had caught me back and ended up pulling away from me a mile or so into the run. Jay would end up winning the Ultramax Series while I ended up second, for the third year in a row!

The lowlight race of the year would have to be Rockbridge Revenge. A nice little headfirst dive into a log resulting in a tooth through my lower lip and 10 stitches!